Patrick Matthews

My dad is a fellow bird enthusiast with abandoned dreams of being a forest ranger. He's always game to visit a new park or refuge. We're local to the DC area but have visited a few other great places within a 5 hour drive of the Nation's capitol.

I won my first photography contest at the age of 16. It's a picture of a great horned owl taken in Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Cambridge, Maryland.  Printed on metal, it will hang in the visitor center for one year.

A few months into the pandemic, when there was literally nowhere else to go, my family began visiting local parks. I used social media to learn more about the animals at each location and I became hooked on wildlife photography.