Andrea Kappler Photography

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Andrea Kappler Photography

The official page of Indiana nature and wildlife photographer Andrea Kappler. I'm based in Southern Indiana.

I'm a nature and fine art photographer living and working in Evansville, Indiana. I do NOT do portraiture, weddings, or newborn photography. I travel the Southwestern Indiana region looking for parks, recreation areas, and natural formations of interest to me. I sell my images on two platforms: Fine Art America (https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/andrea-kappler.html) and Andrea Kappler Photograph

y (https://andreakappler.zenfolio.com). I also blog about my travel and photographic experiences here: https://indianaphotographer.wordpress.com/. I encourage you to take a look at my art galleries and follow my blog. I hope you enjoy what I see through my eyes!

27/02/2026

For those of you who think I've dropped off the planet because I'm not posting every day like I was last year, I can assure you I'm okay and doing well. 😁 I've been working very hard to learn how to use Photoshop to convey my artistic vision to you for the images I create. I'm not just learning new skills, but when to use them on my own images. As I'm progressing through the courses, I'm finding myself wanting to re-edit some of my favorite images, some of which I've shared here in the past.

This is one of those images I re-edited with my new knowledge, where I applied my new skills. I captured this image at Lake Monroe in Monroe County, IN, in January of 2018, when I went there for a weekend event with other photographers. I had a new telephoto lens and I was so excited to use it! From our hotel room balcony, I shot these swans taking off and flying across the lake on a foggy morning. It was such a beautiful scene!

I'm also revamping my websites where I sell my images. They were populated with lots of older images that don't represent my current skills in taking and editing photographs. And for the non-photographers (the civilians- haha!) who follow me and don't understand what I'm talking about when I talk about editing, here's a brief explanation.

When I take my pictures, I'm actually creating a digital negative that I can't immediately share with others. It's not in a standard format that can be shared on social media, plus the colors in it are flat and dull. It has to be developed, similar to how film had to be developed from negatives. Before I can share my photos, I go through them, pick one (or more) I like, then I correct their colors and tones, then I make other changes to them that improve them. When I'm finished, I save them into a format that can be shared here and other places, like for printing.

Sorry to get so technical, but there's a lot that goes into photography beyond just taking a picture and sharing it on social media. I'm growing as a photographer and an artist. I hope to share more impactful images with my followers; not just snapshots, but artful images my followers can connect with in some way. I hope you'll stay and support me in my journey!

P.S. If you want me to share my original edit of this image, let me know and I'll add it to the comments section later today.

15/02/2026

Remember how I said earlier this year I was going to be spending more time learning how to better edit my photos, which initially would slow down the number of photos I would be posting on a daily basis? I've been learning about color theory and how I can use it when editing my photos. I've been practicing with files supplied by the course instructor and also with my own files.

This is an old photo from my archives from January 6, 2014, when we had a very cold system (a "Polar Vortex") hit the Evansville area and give us a really harsh flash freeze with sub-zero temperatures that lasted several days.

I remember people saying the Ohio River had steam rising from it. I drove to Newburgh, IN, and from my warm vehicle, took some pictures of the steam rising from the river against the late winter afternoon sun. At the time, I knew little about how to operate my camera and possibly even less on how to edit the pictures I took with it. All I knew was I wanted to capture that steam/mist rising off the river and the ethereal feeling I felt as I viewed the scene.

The top photo is the result of applying what I've learned about separating and working with color in my images. The bottom photo is the original edit I made to the file, probably in 2014 when I took the picture. I was super surprised to find there was a lot of color in what I originally thought was a mostly colorless image with a blown-out sun!

What do you think of the two images? Does one of them evoke more emotions in you than the other one? Do you have any disconnects with either of them? Let me know what you think of the two images in the comments section.

14/02/2026

Happy Valentine's Day to all of my followers! I hope you have a wonderful day and weekend filled with love and spending time with those who love you! ❤️💘

13/02/2026

Warm, early morning sunlight shines on these Greater White-fronted geese (Anser albifrons) taking to the air on a crisp winter morning near the Duke Energy power plant in Gibson, IN. As much as I truly hate setting an alarm and getting up before sunrise, shots like these simply aren't possible when I'm sleeping until 10 am. Hahaha!

09/02/2026

A small flock of Hooded mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus) swimming on a lake near the Duke Energy power plant in Gibson, IN, on January 4, 2026. The sun turned the water a golden hue that morning.

These are fish-eating ducks that have very distinct looks for the different sexes. Although both sexes have crests they can raise and lower, the males during breeding season are mainly black with white markings. The males also have bright yellow eyes, which distinguishes them from females when the males are not wearing breeding plumage.

Hooded mergansers are short-distance migrants who winter in areas where winters provide ice-free open water on ponds, rivers, and lakes. In Southern Indiana, we have them year-round. I enjoy finding and photographing them, especially since their crests and the breeding plumage on the males are so cool!

05/02/2026

How did we get to February so fast?! This is administration building on the University of Evansville campus on January 26, 2026, the day after the big snowstorm hit Evansville.

I didn't get out as much as I wanted to after the snowstorm. Side roads were a mess and even with 4WD, I didn't want to do anything stupid (haha). Since this snow fell over the course of two very windy days, there wasn't much snow on tree branches, like we usually have, making it less attractive to photograph.

I also couldn't visit my normal 'wild places' to explore them in the snow, since they were either closed or inaccessible due to the heavy snowfall on unplowed county back roads. Although we got only 7.5" at our house, areas to our west and north got over a foot of snow, making this the second biggest snowfall event for Evansville (December 22-23, 2004, holds the two-day record snowfall of 22.3").

31/01/2026

Happy last day of January! Have you noticed we've gained about 40 minutes of daylight since the start of the year? I have!

A couple of hungry male Eastern Bluebirds in Wesselman Woods park on January 26, 2026, after a big two-day snowstorm in Evansville. The birds were frantically looking for food and there were about 4-5 birds, a mix of males and females, eating these berries. Bluebirds prefer eating insects and mealworms and when those aren't available, they eat berries, especially in the winter.

The berries were from an introduced plant called Fortune's Spindle (Euonymus fortunei) that was growing on the trunk of a tree near a parking lot. These plants are native to east Asia, including China, Korea, the Philippines and Japan. It's named after the plant explorer Robert Fortune.

I don't know how much nutrition these berries provide the birds, since they're not native. I do know that wherever these birds p**p and drop the hearts of these berries, there will be more of this introduced plant. That's how non-native plants become invasive-- animals and birds carry their seeds to new locations and the plants grow elsewhere, far away from their parent plant.

29/01/2026

I believe this is a Red-shouldered hawk, possibly a juvenile/immature bird, based on the coloring. It was hunting alongside a county road in Gibson County, IN, near the town of Somerville. It dove down to the ground several times to capture and eat voles in the tall grasses. After eating a vole, it flew back up to this wire and I finally got a decent shot of it there.

These medium-sized hawks are very common where I live, although habitat loss of mature trees, where they nest, has decreased their numbers over the years.

I was in the area that afternoon looking for Short-eared owls, but they didn't appear until almost dark, which was way too late to photograph them. Short-eared owls have been hard to find this winter.

27/01/2026

A flock of Snow geese (Anser caerulescens) and Greater White-fronted geese (Anser albifrons) flying overhead just after sunrise on January 4, 2026 in Gibson County, IN, near the Duke Energy power plant. I like how the geese intersect a contrail as they leave their overnight location and begin their flight to a place to feed and hang out for the day. They feed on leftover grain in fields, where they can amass in flocks numbering in the thousands.

For Christmas I bought myself a BirdWeather PUC, which sits on my patio and records bird sounds around my yard. It's also a portable device that I can take with me into the field, but I've not yet done that. In the app that accompanies the device, I told it to alert me when it hears either of these species you see in this photo.

Surprisingly, it gives me a lot of alerts about them, mostly in the evening and at night. While they're not hanging out in my backyard (darn it!), they are flying high overhead, just like you see here. They're likely on their way back to whatever spot they're staying at for the night. Thanks to that device, I learned that two species of birds I thought never flew over my house, actually do do that!

25/01/2026

An adult male American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis), who has some of his bright yellow breeding feathers, probably leftover from molting last fall. He was eating seeds from a native plant in my yard called Common Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis), which I planted last summer. I forgot to harvest some of the seeds from it to plant this winter, which means the birds get more seeds- and they can plant them wherever they p**p! Haha

When you plant native plants in your yard, they'll feed the birds for you, and save you a lot of money in bird seed. I still buy bird seed, but not as much as I used to, and mostly to lure birds to my yard so I can photograph them. However, I will say it is much cooler to photograph them eating seeds off a native plant than it is to photograph them eating at a feeder.

And yes, those are real snowflakes! I love it when it's snowing and I can capture snow falling in my pictures.

21/01/2026

Another juvenile Bald Eagle spotted at Cane Ridge WMA on January 4, 2026. This one flew over us as we were standing on the observation deck there. It was an older juvenile eagle, based on the beak color, which wasn't as dark as the eagle in the previous picture I posted.

I just love the fierce look on these raptors, whether they're adults or they're juveniles in one of their stages of development into full adults.

19/01/2026

A juvenile Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) flying through the morning skies in Gibson County, IN, on January 4, 2026. An otherwise drab-looking bird looked much better in the warm tones of the morning sun.

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