Chris Michael: Wildlife Photographer of the Chesapeake
A Sportsman First
Chris Michael — wildlife photographer of the Chesapeake, based in Southern Maryland.
Chris’s first connection to the Chesapeake Bay came from the water. In his teenage years he loved to bass fish, which took him to many of the parks along the region’s rivers and creeks. Later, after he met his wife, her family taught him saltwater fishing and crabbing. The bay he photographs today is the one he says he did not recognize or appreciate back then as a sportsman.
He has always made art in some form. In his school years that meant drawing and music, an artistic release he was always looking for. After graduation he went without much of an outlet, until a boss at his first warehouse job sold him a camera he had just upgraded from, at a good price, and offered guidance every so often. That let Chris discover photography on his own timeline. It took several years before he seriously understood the camera, but it was what started everything.
He began with portrait photography. When COVID arrived he started shooting small backyard weddings, and he still takes on some weddings and portraits today. That background, he believes, is what gives him a different perspective when he turns the camera on Mother Nature.
In the Field
Waiting out the fog, camera on a distant deer.
Chris works in photography, with his main focus on wildlife. Curiosity and art drew him in first. He grew up with both print magazines and digital media, and he always gravitated toward wildlife images. Once he learned the camera and began carrying it everywhere, a wildlife setup was where he knew he would land. What keeps him going is a fifty-fifty split: the time spent out in nature when many people are driving past or moving through their day, and the chase for the next great moment he can capture and share.
That pull toward connection is the theme he returns to. He gravitates toward images where a person can meet the individual species, often through eye contact from the subject — an osprey observing from above, a duck trying to figure out why that “bush” looks so strange, a river otter unsure of what is sitting on the river bank.
The Chesapeake and its estuaries move through all four seasons, so the waterways and the land around them are always changing. That gives Chris different subjects from one month to the next: ducks in the snow, kingfishers in blooming trees, river otters eating blue crabs, and the pinks, purples, and oranges of a sun setting over a quiet marsh. It is a diverse ecosystem, and his work aims to show it.
In 2025 one of those winter mornings was recognized beyond the Bay. Christopher Michael won the grand prize of the 2025 Maryland Natural Resource Photo Contest, run by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, with his river-otter photograph Waterways Wanderer. The image also took first place in the Winter category, and it appears on the cover of the 2026 DNR calendar.
Living With the Work
The photograph Chris says represents him most is a river otter laid out in the snow on a kayak launch. Whether he is covering a wedding or a wildlife encounter, he takes a documentary approach and looks for the candid moments that commonly go unnoticed. In this one he likes to think the otter was simply enjoying the winter weather and living in the moment. As a photographer, he says, he loves to live in the moment as it happens just as much as he loves capturing it.
When someone lives with one of his prints, Chris wants them to feel like they know that individual animal. He wants each piece to start a conversation, not only about wildlife but about the local ecosystem we are surrounded by. Each piece has its own story, the way each species has its own story within the Chesapeake estuary.
Featured Works by Chris Michael
Every print from Chris’s Chesapeake portfolio — Limited and Open Editions.
All photographs © Christopher Michael. All rights reserved.