Greenville resident Michael A. Kelly has spent a good part of the last 40 years taking pictures of Delta wildlife. Kelly floats down the Mississippi River and other local tributaries in his small paddle boat for many of his pictures. His Nikon D5 camera is mounted right in front of him as he silently and patiently waits for the moment it clicks.
Since 1981, Kelly has freelanced for a number of national and regional outdoors magazine and has grown a reputation as one of the best wildlife photographers in the business. Kelly has won numerous awards for his work.
For him, the long hours are worth it, he said, not for the awards. When he captures the beauty and majesty of such creatures as the American alligator, the eastern wild turkey or the red fox kit, it allows him to share it with the world.
And, Kelly has recently shared another moment with his fellow Mississippians. The Mississippi Wildlife, Fisheries & Parks Deparment honored him this year by placing a whitetail deer photograph he had taken on their Mississippi Sportsman’s License. “I am thrilled that they selected my photograph,” Kelly said. “It definitely means a lot to me.”
Kelly is a self-taught photographer. He became interested in shooting wildlife as a child while duck hunting with his father. One day he was so enthralled by the beauty of the birds gliding through the air that he just could not find it in his heart to shoot one.
The next weekend when he and his older brothers went duck hunting, he took his camera.
“I decided to take a different path in my wildlife adventure,” he said.
In recent years, Kelly, 62, has slowed down the amount of wildlife photography he has done. Most of his hours are spent photographing sports, fine art and portraits for his Wild Exposures studio at his Greenville resident.
However, the outdoors still calls him at times. He knows there are many more wonderful forms of nature to be taken.
“Yep. There are still more animals I need to try and get,” Kelly said. “The river otter, of all things, has been real elusive for me. I would like to get a good picture of one.”
