Roy swoboda shivered beneath a sleeping bag in his blind on a 10-degree day. Although the photographer was only steps from the door to his acreage home, the woods surrounding him suggested he’d entered a wild, sylvan world. It was the result of years of effort. Swoboda forested his 35 acres close to the Elkhorn River in Madison County’s Meadow Grove by planting upwards of 8,000 trees and shrubs – caragana and white honeysuckle and linden and cedar and pine. Apple trees and hawthorn.

Swoboda has spent years capturing outdoors images for Nebraska Life readers. His pictures illustrate the beautiful abundance discoverable in every part of the state. He’s especially touched when people who can’t travel Nebraska thank him for bringing Nebraska’s wild beauty to them. Swoboda has given back to the land he calls his own and mentored young people to embrace the outdoors.

At one point during the early days of Swoboda’s tree planting, a farmer neighbor came by. He squinted at Swoboda sweating as he hauled water and shoveled mulch.

“You must really like trees,” the farmer said.

“You must really like corn,” Swoboda laughed.

Through the years, the deer ate a lot of Swoboda’s plantings, but many resprouted. Much of the new growth didn’t have a central leader and grew up to resemble bushes more than trees.  He didn’t mind.

“I wasn’t trying to make a city park. I was trying to build habitat,” Swoboda said.

That winter day in the blind with Swoboda, his 6-year-old grandson Caleb cuddled with him under the sleeping bag. In a lot of ways, Caleb was a typical 6-year-old – silly and squirmy. But, like his grandfather, as he sat in the blind and watched wildlife, he transformed into a stiller, more focused version of himself. Swoboda had given the boy a bird book, and Caleb memorized it. Even the little brown birds, so easily lumped together, had names and characteristics singular to their species.

At one point, Caleb told his grandpa he needed to go to the bathroom. Well, let’s just go in, Swoboda returned. It was pretty dang cold anyway. No, the young boy replied. Never mind. I can hold it. They sat there for another hour, watching the birds. Swoboda took photos.

Swoboda started taking wildlife pictures at a young age. When he was 11 years old, his father had an attorney friend who was an avid photographer. The attorney’s work had even been featured in National Geographic. Swoboda’s  dad and the attorney arranged for young Swoboda to accompany the attorney on a wildlife shoot. It was a special opportunity for Swoboda. 

He was one of 13 children – the second youngest – in a family that lived frugally  first in Verdigre in Knox County and later in Battle Creek in Madison County. Swoboda’s dad had also insisted on planting trees and made his kids lug the buckets to water them. The family grew vegetables, canned and preserved food and raised hogs. There wasn’t a lot of money for luxuries like a camera – in the late 1970s a good film camera was still quite expensive – but a chance opportunity arose after a police cruiser flooded in Lincoln.

Swoboda’s big brother was a mechanic for the police department. After a storm soaked the backseat of a cruiser and a Nikon Nikkormat EL camera left there, the police chief instructed Swoboda’s big brother to throw it out. Instead, his brother got permission to keep it and passed it on to his dad, who sent it to Nikon for repairs. Fixed, it was given to Roy. That began Swoboda’s entry into photography.

Whenever he wasn’t in school or
helping with chores, Swoboda was shooting
pictures. To make the money to buy or develop film, he did whatever extra farm work someone would pay him to do. He found himself especially drawn to shooting pictures of wildlife. He switched to digital soon after it was available.

Swoboda hadn’t known his grandma before she passed, but he’d heard the tales of how she could mimic the call of any songbird. As a kid, learning about Nebraska birds brought him closer to her in a way. Growing up, his family would put a box on their window air conditioner in the winter months and spread birdseed across it. Swoboda stood on tiptoes to watch through the windows. Later he shot pictures. Today, at his place in
Meadow Grove, he refills the feeders with three gallons of seed a day. For him, the beauty of photography is that it can
capture a moment in time that will never happen the same way again.

There was the morning a bobcat
padded across the field. Roy barely got a shot off before it disappeared. On another morning, lightning and thunder woke him. The light outside the window called to him. His thoughts flashed to a nearby field of yucca in full bloom. He grabbed his lab mix Sophie – who, until she died last summer, was his loyal photography assistant – and flew down the road in his truck.

“Just as I crested the hill, the sun came fully exposed. There were all these dark clouds overhead, and I composed several shots, and the clouds went over, and it was all gone,” Swoboda said. “I thought, no one is going to believe this. It was a magical time and magical light like I’d never seen before in my life.”

He feels lucky to share some of these incredible moments with Caleb, who is now 8. Last spring, they visited the Crane Trust in Hall County and went out into a blind. Caleb, Swoboda and Swoboda’s wife, Sherri, witnessed otters playing, geese soaring by and cranes dancing. They hope to return this year.

After all, Caleb has a point-and-shoot camera that grandpa gave him. And there’s so much Nebraska to see.