- New's Special Dillon Wilke: Birdy Industries founder   It seemed like just another really great gift from his Grandma: a small, but powerful digital camera (Canon SD 110 Power Shot) to take on his yearly summer trip up to Orcas Island off the coast of Washington State. But when Dillon Wilke picked up that camera and started taking pictures of the very colorful and occasionally remarkable world around him that summer, he discovered he not only had an eye for capturing images, but a passion for the art of chronicling life through the lens of a camera. By that winter he'd compiled enough amazing pictures of his beloved island to create a calendar that became a family treasure; some of his included favorites: Back home in Manhattan Beach, the wild ocean with its beautiful coastline and breathtaking sunsets captured his interest, resulting in pictures that were requested for family greeting cards and framed as coveted gifts. He had, by age 13, graduated to a Canon Rebel XT (EOS 350 D) with accompanying lens and filters and consequently expanded his experimentation with light, backgrounds, and subjects, finding some of his favorites (besides his Golden Retriever, Charlie!) to be the playful and ever-present birds that populated the shorelines he traveled. Whether off the Central Coast of California, the rocky bluffs of the San Juan Islands, or the warm, sunlit beaches of Southern California, the birds he found, with their playful poses and beautiful, swooping flights, were a constant focus of his lens. And since he is, after all, a teenager, with the inventive spirit and whimsy of the age, he was struck by inspiration: why not take those images and have some fun with them? With a few artful tweaks and an idea, he began creating designs with his bird photographs, marketing those designs in a variety of clever and useful ways; hence, Birdy Industries was born. Inspired by the many photographers and filmmakers he knows and admires, Dillon, now 17, looks forward to growing and learning as a photographer and filmmaker himself. With his developing skills in web design and the graphic arts, he's also expanding his business into those arenas, currently assisting local store owners in the creation of their web sites, as well as providing photographs and promotional materials for a number of artists and musicians. With his camera ever at-hand, he continues to collect images and ideas for his designs, always looking to the birds, and the beautiful world around him, for inspiration.