Reconnecting with nature through hiking, camping, and paddling
Walking in a park near the James River on spring afternoon, I stopped to see if there might be anything interesting in a large puddle adjacent to a small pond. Sitting, quietly a few feet from the trail was this red toad. It remained so motionless as I photographed it, I began to think it might be a toy frog somebody put there as a joke.
This photograph was taken on Hog Island Wildlife Management Area, along the James River, near Surry, VA. It was a cold February morning, just after dawn. While the entire scene looks wet, it was actually frozen. The sand along the shore was a hard as cement and the foam around the river stones had been turned to ice.
This fallen log, in Pocahontas State Park, near Richmond, Virginia, forms the basis for quite an ecosystem of colorful fungus and lichen.
I caught this image at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, quite unexpectedly. I was photographing the Blue Ridge Chandelier, on the right side of the image, when the girl moved to look out an enormous window off the left side of the photograph. I was immediately drawn to the spaciousness of this image.
The bright morning light streams in through the windows to illuminates this bedroom on a lazy Sunday morning.
During a hike I noticed this piece of bark resting on stones by the side of the trail. I was initially intrigued by the texture and patterns in the bark itself. My first thought was to get a close up of the texture but when I noticed the bark was sitting between two shadows I thought it made for an interesting forest still life.
Morning sunlight begins to fill the garden at the start of a beautiful day.
A friend and I hiked a 6.6 mile loop in Shenandoah National Park, specifically to get photos of waterfalls. Our hike passed three significant falls but this little cascade at the top of one of them yielded my favorite photo of the day. It isn’t very dramatic and I think that’s what I like about it. The image makes me think of a quiet, little, almost secret spot, you could visit to get away from the world for a little while.
The slow moving, low, autumn waters of the James River provided a wonderful reflection of a Canada Goose and the nearby river rocks.