Sunrise on the river is one of my favorite ways to start the day. When the water is calm it’s hard to image a more peaceful place. Approaching the river fills me with a sense of wonder and a profound appreciation of what lies ahead. Soon I’ll be out there among the herons and geese.
Kona Coast, Sunset, II
Another image of waves breaking against the Kona shore just before sunset. This one feels more serene than Kona Coast, Sunset, I but the two photos were taken within minutes of each other along the same stretch of the coast. The key difference being the length of the exposure. For this photo I used a 2.5 second exposure while the other was only 0.3 seconds.
Ferns, I
This post was inspired by Brenda of A Meditative Journey with Saldage. When I saw these ferns they reminded me of the type of image she frequently posts. That being said, I’m sure she would have done a far better job with them than I did.
James River Beach Still Life
Natural objects on the shore the James River, near Richmond, VA.
Eastern Carpenter Bee Landing On Thin-Leaved Sunflower
During a photo outing to shoot wildflowers I decided to take a few backlit shots. In the process I began tracking a few Eastern Carpenter Bees as they passed by. I was lucky enough to capture this one as it prepared to land on a thin-leaved sunflower.
I like the way backlit flowers almost glow but that’s pretty easy to predict, setup and shoot. After all, except for the wind, the flowers aren’t really moving. I was really pleased with the lighting of the bee in this photo.
Like most of the photos on my blog, you can click the image to open a larger version of the photo. Check out all the pollen covering this bee. This clearly wasn’t its first flower of the day.
Statue in Piazza del Campidoglio
My friends and I were pass through Piazza del Campidoglio in the late evening when I captured this image of one of the statues in the piazza. We walked by it earlier that day but the statue was in the shade so the lighting was very cool and flat. The evening sun cast its warm, hard light on the statue in a way that made for a much better photo. I considered converting this image to black and white or even just desaturating the colors. Eventually I decided I liked the warmth and intensity of the colors just the way they were recorded by my camera.
Corolla Sunrise
Sometimes being a morning person pays off. I took this photo during a trip to the beach last August. I noticed the cloud bank that night and thought it was a shame the clouds probably wouldn’t be there at sunrise. To my great surprise, the clouds barely moved overnight! I awoke before dawn and watched this amazing sunrise slowly transform into morning.
Weekly Photo Challenge: The Golden Hour
It’s Lonely At The Top
This lonely tree grows on a rock outcropping in the Grand Canyon of The Yellowstone. I photographed it one cloudy morning but the result was even, flat lighting, leaving the photo without much of a sense of perspective. The next day I was lucky enough to return at just the right time. The cliff face and tree were bathed in the warm, direct morning sunlight but the opposing canyon wall and the foreground elements were still in shadow. As a result, the subject is literally highlighted.
Cluster of Roses
This group of roses was one of those small scenes I just couldn’t resist photographing. The composition probably breaks all the rules but I like it just the way it is. To me the three roses in the background on the left seem balanced by the larger, fully blooming rose in the foreground and the opening bud in the upper right.
The dark green leaves of the rose bush are riddled with insect damage. Some photographers might be temped to “repair” them during processing but I like the imperfection of the scene. It reminds me that, upon close inspection, even the beautiful things in life are not perfect.
Wild Daisies
Wild Daisies grow along an open trail on a late spring morning in Central Virginia.