Watching The Big Kids

Photography by Doug Couvillion: Landscape of a small volcanic rock in the foreground and larger volcanic rocks, offshore, in the background

The view of this lava rock at the mouth of a stream and the two large outcroppings in the distance reminds me of a young child playing near the shore watching their older siblings swim out beyond their reach.

Mountain Pool, Dark Hollow Falls

Photograph of a pool in a stream in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, USA

I love these mountain pools in Shenandoah National Park.  This one is downstream from Dark Hollow Falls but you can find scenes like this throughout the park.

Click on the image to see a larger version of the photograph.

Dark Hollow Falls, 50mm Challenge

photograph of the base of a waterfall, Dark Hollow Falls, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, USA

When my friend and I reached the bottom of Dark Hollow Falls I decide to challenge myself a little.  I switched to a 50mm prime lense, rather than the two zoom lenses I had been using all morning.  My challenge was to only shoot with the prime lense for the rest of our hike.

When we arrived at this spot I immediately found myself frustrated because I couldn’t frame the entire waterfall with a 50mm lense.  It was simply too big and we couldn’t get very far away from it.  Knowing my wide angle zoom would easily frame the scene only made the whole situation more annoying.  Sticking to my self imposed challenge I started looking for different perspectives and ended up with this.  I am absolutely certain I would not have taken this photo if I was using the lense I normally shoot with.

Sometimes forcing yourself to do things differently can lead to different ways of seeing things.