Yates Mill Pond Autumn

At the start of a late Saturday afternoon outing to Yates Mill with a few members of the Carolinas Nature Photography Association, I was a little disappointed to find the type of clear blue sky that millions of people like, a sign of "perfect weather".  From a photographic standpoint (and also just personal preference), I've always enjoyed cloudy weather.  It can provide flattering light for portrait subjects, intriguing light on landscapes and cityscapes, and interesting shapes if sky occupies a significant portion of an image.

Blue sky it was, so, what would I see...
Doing an establishing shot of the focal point of the area, the old Yates Mill, I chose an angle that emphasized the reflected blue in the windows.  I did not want to tilt the camera up to cover the height of the building (my vantage was low on the rocks), so I used a tilt/shift lens, shifting the lens upward. I leveled the camera, but unintentionally pointed it very slightly downward!  I liked the very slight divergence of the vertical lines - it seemed to add to the imposing bulk of the old wooden structure, so I left it that way rather than refining the leveling nearer to exactly accurate.  It's a pretty subtle difference, but if you're tuned into "architectural" verticals you'll see it, and if not, you might feel it.

Moving further away and to a higher vantage point, I used a longer lens to isolate an interesting part of the structure and contrast it with the trees.

For this image, the extreme contrast of sunlight and shade was tricky to tame, but the shadows added to the composition.

As the sun got lower, there was a bit of gold in the light, enhanced by reflection off the wood.  I chose to exaggerate this to contrast it with the blue tones.

There wasn't a lot of fall color in the leaves, but across the pond there was a patch of red standing out from its surroundings.  The shape of a dark branch balanced things, and a long telephoto included just the area I wanted in my composition.

The view across the pond was serene.  Here the angle is such that the sun was blocked by a tree limb in direct view, but shows in the reflection.

I suspect that some gorgeous sunset colors may have been on the way, but I needed to leave to attend a pre-concert reception for a group of patrons, after which I had a difficult concert to perform.

In my last few moments I tried an abstract reflection shot.

And a parting shot across the water when a pedestrian in bright clothing caught my eye.

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/10/yates-mill-pond-autumn.html

www.jilcp.com

Parade of water lilies and dragonflies

At the Frank Schwartz gardens Saturday, on an outing with the CNPA, I found a good variety of plants and insects to photograph. I'll start this installment with an ultra-wide angle view from just a few inches above a pond.

I was hoping to get some good photo ops with dragonflies, but they didn't become active until later in the morning, so I began by shooting various flowers.

Pac-Man has a lot of freckles.

I did not use a polarizer for this next shot. Rather, at a particular angle the blue sky reflected intensely and other areas of water were clear enough to show the bottom.

Note the effect of the slightly different perspective between the next two images.

Then some bees began to appear. This little one entered a composition I had set up showing two entire flowers, and this is cropped from that shot, so it's not as crisp as I might have liked. I like the colors and the composition though (even if I do say so myself).

At last, a dragonfly actually lit on a colorful flower!

Sometimes two is a crowd. These bees were feeding off the same two flowers, when one bee came in for a landing almost on top of the other.

Coming up are the kinds of twigs and high perches that the dragons seem to favor.

The following image of two flowers in a dark pool of water is my personal favorite of the outing.

Here's another lily in a nice setting.

There was a mass of (frog's?) eggs covering a lily pad and extending into the water. They are held together by a gelatinous matrix that proved to be a dangerous trap for a hapless dragonfly.

A good samaritan tried to rescue the dragonfly, but I fear it was doomed.

To close, a hybrid of two color varieties.

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/07/parade-of-water-lilies-and-dragonflies.html

www.jilcp.com