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All posts tagged favorites

Congaree National Park: A shared silence

Posted by Paul on January 5, 2013
Posted in: Photography. Tagged: .

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Best seat in the house

As planned, I drove down to Congaree National Park this morning. Door to gate, about 100 miles even. I arrived around 10:45 AM, or so. Fortunately, the weather was very cooperative. The sun stayed behind a thin layer of clouds during the time that I was there, casting interesting, yet not-so-harsh shadows.

Initially, when I hit the boardwalk that runs through the swamp, I was moving like I was on my morning walk! I was moving! Then, I had to remind myself to reduce speed to 1/4 impulse! I got it under control and took my good old time walking the 2.4 mile loop. It took me about 2:10 to walk the loop … that’s what you call a “mosey“! I was enjoying the sights and sounds, or lack thereof, and having a good time walking and snapping a photo here or there. The park is located 12 miles east of I-77, so there was no highway sound to be heard. The only sounds were those of birds and the occasional screech of a child in the distance as they ran along the boardwalk. :)
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About halfway through the walk, I came upon this gentleman, who quite honestly reminded me of my friend, Monte, although Monte has a much shorter beard! He was perched upon the railing, gazing into Weston Lake. As I walked up, I took a couple of photos. When I got near him I said: Looks like you have the best seat in the house, my friend. He replied, simply: I believe so. After that no more words were exchanged. I sat on a nearby bench, enjoyed the sun, enjoyed the quiet. After about 10 minutes, he said: Have a good day. I said: Thank you. You, too. And off he went.

I still have a number of photos to look at. I think that I got some that were keepers, but the top photo has already been tagged with “favorites”.

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Gifts gladly accepted.

Posted by Paul on August 24, 2012
Posted in: Photography. Tagged: .


A gift

Sometimes, I think, after I’ve taken a photo that I particularly like, such as the one above: Wouldn’t it be cool if I could figure out a formula to do this all time? That thought is quickly followed by the answer: No! No, I wouldn’t really want that because then it would spoil the surprise and I find that I really do like the surprise.

Yesterday, tired, and in a hurry to finish the first part of the road trip, I was zipping through the Jefferson National Expanse, Arch Park in St. Louis. After taking a few shots of the arch, featured in yesterday’s post, I hurried along to get a couple of different angles before departing. As I walked down the pathway to the arch, I noticed this scene, off to my right. There were trees with their branches overhanging the water, while trees on the other side were reflected in the water.

I told Tony to “hold on a minute”, which was more like 30 seconds, framed up 4 shots and that was it. First shot at 6:55:30, last shot, 6:55:59 – 29 seconds and away we went. Yet, in spite of the hurry, without regard for being alone and taking time with the scene, somehow, I came up with a winner, one that I have marked as one of my favorites for the year.

No formula. Just being in the right place and the right time and having a camera – unless that’s the formula, but that doesn’t always work either. Let’s just call it a gift.

As for the photo, after playing with it for a while, I flipped it upside down and liked it even more. It looked like an impressionist painting to me. So, when I hang this, and I will, eventually, it will be hung with the photo upside down. :)

Another favorite for the collection

Posted by Paul on September 6, 2011
Posted in: Photography. Tagged: , .

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Every once in while, I’ll hit upon a photo that I really like. I’ve been tagging them with the tag: favorites. So far this year, I’ve tagged 3 photos, including this one. Not bad! :)

James and I were walking down the beach on Saturday evening, heading towards the Morris Island Lighthouse. The sun was heading down, to the left and slightly behind us as we walked. When we got to this particular patch of sand, I stopped. James stopped. He was always aware if he was going to walk into my shot. I appreciated that.

He asked why I was stopping and I told him to look down. He did, saw the foot prints, but it didn’t register. LOL. I bent down, took a few pictures, and off we walked. He was probably still mystified as to why I was taking photos of footprints. After I showed him the photos on the phone and then later, on the laptop, he liked what he saw and gave me kudos for spotting it.

I’m not really sure what exactly it was that drew me to it, or still does, but why worry about such things, eh? I suppose the light was shining in just such a way as to make things look really three dimensional and very cool.

So, 3 and counting. I wonder if I’ll make it to 6 by the end of the year. We’ll see. :)

Favorite photo of the day

Posted by Paul on June 25, 2011
Posted in: Photography. Tagged: , , .

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Wonder
I went to the zoo today. As a matter of fact, a group of 6 of us went to the zoo. We had a good time. I too the M9 with me and decided to photograph some people. Throughout the day, I took very few shots. As a matter of fact, for our 6 or 7 hours there, I took only 57 pictures, very few of animals, other than the human variety.

By far, this shot was my favorite. After we visited the Africa side of the zoo, we took the tram to the North America side. The zoo is quite large and it was kind of warm and humid so the tram was in order.

We all piled into the tram and I sat behind a young lady and her sister. I had put my camera away; however, as I saw her come to the window and start staring out of it as the bus began to move, I removed my camera from the bag, turned it on, focused, and took a shot. I had time for only one shot as she quickly lost interest at what was outside of the window, and decided to go and sit on her father’s lap. However, for that brief moment, the movement seemed to capture her attention, fully.

I considered converting it to B & W; however, I felt that I could just leave it like it was because I liked the green seat and the green light spilling in from the outside, as it bounced off of the leaves.

My favorite photo, so far

Posted by Paul on February 22, 2011
Posted in: Photography. Tagged: , .

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Sometimes, when you see it, you see it and you know that when it comes out of the soup, you’re going to like it. Soup being, developer. Tim and I were standing on the suspension bridge looking at the falls and the various people playing in, on, and around the falls.

Best guess, it was about 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and the sun had already started its march downward (I know that the sun doesn’t move and it’s the rotation of the Earth, people, but you get what I’m saying!!! :) ), heading for a 6:00 PM sunset or so. The shadows were starting to elongate and get interesting.

I looked down and to my right and noticed the shadow of the bridge being shown on the rock face opposite the bridge. Also, I noticed that I could see my shadow as well as Tim’s. I thought: That’s it! That’s the photo that I want to take.

I framed it up, took 2 shots, and just knew that I would be pleased. When I returned home, I had 4 rolls to develop. I was hoping that the luck of the draw would net me the roll that contained this image. I didn’t think that I had the strength to develop 4 rolls of film that night and I wanted to see this photo.

As luck would have, it was on one of the rolls that I selected for development. Nice. And, I must say, it came out just as I had imagined it. So, it is, or now, my favorite photo that I have taken this year, but it is only February. :)