I'm still practicing with my Canon EOS-70D, two and a half years after I bought it. It has more bells and whistles than I'll ever need, but it's so much fun playing with it. Of course, I never expected the learning curve to be as steep as it turned out to be. I guess I need to practice more - if I'm going to master it - but there are so many video tutorials. And what about post-processing, you know, Photoshop. There are even more tutorials for that than for taking pictures. And, to compound that problem, I find playing with Photoshop every bit as much fun as taking the pictures in the first place.
If you've been following this blog for very long, you've seen this spot - the dove cote at Mayfield Park. I used to bring Mom here on a fairly regular basis, first of all because she absolutely loved it. Of course, my lack of imagination played a part too - I had only a limited number of places on my list that made her as happy as this one, and I could shoot pictures and watch the peacocks while she evaluated the garden itself.
This visit was my first at this time of day, and it was a conscious decision to evaluate how the quality of the morning light compared to that at mid-day or later in the afternoon. Any of the photography books and many of the tutorials would address the "Golden Hour" after sunrise and another before sunset, but the magic is in the combination of the warm light and the location itself. You can imagine what it might look like, but you won't really know till you've seen it.
In this instance, because of all the trees, it was already light enough when I arrived to wander around and decide where I wanted to be when the sun burst into the garden. At Cape Hatteras I wandered around in the dark for nearly an hour trying to get my gear set up. This is a much more civilized arrangement. I didn't anticipate the picture above, but I love it. The light's awesome. Next time I find myself in a similar locale, you can be sure I'll remember to look up.
It's like having two different sunrises out here, something else I hadn't anticipated. I sat for probably a quarter of an hour waiting for the sun to break through the trees. Then I had to wait again for it to break through the reflection of the leaves. But what the hell - it was worth it!
Now, this one was a treat. Most of these shots focus on the dove cote, for instance, or the limestone gateway to the nature trail or the perimeter stone walls. This one focuses on the morning light on the trees adjacent to the garden, which is still pretty much in shadow.
The sun did its job here - a great flare makes getting up early seem so much more worthwhile. I didn't even notice that red flower to the left of the gateway until I saw the pictures on my computer. Then, when I zoomed in to inspect the image, the flower had turned into a red plastic cup. If I'd seen it - and seen it for what it actually was - I would have been impelled to remove it to a trash receptacle. . .
Do carp/turtle habitats like these ponds make you think of Renoir? They do me. I guess it's the lily pads. They (the ponds) also make me look for frogs. Above the lily pads on the right, notice the dust. I usually find it on scanned photographs that I haven't taken very good care of - and I remove it in Photoshop. However, in this case I'm blameless - the dust is on the surface of the water. Ergo, it gets to stay.
I framed this bed of Philodendrons several times, starting when the sun first started back lighting it but, until sun flare at top left improved the balance, the composition simply failed. Now, the flare isn't as good as the previous one - two shot up - but perhaps I can take some liberties with Photoshop later when I have a bit more time. This is where Mom would have camped out had she been here.
Back where we started, at the dove cote. Good lighting, but the warm glow of the Golden Hour has flown. Perhaps I just missed it. This was an easy and very pleasant expedition, so maybe we'll catch it on the flip side.
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