I had arranged to take the morning for myself; there was a photo club meetup at Green Lakes at 1000, and I wouldn’t be able to take the kids to TKD. But 1000 is a little late to go out for decent photos, so I went out early with the camera(s) to see if I could have a go of it in the early morning light. I expected that the geese would be a Green Lake and I decided to try to make them the focus of my morning.
As I walked the lake it became apparent that they were collected exactly where I had expected them to be. And while I had hoped for nice light, I was a bit surprised by how pleasant the sky looked this morning. I was trying to avoid a noisy image, so kept the ISO low and the shutter speed a bit slow. And while this approach was successful in reducing the noise in the image, it prevented me from photographing geese nearer to me or displaying any significant gestures (even the slightest movement created motion blur). In hindsight, maybe I should have moved the ISO up a few notched and coped with the noise, but that wasn’t my mindset at the time.
After the sun rose a bit higher and the color began to fade, I moved closer to the beach so that I could try to capture some birds in flight. One of my favorite images from the past is of geese flying low across the lake with a slightly slow shutter that provides a little movement in the wings while capturing nice motion blur from the trees in the background. I was hoping for something similar (but better) this time, but I could never get my shutter speed just right and was never satisfied with where the birds were positioned in the frame relative to the background.
As the sun continued to rise, I was tempted to walk up to the rolling hills, but I didn’t think that I would have sufficient time to get there and back in time to meetup with the photo club, so I stayed closer, instead walking up to the kickball field and pavilion downhill from the cabins. I figured that the area could provide some interesting subjects with the macro lens and I was right. There were dew drops on the grass …
… leaves changing colors …
… and there were some insect opportunities as well.
And while none of the images are worthy of hanging on a wall, they all provided an opportunity for me to practice photographing up close with the too-often ignored macro lens.
When it was time, I made my way down to the lake again to meetup with some of the club members. There was a small group of us, including Dave, Sherry, Buddy, and Pat. Pat was limited to photographing at the beach, but the rest of us slowly made our way along western shore of Green Lake.
Expecting harsh sunlight at 1000, I had brought my IR-converted camera body for the walk around the lake, but the opportunities proved to be limited, both in the group and later in the early afternoon when we parted ways.
Still, the day was less about the pictures and more about the experience of being outdoors and meeting up with people with similar interests, and (in that manner) the day proved to be a smashing success … even if I didn’t capture an outstanding image that would one day hang on my wall.