Early Dec before our first snow.  These two pines were not leaning one week earlier when I was here.

One of things I like to do a lot is frequent state parks and nature areas.  I usually find interesting things to shoot and it's a good way to be active as I enjoy the hiking quite a bit.  Depending on time constraints I can be out as little as 1 hr or as much as 6 hrs at a time.  Sometimes I shoot a lot and other times not so much.  But I came to a realization last month that just having the camera with me makes a big difference in whether I want to be out and about or not.


Case in point:  I went to a park I'd not been to before and it was snowing, icy, and cold.  It didn't look like much of a place and because of the weather conditions I left the camera in the car to check it out a bit.  Well, it wasn't much of a place and I was bored pretty quick and returned to the car.  As I was about to leave I thought, "You know, I drove a while to get here and now I'm leaving without even taking the camera out of the bag.  What a waste of time".  So I turned the car off, put the camera over my shoulder and ventured out once more.  It still wasn't much of place but this time I was anything but bored simply because I had the camera with me and, therefore, would be able to capture anything of interest.

As it turned out, I didn't find anything of interest but that was ok.  I now left the place with a feeling of satisfaction.  So it's not always about taking pictures but the anticipation and being ready to do so that counted as much or more.  Realizing that made me realize something else.  I used to not like the winter months at all - the cold, snow, ice, the too early sunsets, grey skies, etc.  Since having picked up a camera, that has changed.  I now look forward to the changing seasons and inclement weather as just another way to explore the capturing of images.  As I said yesterday, funny how things work out.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy the photos.  By the way, you can click on them for a larger view.

The ducks taking flight in the upper right made this photo work for me.  Note the trees through fog in the background.

An arch of tree branches made this walk seem almost fairytale-like.

I thought the shadows gave this bridge a little interest

A slightly different perspective from the photo at the top of the blog.  I'm not sure which one I like better.

It doesn't look it, but this was a cold day.  Seeing this herd warmed things up a bit and the cold was forgotten.

This was one of those days I was in the woods for a few hours and didn't shoot much but on the way out I spotted these two bucks.  This is zoomed to 300mm to see them decently through all the brush.