I know dandelions are supposed to be the dreaded weed of all weeds, but I thought I’d share this picture anyway. It was taken in my front lawn.  It’s been my desktop background for a couple weeks now.

 
Nikon D700, 105mm Micro Lens   1/50s at f/9  ISO 200 

Summer is definitely behind us and winter will shortly be upon us.  On a walk with Toby this morning, I was fascinated with the colors of the leaves with the delicate frost left over from the night. 

People often comment on my photos, and even more often my response to a particular photograph is, “Well, it was a lot of luck”.  I’m not necessarily referring to the technical side of photography, but more of what brought me to that situation.  For instance, many very good photographers will tell you, one might need to spend 8 hours camping a rock beach, just to snap a 1/400 of a second shot of a bald eagle catching a fish.  I can’t say that I’m that patient of a guy, but I will admit there is a certain element of luck in my photography.  If you believe in luck.

I was out shooting some grass near our house this weekend, and I literally tripped over a rock and landed humorously on my face [the camera was spared] .  As I looked down, there was a small frog perched on the end of a stick looking out over the lake.  [ luck ]  And, it just so happened that I had my macro lens on [ luck #2 ]   It was getting quite dark, and I didn’t want to risk losing the frog if I went to get my tripod, so I shot handheld.

I had no expectations that the shots would turn out.  In fact, I figured they would all be throw away.  Much to my surprise, there were a couple pictures that were “kept”.  Here are a few that I must label, “right place, right time”



Nikon D700  105mm Macro  ISO 800   f/3.3   1/50s


  
Nikon D700  105mm Macro  ISO 1000   f/3.5   1/40s

A lot has been going on lately, I’ve been so busy I haven’t really had much time to get out and shoot.  We just recently moved to a new home about 7 miles out of the city.  We LOVE it here.  Not only is the house more practical but views and nature around us are perfect.  It’s a little bit of city and a little bit of nature all wrapped in one place.  City life is great, but there is something to be said for listening to the birds in the morning and watching the sun rise over the water. 

I finally had a chance to snap a few shots tonight.  The sunset was amazing and it produced some great color on the swamps surrounding our house.  The knocked down tree (tilt-shift) reminds me that the end of one thing provides many opportunities for new things to begin. 

 

Nikon D700  70-200mm   f/2.8   1/400s  ISO 200

Nikon D700  50mm Tilt-Shift   f/11   1/30s  ISO 500