Close to Home
March 29, 2020
Perhaps like many of you, I have not be able to get out as I used to. So I’ve been walking around the property of the retirement community in which I live. Before our small gym was closed, I would work out first thing in the morning, so I missed photographing this time of day. It’s a small silver lining that I’m now out and about, often (when it isn’t cloudy) seeing the sun come up. I’m so lucky to be near nature, especially water, which I love to photograph. I’m also lucky, as are all of you, to be able to travel electronically. Please stay as safe as you can. We need each other.
1 The sun came up just as I was approaching these woods.
2 A few minutes later, the sunlight was positively illuminating the trees and shrubs. The light really was this yellow.
3 Last year’s leaves still hold appeal for me. Here are some submerged under water.
4 This photo is from an age ago: March 1, but it was taken on our premises and seems to fit this collection.
5
6
7 This is either a heath or a heather, sprinkled with snow—the kind that looks like miniature snow balls.
8 We’re enjoying the last few weeks of being able to see the straw colors of old weeds. Soon all will be green. It’s a trade off.
9
10 These are cattails and duckweed in a vernal pool. It’s where the spring peepers most like to hang out these days, when it’s warm enough for them.
11 This is Green Pond, one of more than six ponds on the property. It’s hard to say how many there are. Some are not named, and some may be considered too small to count as real ponds.
12 My camera and Lightroom said that this is an overexposed photograph of Meadow Pond.
13 My camera and Lightroom said that this is a properly exposed photograph of Meadow Pond. I think I like the overexposure better.
14 Here is another view of Meadow Pond.
15 Headed home one day after photographing around the property, I found a red-winged blackbird singing from a flowering maple tree.
Romancing Reality 
Yes, I agree, Linda: we need each other. In these strange times all the more. And I agree too: the “overexposed” photo is far more beautiful to me than the correct one. Stay healthy anf keep photographing, please.
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March 29, 2020 at 4:53 PM
Thank you, Ule. I’ll try. You, too.
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March 29, 2020 at 4:58 PM
What density of growth in #2, #8, and #9, plus the cattails in #10. Plants know no such thing as keeping their distance.
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March 29, 2020 at 6:37 PM
🙂 True, Steve. Hope you are doing OK.
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March 29, 2020 at 7:19 PM
I took some pictures outdoors twice this past week. Let’s see what opportunities the coming week offers all of us.
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March 29, 2020 at 7:59 PM
I’m with you on #12. More color and life with a little overexposure! Take care, Linda. {I have always found a walk outside in a natural environment to be good for body and soul; especially true in our present situation.}
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March 29, 2020 at 8:58 PM
It’s very good to know you agree about the exposure of #12. I guess it pays to get something “wrong” sometimes. I certainly agree with you about the value of a walk outside in nature. especially now. Take care.
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March 29, 2020 at 9:13 PM
We must always remind ourselves that the exposure meter doesn’t see a beautiful landscape or flower; it “sees” a blank 18% reflectance colorless gray space. Point it at a white wall: the “correct” exposure will make it gray. Point it at a black wall: the image will be gray. Colors show up lighter or darker depending on their luminance but still equivalent to gray. Our photos are saved by having a range of values so on average they come out ok… So the exposure meter is never right except for images of 18% neutral gray cards…
It’s an interesting exercise to photograph a gray card at various under/as metered/over exposures in black and white.
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March 31, 2020 at 4:18 PM
You obviously understand the physics far better than I do, Mic. (Not that I thought the exposure meter saw a beautiful landscape, but . . .) Thanks for the reminder/education.
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March 31, 2020 at 7:56 PM
Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that! Our modern automatic exposure is remarkable especially with the multi-point sensors, etc. But the photographer should always have the final say…
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March 31, 2020 at 8:03 PM
No, no, I didn’t think you were implying that I thought the camera knew what it was photographing in a sentient sort of way. 🙂
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March 31, 2020 at 8:39 PM
Your wonderful pictures help bring nature into my isolation here in Florida. Water in its many variations is always interesting and soul healing. I enjoy being with you on your walks.
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March 29, 2020 at 9:44 PM
Thank you, Patricia. I’m pleased to have you with me.
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March 31, 2020 at 7:57 PM
You stay sage, as well, Linda. And trust your own instincts, they’re much better than Lightrooms.
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March 29, 2020 at 11:01 PM
Your referral to me as sage was probably a typo, wasn’t it, Ken. Pity. I’ll take your meaning as “safe,” but won’t change the word on the blog. I think I may have learned from this that I shouldn’t delete the “wrong” exposures until after I’ve seen them on download.
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March 31, 2020 at 8:02 PM
🙂 I agree with Ken! Fine set! Take care!
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March 30, 2020 at 4:40 AM
Thanks, Harrie.
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March 31, 2020 at 8:04 PM
LOL!!!! >>> Linda, these are wonderful pictures, but I have to be honest and say that I’m reeling, positively pirouetting in fact, from the disclosure that, rather than getting out first thing in the day with a camera, you used to work out in the gym!!! I need a stiff drink (well, nothing new there then …). LOL!, I can’t believe this >>> BUT, as always, we are all different, we are, we are!
But Mic. talks about walks being good for body and soul, and I can only agree 101%. Wow, there are benefits!
And looking at these pictures of your’s, I glory in them, and can say that I really like 1, 4, 6, 7, 11, 12 and 14! Wonderful, just wonderful.
I’m walking the deserted early morning streets here and the photographic muse has deserted me recently, doubtless due to all the virus stress, but this morning I did take some shots, so I’m hoping for more! Adrian 🙂
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March 31, 2020 at 5:21 AM
Well, it’s not that I never got out early in the morning. It just tended to happen on the weekends, when I skip the gym, and usually after a certain park opened at 8:30. These days I can get out shortly after 7:00 and can begin photographing (if I see something) right away without having to get in the car. I hope you can use your photography to escape from the virus stress, and I hope your March 31 shots pleased you. Where I walk these days is called the Perimeter Walk, a drive and paved walkway that surrounds most of the living units and the main building of our community. One day I walk clockwise and another counterclockwise, so the early sun hits different parts of my walk. Thank you for your kind comments about my work, Adrian; you know I admire yours.
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March 31, 2020 at 8:27 PM
The Red-winged blackbird is such a perfect ending. The first image has a beautifully subdued feeling. I like the rhythmic patterns of the 4th very much, and the 5th, well, that might be my favorite. #6, too – it is perfect. #9 is another favorite – it’s gracefully composed. I think that’s the same grass I used to photograph a lot at Juanita bay Park, where we used to love. It’s great stuff, it collapses so artistically. And #11 – there’s something mysterious going on at the shoreline. The water and plants have been knit tightly together – it’s very much a sewing or knitting feeling where they meet and begin to reflect. It’s beautiful! I like #12 more than the “properly exposed” version, too. It conveys more feeling. I love the way you handled #14, it’s so carefully well, again, subdued. The darkest reflections seem to be doing a call and response with those lighter grasses on the right. And it’s all so liquid. I mean that’s obvious, but it’s easy to over-sharpen or add too much contrast to a water reflection and I think you lose the wateriness then. Ahh, back to the Red-winged blackbird, who proves that a common bird can mean so much to us.
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April 3, 2020 at 9:56 PM