At the Park

At the Park.

Well, I had an eventful morning. While I was getting myself some breakfast, my wife screamed as she was walking into the computer office. At first, I thought that she had seen another mouse as we've had one for awhile now that knows how to avoid all of the traps I set out for it. I swear that I think it's name is Jerry. Anyway, that wasn't what had startled her. It was a critter of the slithier variety. All that I saw of it was a small tail going behind a bookcase. Once I found where it was and that it wasn't going to move right away, my wife and son were able to leave house. Then, it was just me and the critter. I cleared out a the area around where it was, made a plan and gathered my supplies/weapons. I don't know what kind it was, but it was a baby. I successfully got it out of the house and onto the carport. It wasn't happy at all during this as you can imagine, but it couldn't get any traction on the concrete. Thus, it was easy to deal with it because I didn't want it coming back inside. I'm glad that it wasn't any larger though as I probably would have had a harder time getting it out of the house. Anyway, I owe it all to my weapons of choice: a toilet brush, a garden wind chime (think long skinny metal pole) and a bicycle tire pump. Am I armed and dangerous, or what?

Anyway, I didn't think to get any photographs of the excitement. So, today's image is from yesterday's trip to the park with my son. It was a nice day with pretty clouds in the sky. I thought it would be a good change of pace for us to go out to one of the parks inside of straight home to the TV. My son liked that idea and picked Cleveland Park here in Spartanburg. The photograph above is of him sitting on a bench enjoying the fresh air while I was photographing some flowers. Yeah, more flower shots are on the way ;-) , but I did try to get some interesting ones plus, I got some nice abstracts from around the park as well. All-in-all a fun afternoon out with my son. Can't ask for much more that that.

The town's Spring festival is today and this weekend. There is a bike race this afternoon and evening that we might go to. Then there is the general street festival this weekend. The weather forecast is for thunderstorms, but I am hopeful that they will be isolated and not continuous. If they hold off, there should be even more things to share next week.

Keep shooting.

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Surprise #2

The Muncher!

And here is the second surprise. When I first saw it, I thought it was a branch floating in the middle of the lake. Then I zoomed in and realized that it was a beaver. There is a beaver in the lake/pond of Cleveland Park in the middle of Spartanburg, SC near downtown! Guess he's an urban beaver.

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Spring!

Dogwoods in Bloom

We had a rainy weekend, but the sun finally came out on Sunday. I went down to Cleveland Park here in town for a little walk. It was quite windy, but I found a couple of surprises which will get posted later this week.

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Playing Around Again

Cotton Grass

I went to Cleveland Park near Wofford College at lunch time. I had been getting stir crazy and needed some fresh air. On this visit I concentrated on the lake area near the Event House and Helvetia Island. In particular I thought I would practice some wide-angle compositions for both close-ups and scenic images. I'm not sure I'm completely happy with the photographs, but I still had a good time and it did help to clear my head a bit.

The shot above is from the edge of the park's overgrown, storm water retention pond. The pond feeds into the parks small lake, but is overgrown with cat-tails and other wet-environment vegetation such has the cotton grass.

A couple more after the jump.


Red Leaves Under Clouds

I was surprised that there was still some Spring-like color in the park. These bushes on the island had vibrant red leaves. You can see how gray the clouds were at the time. I think it makes for an interesting contrast.

Storm Shelter

I processed this image of the gazebo on Helvetia Island to try to give it a feeling of sheltering from a coming storm. I'm not sure that it worked out, but there it is. I desaturated the colors in the areas around the gazebo and added a dark, edge vignette while leaving the full colors of the gazebo and the vista beyond it to attempt to draw the eye into the gazebo.

There are a couple more photographs from the outing over at the Zenfolio site if you are interested in seeing more.

This weekend could be a busy one. There is a European automobile show at the BMW Zentrum that could be interesting to visit. The annual Fall for Greenville event is taking place in downtown Greenville, SC. The Spartanburg Symphony is giving a concert for children at Twichell Auditorium at Converse College. And those are all on Saturday. I think there might be something happening on Sunday too, but it has slipped my mind at the moment.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed today's images. See ya next week, have a good weekend and ... keep shooting.

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