Posing

Heron Posing

This is a different heron than the one in yesterday's photograph. This particular heron was at another pond than where I watched the first one. It did not seem as shy around people since it would get much closer to us than would the other heron. As people threw out bread for the ducks and geese, the heron would be right there with the other birds. However, it would not eat any of the bread. It was waiting for it's preferred dinner to come eat the bread instead.

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Taking Flight

Great Blue Heron in Flight

This past weekend I went out to the ponds at the Milliken Research Center. It was a beautiful afternoon and there were quite a few people out there. There was at least one large family gathering / party, plus lots of families with small children feeding the birds.

A couple of the Great Blue Herons that hang out around the ponds were present and I decided to concentrate on them. The herons are generally quite a bit more hesitant with people and tend to fly away if someone gets too close which makes them harder to photograph. That also means that you have a better chance of getting some photographs of the herons actually doing something interesting than the ducks and geese floating around.

This was the first heron that was came to at the ponds. I crept slowly toward it trying to keep my camera on it. Then I noticed a couple walking from the other pond to the one the heron and I were at. The couple was coming up generally behind the heron and I figured that the bird would take off when it felt they were too close. Luckily, I was right and I got some shots of it as it flew to a safer perch.

It was a productive 45 minutes to an hour that I was at the ponds. So, stay tuned as there are more to come.

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Another Dogwood

Dogwood

Here is another shot of the dogwoods. It is a bit more of a traditional viewpoint.

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Spring in Spartanburg

Dogwoods

It has been Spring for a few weeks and I have been remiss in my Spring photography. Truthfully, just as it officially turned to Spring we had a blast of Winter-like weather, i.e. cool, wet and overcast. Anyway, here is a different view of one of the dogwood trees in my yard.

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Glendale Mill

Glendale Mill Sentry

Another photograph from the Spartanburg Area Conservancy's Glendale Shoals Preserve. This is one of the "towers" of the old Glendale Mill that still stand. Seeing it from this angle made me think of the sentry towers in European Castles for some reason.

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Moody View

Reflections and Ruins

This is another photograph of Lawson's Fork Creek in the Glendale Shoals Preserve in Spartanburg County. It is taken very close to the same place as yesterday's photograph if not the exact same location. I was trying out different compositions with the reflections and the trees. As I was developing the image I started to feel that it needed a more moody treatment and converted it to black and white. I think that it works for it. If you look carefully, you will see a couple of the old mill's chimneys through the trees and their reflections in the water. That is were the "Ruins" in the title came from in my mind.

In order to further accentuate the "moodiness" I made a few other tweaks to the image in development. First, I selectively darkened and brightened areas to try to lead the eye down the rapids. Next I reversed the expected sharpening of the image's elements. By this I mean that I reduced the sharpness of every thing except the water, and then I sharpened the reflections. To me this gives a sense that the reflections might be more "real" than the actual trees and ruins. It does at least seem to help convey the moodiness that I was feeling with the image. Finally, I added a slight vignette along the edges to bring the eye into the image.

Well, that is what I did and why I did them anyway. I hope it worked the way I intended them to.

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I'm back

Down Lawson's Fork Creek

It has been a while hasn't it? I've been dealing with a lot of stuff and hadn't been able to get out with the camera very much. Things have not really settled down, but I am trying to make time for photography again now that the weather is more agreeable. However, it does seem to like to rain on the weekends for some reason.

Earlier this week I went to the Glendale Shoals Preserve. It is a conservation preserve of the Spartanburg Area Conservancy based around the historic Glendale Mills property. Lawson's Fork Creek flows under an iron trussed bridge, over the mill's dam, and over exposed rock below the dam. The preserve has a couple of trails, numerous picnic tables, and some historic kiosks relating the story of Glendale Mills and the area's natural features. I didn't spend very much time there, but I do look forward to going back and exploring it in better detail.

This photograph is Lawson's Fork Creek as it re-enters it's wooded embankments below the shoals before leaving the Preserve.

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