Thanks Mom Nature.

Sometimes a photo just takes your breath away. Hopefully not literally, that’s an expression. What I love about photography is when you come across a scene, or a moment , when you are just totally blown away with what’s in front of you. When the colors are actually hard to look at because they are so striking and so intense.

I usually experience this feeling at the beginning or the end of the day when the lighting tends to be much better. Here’s a secret for you. Taking pictures in the middle of the day are almost a sure fire to have them come out bad. (Now you can thank me when you pick up your photos from Walgreen’s and you have not taken them at noon.)

About 2 months ago I was in an area of Northern Chicago called the Chicago Botanical Garden. It really helped I was there during the fall. It was funny because up until this year, I had not been to the garden in probably 15 years and this year I went 4 times. It’s an amazing place to shoot photos. On that day, even though it was mid-day, the colors were incredible. To make sure I didn’t end up with bad Walgreen’s photos (I actually don’t process my photos at Walgreen’s by the way) I used a filter that takes out all of the glare--another secret for the Snap Shot reader.

What I loved about the photos from that day was how hard they were to look at. Not that they were ugly or anything, they just were so sharp and intense that at times they were hard to focus on when looking at them. My favorite photo of the day was in the Japanese garden; there were rocks in the middle of the lake and when you converted the picture to black and white it took on a completely different dimension. I call these the “fortunate shots” because if I had decided not to go to the garden that day, I would never have taken this picture. Fortunately I did.

Then there are the photos like the one above that are just dumb luck; my wife and I were having dinner in the Lake of the Ozarks and I had my camera with me. Why? Because I had taken pictures of her before dinner even though she hates when I do that. She retaliates by doing the same to me---I think photographers are pretty universal for hating to have their pictures taken. While at dinner the sun started to set. I could tell it was going to be a very pretty sunset, but nothing like what I encountered when I stepped out on the patio that was adjacent to the restaurant. The richness of the colors combined with the contrast of the boathouse made this picture one of my favorites of all time. It was not a hard picture to take---I guess it was mother natures way of saying, “Good thing you brought your camera to dinner.”

Thanks for stopping by.