This Week at the Lake – 31/52

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I’m getting closer!
For the last couple of weeks, nearly every time I visit around lunch, I’ve seen a hawk flying around. I haven’t been able to catch him in a tree or on the ground yet, but I finally caught him flying close enough to the ground to get a decent shot of him! This is only at 200mm and only cropped a little.

Of course, I had to play around with the photo some, here is a more dramatic lens flare version:

On Thursday, I posted on my Facebook Page about some tones I was working on. Here are a couple shots using very similar tones and processing:

Signs of Fall at the lake!

And Finally, the “mandatory” weekly deer photos:


I got these three shots up on the Ganier Ridge Trail, this week was my first time heading off on that trail…

And that’s it for the week!

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This Week at the Lake – 30/52

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I let my son choose the lead photo this week. I couldn’t decide between this deer portrait and this lakescape:

I think he chose well though, I think that is my best deer portrait so far.

I got some pretty good stuff this week, I started off on Monday morning when I shot the sunrise above. Tuesday I went on my lunch break. As soon as I got close to the lake I could here tons of geese. They have certainly returned from their summer break in a big way! I headed down Otter Creek Rd along the lake to capture some goose photos:

I also got this abstract

I got to go again Wednesday morning so I headed back down Otter Creek Rd.

This time the lake was very steamy/misty

I wanted to capture some geese photos with the mist
I went a little crazy with this one, but I thought it looked pretty cool

I really wanted to get one in flight, I managed this one

Finally I had to head back to the car. I stopped one last time at a clearing and I heard the geese – here they come!
Finally, a group flew right by me

I went again Friday during lunch and that was when I captured the deer portrait above and this one

And that’s it for the week!

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A Hawk! No wait, a Sunset!

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So the family and I were riding home after a competitive game of disc golf at a local park, when I glanced at a field we were passing and I noticed a very large Red Tailed Hawk sitting on a hay bale.

We turned around, and I thought I would get out of the car down the road some and walk to a tree line to see if I could get a shot of the hawk. Well, we stopped a little closer than I wanted and as soon as I made it to the edge of the road, the hawk flew away. I believe he was watching me as soon as the car stopped! I continued on to the tree line to see if could find where he flew to but I saw him soaring far away.

By now, 10-15 minutes had passed and, as I began to head back to the car (where my wife and kids were waiting), I noticed the sky was really taking shape to produce a nice sunset. I convinced them we needed to stay a few more minutes, and this is the result:

I had to get one more as we drove away!

Even got a couple of the family:

This Week at the Lake – 29/52

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Click the panorama above to view the full size!! Maybe not the most exciting pano ever but I spent a lot of time on it. It’s full size is about 8.5 feet long (over 30,000 pixels) and consists of 15 vertical images. The file size for the full size image 1.83 gigs! It was too large for my computer to blend in photoshop, so I had to create two panoramas using photoshops “automerge” and then manually blend those two together. Now, if only I could find someone to print an 8.5′ long photo…..

This was taken Wednesday evening. I had to shake things up a bit and visit at a different time. It’s amazing how different you can see things when the light is different. By stopping by Wednesday evening, I also lucked out and caught the harvest moon:

I feel like I was rushed taking these as it was really getting dark at this point. Radnor Lake closes at “dark” so I wanted to be sure I was back at my car before someone else considered it “dark”. After these shots, I headed quickly back to the parking lot – only to see that there were still probably 20-25 cars there. I guess I could have stayed a little while longer….

Other shots with the Wednesday evening light:

I also visited during my lunch break on Monday and Wednesday, here is the result of those trips:

Not sure what type of bird this is but I sat and watched him catch bugs, he was very fast.

And that’s it for the week!

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This Week at the Lake – 28/52

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A very quiet week at the lake this week. Not much going on…..

A couple weeks ago I tried a lake scape with textures added. The more I looked at it the more I really liked it. So, I thought I’d try it again. The above shot was taken on a beautiful morning when the mist was rising from the lake. I’ve applied 3 textures that I’ve downloaded from various places over the internet (mainly flickr). Unfortunately I can’t remember where I got them as I’ve had them in a folder for over a year now.

Here are the rest of the shots from this week:
The epic battle between hawk and black bird continues! If you saw last week I posted a shot of a hawk chasing a black bird. I saw a similar scene early Monday morning. Again there were several black birds and one hawk and again it was hard to tell who was chasing who! I’m hoping I can get close enough to get a good shot of this happening.

There are 3 deer in this shot – none of them showing their head!

The background is awesome!

And that’s it for the week!

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This Week at the Lake – 27/52

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It was tough getting anything decent this week. It seemed to be cloudy the entire week making it dark along the trails. My camera doesn’t do too well in dark conditions and I ended up with dozens of blurry images this week. It’s also getting too dark for my early morning trips. The sun doesn’t seem to come over the hills until 7:15 or so, by 7:30 I should be back at the car to get ready for work.

Here are this weeks best shots:

I liked the idea for this but I think the deer is too far away

This is heavily cropped but it was so cool to watch I wanted to share it. This hawk and about 5 black birds were going at it for a while. Was the hawk trying to eat a black bird or were the black birds trying to get the hawk to leave? Most of the time, I couldn’t even tell who was chasing who! At the time of this shot, it’s clear that the hawk is chasing the black bird. But shortly after this, the hawk landed on a log and another black bird came down and provoked the hawk. None of the chases ever lasted very long as the hawk gave up the chase quickly and easily. Very fun to watch, wish I could have gotten closer but this was all happening on the other side of the lake!

spotted this owl Friday evening. I set up the tripod without scaring him off, and fired off a few shots. While taking these shots it really started raining. Not much rain was making it to me under the trees but I didn’t want my gear sitting out any longer.

Bad formation! But pretty cool photo with the added textures…

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The Murfreesboro Greenway

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My latest photo walk was on the greenway that runs throughout Murfreesboro. The trail follows the Stones River, along roads, through parks…. All over town. We parked at the General Bragg Trailhead (1540 W. College St.) and only walked for a mile or so.

Here is what I got along the way…

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This Week at the Lake – 26/52

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The half way point!
It’s hard to believe that I’m half way through this project. These weeks have been flying by but I know I’ve got the hardest weeks coming up. I think I’ll be fine into November but then – who knows! I’m not a fan of winter at all and I always have a hard time finding interesting things to shoot in the dead of winter.

This week was great, the weather has turned pretty mild (at least compared to the 100+ degree days).

The shot above was taken early Monday morning
Here are the rest in chronological order:
After getting the lead shot, I noticed this deer all the way across the lake. I applied some textures for a vintage feel.

More texture fun!

The “baby” deer are getting so big! I can’t help but think this is the same deer as seen in Week 19 and Week 15. They were all taken in the same area and I frequently see a doe and a fawn in that area.

A lakescape taken in the middle of the day, this is the same spot as Week 15‘s sunrise

Another from this spot, in black and white

I don’t know who was lucky enough to get to go out on a canoe on Wednesday morning. Typically, canoes are not allowed. One of the canoes had a park ranger in it.

There are 4 really good “lakescape” spots around Radnor Lake. I’ve posted shots from all the other views before but I think this is the first week from this spot. The lead shot is also from this vantage point, just very different days! Also, this shot marks one of the extremely rare instances where I processed the shot in both HDR and Non-HDR and preferred the Non-HDR version! This shot was inspired by this shot by flickr contact abennett23. I’ve been looking for a while now for the best location and timing to get something similar to his.

These little birds have made several appearances through out the weeks. Probably because they will come so close to you if you are quiet and still

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Burgess Falls

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This past weekend we visited Burgess Falls State Natural Area. Nothing original here, in fact I had to wait 10 minutes or so while other photographers got this same shot. I only took one shot (the one above) and then switched lenses. When the sun came out there was a rainbow across the falls, but of course once I switched lenses, the sun didn’t come back out. It really was an impressive waterfall, the trails are just too crowded for my liking. Plus, the only good shot you could get of these falls is the same one everyone else has. We took this shot then we went back to the park area to cook out for lunch. After lunch, the kids went to the playground and I went back down the trails. By then, there were tons of people swimming in the water so I never hiked to the bottom because I wouldn’t have wanted a waterfall shot with lots of people in it!
Here are a couple others I got along the way:

This was the stairway leading from the top of the falls to the bottom

And of course, a couple of the kids enjoying the playground:

If you are interested in going to Burgess Falls, check out the map
[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=36.071857,-85.581779&spn=0.16428,0.494385&z=12&output=embed&w=425&h=350]
Fairly easy hikes (my kids made it!) and an impressive waterfall.

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This Week at the Lake – 24/52

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Lot’s of photos this week! I visited Radnor Lake in Nashville Tennessee on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Wednesday morning was rainy, so I walked down Otter Creek Rd. I headed to one of the best spots at the park to get a lakescape. I’ve got shots from this spot on Week 13, and Week 16, and Week 19. This time it was different with the dark rain clouds:

Heading back to the car, I got this shot right before it really started raining hard:

I went Thursday mid-day. The temperature and humidity have dropped considerably from last week, as you can see from this photo with the nice blue sky and fluffy clouds:

Then I went Friday early morning. I started off heading to the spot that I got shots for Week 15 and Wee 22 and I got this:

While setting up for this shot, I heard a loud crash maybe 10 feet away. I look over and there is a young buck staring at me. Then another comes to the shore and then some does arrive. I snapped this shot and then backed up from the shore and switched lenses. I’ve been looking forward to the fall, hoping I could get some shots of bucks. These may not be very impressive bucks but they are certainly the best I’ve seen so far. I ended up following them along the trail for nearly a mile, grabbing many shots:

This is one of the does

Got the idea for this shot from a Matt Hansen photo. I’m not sure I pulled it off nearly as well as he but I still liked it.

Loved this one too!

Last one!

On the way back to the car I stopped at the dam where I usually see green herons. Sure enough there was one there, I only grabbed a couple shots before he was scared off by other walkers:

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