Black Bear in Cades Cove

This black bear cub was sticking his tongue out at the groups of people trying to get a photo. Please remember to keep your distance when you see black bears in Cades Cove or anywhere else. You are supposed to give them 50 yards and I saw many people much closer than that.

 

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Fawn on the Lake Trail

I took a short stroll around Radnor Lake a few mornings ago. This is a shot of a young fawn, probably only a couple of months old, standing in the middle of the Lake Trail. Don’t worry, his mother was not too far off 🙂

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Dancing Squirrel

Don’t feed the squirrels in California, it makes them do weird things…  🙂

A Turtle in the Road

So I found this little guy trying to cross the road in front of my house the other day. Of course I saved him from being flattened by some passing cars, but first I had to take some photos of him!

This is the fourth turtle I’ve saved from the road this year, but this one had so much more personality than the others. He was not shy at all, and was more than happy to walk around on the road for me 🙂

Florida Seagulls

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Cades Cove Wildlife – 2011

Here are some shots of the wildlife we saw at Cades Cove this year. Since I don’t have telephoto lens, I rented a Canon 100-400L from Lensrentals.com. Overall it’s a pretty decent lens although it took some time getting use to it. Here is what I was able capture

Bears

Snakes

Other

Thanks for looking!

Don’t forget, all my prints are discounted for the entire month of June. Head on over to my storefront to browse and order your print!

This Week at the Lake – 52/52

Well, here we are. The final installment of this 52 week project. I’m going for a little bit of symbolism in the lead shot as I’m watching the sun set on this project. I also started the project with a sunrise, so I wanted to end with a sunset.

Radnor Lake is actually a pretty tough place to catch a sunset. There really are no good angles. I had three chances to get a shot of one this week, starting on Monday which was a complete rain out. My second chance came on Tuesday, so I parked at the east parking lot ad tried to capture it from Otter Creek Road:

This sunset was really amazing. And while I liked how this shot turns out, it doesn’t show most of the color that was there. The sun is actually setting off camera left, behind the hills. What you see at the end of the lake is actually the edge of it.

So my next opportunity came Thursday evening. I decided this time to shoot from the trail that directly faces the sunset. I wasn’t sure how I was going to compose it with all the trees, path, fence, etc. I decided to use the fence in the composition and to put myself in the photo. The result is the lead shot.

A couple others from the final week:

And that’s it for the week and the year! Thanks to everyone who viewed, commented, liked, or supported this effort. It’s been a lot of fun and I feel like I’ve come a long way as a photographer. Have a look at the first few weeks and see if you think I’ve improved. Constantly shooting will help you do that.

If you are a photographer and are thinking about a year long project, weather a 52 or a 365, I highly recommend it. Don’t make too many rules though! It has to be fun for you, it has to be something you want to do. I had to get up at 4:45 in the morning each time I wanted to get to the lake for a sunrise or for early morning shooting. Because of my wife’s work schedule and my son’s school schedule I was able to do this only about once a week, but I actually looked forward to that day. I never once viewed this project as a chore, or wished I hadn’t committed myself by starting this blog or posting on flickr.

Don’t think for a minute that now that this is over I’ll stop going to the lake! Radnor Lake is an amazing place (really early in the morning when there aren’t too many people there 🙂 ) Abundant wildlife and beautiful views. There is ALWAYS something to shoot at Radnor. If you’ve never been, I highly recommend you check it out.

I have some other ideas in the works for other projects, Subscribe to this blog you will receive an email every time I post something new! Or, become a fan on Facebook.

All of the “This Week at the Lake” photos are available for purchase as fine art prints and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Friends of Radnor Lake! Send me an email for more info (m_macgregor@comcast.net)

Thanks!

A Whole Lot of Randomness…

So I haven’t posted many blog entries lately except for my This Week at the Lake posts. So now is the time to catch up! There are a lot of photos here, if you follow me on facebook or flickr you may have seen some of these but many are being published for the first time.

Here is the Randomness, in not so random order:

Here I was practicing with using a flash

A random office building in Franklin, TN

From the Laundromat from when my washing machine broke:

A Self Portrait…

Looking out at the snow on my car during my 4 hour commute home one snowy evening

On the way to work one morning, didn’t look like a very good day for a hot air balloon ride!

Vanderbilt University at Night

Swish!

More portrait/lighting practice

I like the one above of my daughter but I feel like I blew this one of my son. I should have been able to get more sky in the photo…

A neighbor

Jump!

See? Random wasn’t it!? Hope you enjoyed them though!

This Week at the Lake – 51/52

Last Saturday I got my 6 year old son up extra early for a hike around Radnor Lake. We got there just in time for a great sunrise. I let him use my Rebel XSi (now that I’m on the 7D) and he loved it! He loved walking around with the camera strapped around his neck. I think he took more photos that I did! We saw everything I told him we might see: Barred Owl, Deer, Turkey, Ducks, Geese, Birds, Squirrel, and Chipmunks. Fun morning, something we’ll definitely do again soon…

Here he is shooting some deer:
I’ll have to post some of his photos here sometime

Here is another shot of the sunrise:

And the light on the lake:

This shot looks like something from November. The morning light coming from around the bend was great!

Here are a couple large Bucks we saw:

Here is another Buck taken another morning:

And some more Owl photos from the week:

And that’s it for the week! Next week is the finale! The weather forcast looks good, so let’s hope for something great!!

Thanks for looking!

Check out all the previous weeks by Clicking HERE

Don’t miss a week! Subscribe to this blog and you will receive an email every time I post something new!

Malcolm MacGregor Photography is on Facebook, check it out and become a fan!

All of the “This Week at the Lake” photos are available for purchase as fine art prints and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Friends of Radnor Lake! Send me an email for more info (m_macgregor@comcast.net)

This Week at the Lake – 50/52

When all else fails, process the heck out of it and maybe it will look cool!

I struggled to pick a “lead” shot this week. I had this shot processed without the textures first. After reviewing all the shots I had for the week, I decided to re-edit this with some textures. I liked how it turned out so here it is! I love seeing and hearing these little birds too. They are so loud! I’ve taken tons of pictures of them through out the project so I was happy to have one as a lead shot.

Another favorite of the week was this one:

But it was way too similar to Week 46‘s lead shot.

Here are some others from the week:

This Red-Tailed Hawk landed pretty close to me. I was trying to hide behind a tree hoping he would come closer but he eventually flew off. All I got of him is from this view with that branch in the way 🙁

Loved the light here…

Another Carolina Wren Singing away!

Wild Turkey

This is a terrible photo but a pretty funny story. The deer was literally running at full speed in circles early one morning. He just kept going and going!

And that’s it for the week!

Thanks for looking!

Check out all the previous weeks by Clicking HERE

Don’t miss a week! Subscribe to this blog and you will receive an email every time I post something new!

Malcolm MacGregor Photography is on Facebook, check it out and become a fan!

All of the “This Week at the Lake” photos are available for purchase as fine art prints and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Friends of Radnor Lake! Send me an email for more info (m_macgregor@comcast.net)