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Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge – Big Sandy Unit

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This past Saturday I met up with a few local photographers again and headed out to the Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge near Big Sandy or Paris, Tennessee
[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=36.37997,-88.058338&spn=0.081817,0.247192&z=13&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

It was a beautiful day and we saw a few bald eagles. They were out of the range of my 70-200 but still awesome to see!

The lead shot is one of the views we saw, looking out at the Kentucky Lake

Other shots from the day:

I thought this was so cool, the colors that showed up on the web were amazing!

Abstract of the Kentucky Lake

In the shot: Titus Bartos

I had never seen an armadillo before, there were TONS of them there!

This Week at the Lake – 35/52

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I figured this was an appropriate lead shot this week as we enter November and get closer to Thanksgiving!

I’m posting late today because I got up early this morning to go to…… Radnor Lake! I met up with a few people from the Nashville Photography Meetup Group as well as a few people I met in the Radnor Lake Group on flickr. Lot’s of fun, and good to meet some more photographers. I’ll have those pictures up for next weeks post.

For this week I was only able to visit twice, Wednesday and Thursday. I didn’t get much Wednesday morning because shortly after I got on Otter Creek Road it started to rain on me. Here is what I got before the rains came:

The rest of my shots all came on Thursday. I took a half day off work because it was my sons birthday. I had a few hours to kill before he got home so I headed to the lake. Here is what I came away with on Thursday:

I know I take a lot of these type shots but I really like them!

The clouds starting rolling in right about the time I got to this overlook. They really made for a great lakescape.

One of the few times this lens ever comes off my camera!

I saw this guy sitting there so I would take a shot and then take a couple steps toward him, take another shot and then another couple steps. Just trying to see how close I could get. I think I could have gotten closer but some other hikers came up behind me and he ran off.

Not the best shot, but I had to put this up for the Brentwood Police Captain I was talking to. We were both watching the HUGE buck for a while. He was down in a ravine and never came closer to the path.

More turkeys

One of my favorites from the week….

And that’s it for the week!

Thanks for looking!

Check out all the previous weeks by Clicking HERE

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Malcolm MacGregor Photography is now 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 – 32/52

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What a tough week to pick a lead shot, I wanted to put all of these first! Tuesday and Wednesday morning were both stormy/rainy which made for some great HDR conditions. Here are some others from those two mornings:

It’s me 🙂

A couple of other non-hdr from Wednesday morning:

Who says turtles are slow!? This guy was moving quickly across the path

The sun was back out in full force on Thursday. I spent my entire lunch break there trying to capture a leaf in mid air falling from a tree. It took around 100 shots but I finally got this one:

Not exactly the composition I wanted but I am more than happy to settle for it! A very tough shot to get…

I went back Friday at lunch and just wanted to capture some fall color:

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 now 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 – 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

Thanks for looking!

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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:

Thanks for looking!

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This Week at the Lake – 19/52

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Hope you like the new look here! I’ve been wanting a wordpress template that would put my photos on an all black background and I’ve finally found it! I think it looks much better now….

Week 19 has come and gone. This week I visited Radnor Lake on Wednesday (noon), Thursday (noon) and Friday (early morning).

Wednesday I used my lunch break from work to go to the lake. Usually when I do this, I have to set an alarm on my phone to tell me when to head back to the car. Well, on Wednesday, I was walking around shooting, finding owls and deer, off in my own little world. I remember thinking to myself “seems like I’ve been here a while but I must have more time – my alarm hasn’t gone off yet!”. Shortly after, I suddenly realize the phone is not in my pocket! I headed for the car as quick as I could. Finally I got to the car, there was my phone buzzing away! I had been there for about an hour and fifteen minutes (would still take almost fifteen minutes to get back to the office)! Yikes! Luckily no one was looking for me and I didn’t really miss anything important, I don’t even think anyone noticed…

The skies were great that day so I wanted to get a good lake-scape
This is the same spot that I got the images from for Week 13 and Week 16

I then headed to where I normally see the owls and sure enough…
(I think he’s trying to hide from me 🙂 )

(These are all the same owl)

Also while standing there (waiting for my alarm to ring!) I saw this fawn and her mother cross the path

On Thursday I headed to the lake despite the HOT temperatures (and made sure I had my phone with me)
It was so hot I decided I was not going to walk far or stay long. I parked at the west entrance this time and headed up the lake trail. I didn’t go very far and I came across another owl – I had never seen one in this part of the park before

On Friday, I was able to go early in the morning – getting there just after 6am. I was walking along the lake trail and had made it quite a ways without getting many pictures. I saw lots of deer but nothing was coming out right for me. It was so dark this morning because of hazy/cloudy skies that almost everything I took was blurry. The shutter speeds were 1/20, 1/40 (even at 800 ISO).

I was walking along the path and I heard a bunch of birds being very noisy. There was a small tree nearby with a canopy of branches right on the side of the trail. I ducked under the branches and looked up – there was a Barred Owl that was no more that 10 feet away! I took a couple shots before he was spooked by some people walking.
This is only at 70mm – quality is not that great because it was very dark under the tree. 1/20 shutter speed at f2.8

He flew to a nearby branch where I got a couple more shots before he left

I then started back towards the car. On the way back I saw another Doe with a Fawn. I did everything I could to get a decent shot of these two but nothing seemed to go right. I followed/stalked for at least a quarter mile.

I then watched them emerge from some brush and there was a second fawn. I don’t think it belonged to this doe because she walked off with the other fawn and this one stayed. He came very close to me at one point.

He then wandered off and I headed to the car.

Thanks for looking!

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Cades Cove Round 1 – The Landscapes

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I had the pleasure of visiting Cades Cove, part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in East Tennessee, on Monday June 28.

I came back with over 300 photos! Tons of landscapes and so much wildlife. It was my first time visiting so I got all the “touristy” shots out of the way! It really was a beautiful place, I can’t wait to go again.

I have to give a big shout out to my flickr contact Anthony for the inspiration to visit this amazing place. His shots from Cades Cove and all around East Tennessee are so amazing.

Here is Round One – The Landscapes:

Stay tuned for Round Two – The Wildlife!

This Week at the Lake – 16/52

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A similar shot to start this week off as last week – but I really liked it!

My week at the lake started on Tuesday, I set the alarm clock for 4:45 am so I could make it before work. The problem I face with that is that it’s too dark to really get any wildlife photos. I was able to get the sun coming down Otter Creek Rd:

And then I tried to get a shot of the mist/fog rising on the lake with the sunrise:

Also that morning I met big time Ashville, NC wedding photographer Corey McNabb. He was on his way back from a wedding in Memphis and stopped to get some bird photos at Radnor. We looked for the owls but were not able to find them that morning. Check out his site, he’s got some great photos.

Next I went Thursday morning. Thursday was a great day to watch the owls but again, it was so dark because it was early I couldn’t get any good shots. I saw 3 younger owls and one adult. I watched one of the younger owls pretend to hunt in the creek bed, picking up sticks and tossing them aside, fun to watch!
Here is one decent shot of a younger owl:

Thursday is also when I got the top post, with the sun rising just over camera right.
Also got this bird photo that morning:

Since the owls were so active in the morning, I went back at lunch hoping to still see them. I only saw one then but he was too far away.
I’m not sure what type of bird this is but he was very cooperative, posing for me while I was looking for the owls:

I also spotted this doe and fawn:

On the way back to the car, I got this: