A walk on the Boardwalk

About a week ago, my wife and I finally got around to taking a walk on the Boardwalk in the neighboring town of Chesapeake Beach.  This relatively new boardwalk follows a saltwater creek into a salt marsh. It was a nice day, so I grabbed my camera and off we went.

Nothing too eventful - just a lot of opportunities to take pictures.  I did find a couple of things that were, I believe, helpful in my development as a photographer.  Taking a lot of photos of everyday life will usually result in a photo or 2 that are really nice.  Next time out I want to try some more shots of crabs in the water using my polarizing filter, but I forgot it this time.

Probably the thing I came away with most was the opportunity to practice taking shots of moving birds.  It's not an inherently easy thing to do, but when there are a lot of seagulls around, you get a LOT of practice.  I'll continue practicing on the seagulls to ensure that , when the opportunity presents itself for a great heron / osprey / bald eagle photo, I'll be ready and comfortable in the setting.

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the walk

             Crab boats

        This crab was chowing down on something on this buoy - seaweed maybe?

                 This is why I need to remember to bring along the polarizing filter

                                                          Osprey in flight

                   This is what I love about taking a ton of digital photos.  Every once and a while you get one that is, well - perfect!

         Trying to freeze the seagulls in mid-flight.  It's harder than it looks - at least for me.

           Even though this one isn't in perfect focus, I like the reflection in the water

       Another one that, to me, turned out really nice.


Thanks for looking!

Joe

A few more photos

A few more photos on this quick post.  Going out of town for a week for business.  I'll post more over the weekend.

        I erase a LOT more bad hummingbird photos than few acceptable ones I keep!

       The big gross bug I photographed earlier in the year.  This time eating a moth or butterfly

Butterflies and bugs

Man, I am really liking this photo thing.  Probably to the point of really starting to irritate my wife.  Like most things I do, I'll jump into this with both feet, and pretty soon I'll get the "eye-roll" when I pull out the camera again to take another (100th?  500th?) picture of a cool butterfly.  Oh well.

This week I have a few butterfly pics and 2 (what I think are ) really cool bug pics.  As always - click on the photos to enlarge them and see their detail.

Thanks for stopping by.

Oh yeah - we just got back from vacation.  While away we went to a very cool Conservatory/ Arboretum which happened to have a Butterfly exhibit filled with the coolest butterflies I've ever seen.  All just flying around next to you in the enclosure.   Needless to say, my camera got a workout.  I'll post those on the next few posts, but I think I took around 200 photos in the Butterfly exhibit.

     This photo is not a special one, but I love the coloration of the calibrachoa flowers

   
         A nice photo of an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

            Playing around with some color over saturation
       

          I love these Hummingbird Moths!

         Praying Mantis' are always fun to photograph

       Not sure what this is, but it's big and looks like it would hurt if it bites!

Fishing in Minnesota, and a few more photos

That's right - actual fishing.  A rare occurrence these days in my life.  I had to go to Minneapolis/ St. Paul area for business and had all morning before leaving for the next flight. My rep and I decided we'd try to get out in the morning for a few hours with a local guide.  Ken did the arranging, and he did it well!  Our guide on Lake Minnetonka was Shane Raveling.  Shane and Dean Capra have, over the years, teamed up to win just about every noteworthy tournament in the upper Midwest.  So, I knew we were in the hands of a guy who knows the lake and knows how to fish.

I just didn't realize we'd have so much fun!  Shane was a blast to fish with!  He knew the water intimately, and showed us the pattern to use to catch fish.  It has been a couple years since I actually fished for Largemouth, but it came back to me pretty quickly.  We used a technique that I believe was developed on Minnetonka - fishing a Senko on a jig head with an exposed hook in 10-15' deep weed beds.  The idea is that the fish either hit on the drop, or when you RIP the worm free from the wed and it falls back.  It took some getting used to, but I ended up boating about 9-10 largemouth over the morning.  Shane was fishing to try to locate fish and establish a pattern, which he did.  He also caught a 5 pound LM - beautiful fish for MN.  He got a few pike, too.

Great day, great fun.

 Here are the couple of pictures I took.

So - there you have it - I have NOT forgotten how to fish!!

But I'm still pretty enamored with the camera thing.  Here's a few more for your viewing pleasure