Wednesday, June 30, 2010

(Day 181) A quiet waterfront view

Just a few miles north of us, along the road to Merrickville, there is a small body of water. It looks to me that it might be an abandoned gravel pit or former quarry. Whatever it used to be, it's been recovered by nature, and is home to beaver (yes, I saw one but had no opportunity to 'shoot' it), a variety of birds, and swarms of mosquitoes. I had intended to go there at some point today, and realized towards twilight that I had better hurry if I was to use the remaining light.

The grass surrounding it is of olympic proportions, and is undoubtedly on steroids - I was eyeball to eyeball with it as I made my way from the road to the water's edge. There I was greeted by another type of grassy plant (reeds ?) that towered over me. The beauty of all this was that I was completely out of view from the road, and in my own little world (well, shared with about 8 million mosquitoes!). I spent a very nice, quiet hour there - save for the regular sound of slapping to send deserving mosquitoes to the happy land.

(60mm  f8  1/2 sec  ISO200)















(18-55mm  f22  1/2 sec  ISO200)

21 comments:

My name is Riet said...

Mooie foto's Rick. Ja de natuur neemt het soms over.
FiJne dag!

imac said...

"Swat" what a beautiful "swat" place Rick "swat".lol

Scott Law said...

Again and again you do it. What an eye!

Ruth's Photo Blog said...

Places like this almost have a magical quality.The tall grasses create such a beautiful scene.Now if only one could get rid of those pesky little skeeters.I really like the B + W look.
BLessings,Ruth

S. Etole said...

The clouds seem to be sitting on the trees ... beautiful.

Unknown said...

The second Photo is beautiful :-)

Can you post it in color too?

Greetz,

Joseph

Rick said...

@Riet - dank u wel Riet. 't is een prachtige plek, ook al zijn er zo veel muggen tegenwoordig. Fijn weekend.

Rick said...

@imac - ha ha - that's exactly what it sounded like :-) Thanks mac!

Rick said...

@Scott - thank you Scott.

Rick said...

@Ruth's Photo Blog - thank you Ruth. The twilight removed a lot of colour already (and brought on those skeeters!) so I opted for b&w - worked better for contrast.

Rick said...

@S. Etole - thank you Susan; yes they do appear that way - at rest, like everything else there, except the mosquitoes!

Rick said...

@CarreraCaballo - thanks Joseph; I only shot it in monochrome - it was starting to get dark.

darlin said...

Amazing photos once again Rick, I'm going to copy and paste my comments, I NEVER have yet seen any of your photos which I don't admire and find inspiration in. I'm glad to see that you're now adding your signature to your photos, they're that good that someone might try to claim them. Unfortunately there's people like that in this world but it's reality. You didn't used to sign them did you and I missed that part? I'm chuckling to myself, I am observant but now am questioning myself!

Oh and that Off cream, lotion or whatever it's called works fantastic. I bought some and now use it all the time out here at the farm, no more bites and I love it!

Katherine said...

Rick you are becoming quite the professional. I love these photos. I just had a vision of you with your camera around your neck & doing the mozzie slap dance... and still you manage to produce beautiful photos such as these. You really do travel into dangerous territory for your art, don't you? Monster beavers, mozzie infested swamplands, treacherous treks to train tracks in hard to get to places, gigantic pond dwelling frogs and lets not forget the creepy bugs with bugletts. Love it! You keep it interesting and fun Mr Rick! Have a great weekend!

Rick said...

@darlin - thank you *blush again*. Don't question yourself - I only just started adding a watermark to the photos I post; I found some free watermarking s/w on the web and played around with it a bit - just in case.

About the cream - thanks. I have a little bottle of 'stuff' (apparently used by the US military) but I forgot to take it - I paid the price!

Enjoy your weekend.

Rick said...

@Katherine - LOL - your summary of some of my 'treks' is quite funny :-) The 'mozzie slap dance' visual cracks me up! Thanks for your kind (and funny) words Katherine! I don't think I've had my imagination stretched quite this far before I decided on this 365 project.

Enjoy your weekend - hope you make it out to get some photos.

Jeanne Frances Klaver said...

Beautiful in B&W. The reflections in both photos pop-out!

Rick said...

@Jeanne Klaver - I'm trying to experiment a little more with b&w - I like some of the effects it gives esp. when there is sufficient contrast.

Unknown said...

Most excellent Rick! I love the richness and clarity in the second shot. magnifico!

LOL@the deserving mosquitos. Seems to me we have a few of those here as well, this time of year. Today we have gale force winds though so it's probably a good time to go swamping. ;o)

Rick said...

@Krista - thank you.

Each one I clobbered deserved their fate richly! Have you ever noticed that we smack them with a force that's in inverse proportion to the force needed to actually dispatch them ? I think it's called the satisfaction factor!

Hope your gale dispatched a lot of them too!

Unknown said...

Oh not me... I mount those babies and leave them there (usually on the car windows) as a warning to their brethren. LOL!