I drove to Sosebee Cove hoping to find wildflowers in bloom. I did find some, but the best is still a week or two off. The only things I could identify are one trillium, trout lily and fiddlehead ferns. The others I do not know.
A variety of images. The first is a nice sunrise with my granddaughter. Second is sunrise the next day, this time by myself. Third is from a walk in the greenway with my daughter and granddaughter. Lastly we have images from a hike at Don Carter State Park with the Sonny Day Hikers.
Images from three different outings. First is a set from a foggy morning at West Bank Park just after sunrise. Not a lot to shoot, and it was black and white even in color. So you get mostly silhouettes. The next set is from a hike with the Hearthstone Hikers on the Kolb Farm Loop trail in the south end of the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. I was hoping for wildflowers in bloom, but only the buckeyes were blooming. And when i got home from the hike, I went next door and captured some images of the dogwood tree in bloom
The North Georgia Photography Club did a field trip to the gardens in early April to catch the daffodil bloom and whatever else we could find. I went past the gazebo, stopping for a couple of exposures, up the hill of daffodils to the manor house gardens. From there I went down the hill through the Inspiration Garden ( a newly opened piece of the gardens) to the Japanese Garden. The it was time to meet the group for lunch, so that’s what I did (a turkey-swiss wrap). As we ate, the clouds rolled in and the wind felt a good deal cooler. So I came home.
I took all the gear I have, and I used it all. Everything from 16 mm (24 mm full-frame equivalent field of view) to 400 mm (600 mm field of view), and my macro lens also. It was fun to talk to others to get a different perspective on what to photograph and how to do it.
I’ll go back there this summer when the waterlilies bloom to shoot the blooms and the bugs (dragonfliies, damselflies, moths, butterflies, etc) that hang out around those ponds. The daylilies ought to be in bloom then also, if I time it right. And then again in the fall when the wildflowers bloom.
Wandered around the common areas near the subdivision entrance on a clear spring morning. The cherry tree was past peak, but some blooms were still good images. On the hill, the bluets were blooming and had not been destroyed by the landscapers. And, lastly, the birds were out and about.
I used both my 85 mm macro lens and my 100-400 mm telephoto lens for the flower pictures. That long lens does good closeups if you stand back a bit. And it is awesome for birding.
The picture of the cardinal taken from directly below was taken the previous afternoon on a walk along the Big Creek greenway south of Bethelview Road.
Some of us from the North Georgia Photography Club visited the trail one chilly windy morning in March. The conditions were not ideal for photography, but the area was lush and colorful. Many Virginia bluebells at the start of the boardwalk, and many more blooms all the way down to the waterfall at the end of the ravine. I took all my gear, and I used almost every piece of it. Access for most of the area is restricted to the boardwalk, so a long telephoto lens is needed to get reasonably close pictures of the flowers. But some blooms are so close to the boardwalk or trail that the macro lens or wide angle lens is required. And everything in between. I ended up using a higher ISO setting than normal in order to use a sufficiently fast shutter speed to freeze the blowing blooms. All in all, a fun, interesting, challenging couple of hours.
A couple more excellent sunrise opportunities arose in the middle of the month, so I took those opportunities. On each day I got the sunrise and some other stuff on my walk around the park.
One day there happened to be numerous birds hanging around the yard, probably due to the neighbor’s recently filled feeder. So I stood in the kitchen window and took many pictures. Here I show the few that came out really well. I tried using my tripod, and then my monopod, but neither one allowed me to move as I needed to move. So I shot handheld.
Other images from early March. The next post is five sunrise images in the same period. As with the following post, all these were taken at West Bank Park on Lake Lanier. I often go there to watch the sunrise, but this month I have had many more opportunities than usual. But when I go to watch a sunrise, I also walk around afterward to see what else there may be that is interesting. So this is a mixed bag of some sunrise shots and some other stuff.
A set of five sunrise images, each on a different day in early March, five of the first eight days of the month. All were taken at West Bank Park near Buford Dam on Lake Sydney Lanier northeast of Atlanta, Georgia.