This is posted late, but things got busy over the holidays. TMost are images from various mornings at West Bank Park. One is from a hike at Sawnee Mountain, and the last one is the final sunset of 2023 at Warhill Park with the North Georgia Photography Club.
Not a lot of photography so far this month. I did get up to the lake for a nice sunrise, and did a couple of hikes with the Sonny Day Hikers.
The period after Thanksgiving into the first part of December was not a time for much photography. We got a few days of much-needed rain, and I had other obligations to handle. Still, I did get out a couple of times for very interesting mornings at Lake Lanier. The lake level is 8.4 feet below normal, so I could get to vantage points that are usually under a few to several feet of water. And there was some mist on the lake, so the images have some added interest.
This wasn’t the best of times for me, photographically speaking, but I did find some remaining fall color and some sunrises.
We traveled to Tims Ford State Park northwest of Chattanooga, TN for a couple days of hiking, eating and games. It was a great time, 22 folks attended, and I got a few pictures to boot. Happily, the fall color was still there, and while the mornings were chilly, the hiking was good. The food was excellent too. All in all a great time.
Folks from the photography clubs visited several spots in north Georgia seeking fall color or wtaerfalls or both. We haven’t had a lot of rain recently, so the water as not a good as in years past, but it was adequate. The color was maybe a little past peak, but that was more than adequate. Because this was on a weekend we were among thousands of leaf peepers clogging up the parking areas. But we persevered.
At Helton Creek Falls, in particular, the parking was far worse than I’ve ever seen it, and people were all over the pool below the upper falls. So I chose not to take any pictures of that falls. Instead, I went down below the lower falls and found some good reflections.
An assortment from a good sunrise, blooms in the yard and a hike at Hard Labor Creek State Park.
We drove to Raleigh to visit Cathy, Beth and their families, one of the few times Cathy has been able to come back to this part of the country. I tried some birding venues with little success. I did do better at Pullen Park and at Beth’s garden.
A few very nice sunrises late in the month, all at West Bank Park near Buford dam.
We drove to the Twin Cities for my sister’s birthday, and while there I took a couple mornings to watch and photograph the egrets, geese and ducks at the Wood Lake Nature Center. In addition to the very nice trail, there is a boardwalk across the middle of the swamp, and that affords a great place to observe and photograph (shoot) the birds. I used my 100-400 mm lens, but the egret heads a so small, the autofocus system had a hard time locking focus on them. And I was working without a tripod or other support. So I took many images, but not all of them worked out. And the light was changing rapidly as I shot. I started before the sun broke over the trees and stayed after it got up over the trees.