Goforth, Wildlife!

Sometimes a sign says it all, and sometimes it just says a little.  As I have mentioned quite a few times, photographers are forced to pay attention to their surroundings, and in particular I have been paying attention to graffiti and signs lately.  Even though the Tennessee River abounds with wildlife, I did pay a bit of attention to a few signs the last couple of weekends we were there.  I loved catching the spider’s web over the Wild in Wildlife in this street sign.

Plus, Goforth Wildlife is exactly what they do.  Mostly creatures scurry away from me, but the occasional one shows an interest, like this squirrel.  I added a bit of vignette (darkening around the edges)  to bring the viewer’s eye onto the squirrel.  

Here a bluebird actually pays me no attention, and allows me to get a few close-ups.    

Lo and behold, I get a sign AND a bluebird all in one in this one. 

There are a whole group of herons nesting in one tree on the island where the creek meets the river.  Since half of the tree is dead, one of the nests is in clear view.  This is the first time I have  seen a heron on a nest, because usually they are in leafy areas.  This one is entirely exposed.  Speaking of exposed, I should have turned down the exposure in this one.  I guess I forgot.    I also sometimes add just a tiny bit of vignette effect in my bird photos, and I especially needed it in this one because the picture was just overall too light.  

The heron looked really bored on that nest, and kept scratching itself and looking around.  I love the pose on this one.   The heron did not feel threatened because I was in a boat about twenty feet below her nest.  Believe me, you do not want to just happen upon a heron's nest while in the wild.

My attempts to do real street photography at the Tennessee River were somewhat thwarted by lack of subject matter.  I will keep trying to meet this challenge, however, and perhaps a cumulative total will eventually lead to a blog post at some point. 

There is sometimes value in getting up at dawn. Here is another in my series of Duck River Overlook photographs. I chose this one to illustrate “the rule of thirds.” Some people advocate using the rule of thirds in cropping photos, and landscapes in particular generally go well with this rule. In this case there is a lot going on in the foreground, so the horizon demarcates the top third of the photo, which is "clouds at dawn".. The bottom two thirds of the photo is the river, and this portion of the photo is split in two right where the boat’s wake makes the curve. In my opinion, it is the curve of the boat wake that makes this photo the most interesting Duck River Overlook photo of the two weekends.