This past Sunday I went with my mother-in-law, Robin, to a local State Park to take some nature photos. The lighting was perfect on the way to her house, terrible while we were at the park and then perfect again on the way home. It was good practice though. She wanted to know how to use the triangle of exposure so it was perfect for that. These are just a sampling of what I took that day.

Truthfully I’m really wanting to see how hers turned out. Looking at the little 3 inch screen on the camera  doesn’t always tell alot.

These are in chronological order.

This first one was shot at a duck pond not far from my house. The lighting was perfect and I was looking forward to getting to the park but first I had to stop and take a couple photos.

Usually by the time I get to the duck pond with my camera the plants don’t look near this good so I took advantage of my good fortune.

I’m not usually a sucker for the horizon photos but I couldn’t pass this one up. The clouds in the background and a cloud shadow on the hill made this perfect.

 The sun decided to play peeka boo just as we were really needing it under all the tree cover.

This was taken just a couple of seconds later after the sun decided to come out for a moment.

Amazing what a difference just a little bit more light makes.

I’m a sucker for trees and this one caught my eye with all these little leaves coming off the side.

I can’t wait to retake this photo. Next time I’m going to take my tripod and use a longer shutter speed to capture the water moving.

This would be why the park is called Ledges.

Just a cute little lady bug my mother-in-law spotted.

We went forever up this path and stopped where the rails ended. After going that far up I had no desire to go even further. After all we still had to go down all these little uneven steps.

Just a charming little abandoned building.

I stopped at the duck pond again on the way back home. I hadn’t noticed these little flowers on the first visit. I’m really glad I didn’t miss them on my second visit.

All in all I think it was a productive day. It is so nice to be able to escape for awhile and unwind.