Getting Away - Watching Blue Birds - A Day at the Pond - A Day Fishing

I had a rather disappointing and discouraging week at work last week.  Everything is fine really, nothing bad happened, but sometimes circumstances and events pile up to where I have to say to myself...'I've had enough'...so I tacked on a couple days of vacation to the weekend for some rest and recovery.

On Thursday Kris and I spent a good part of the day first sitting in the swing under the shade tree in the backyard listening to and watching all the song birds. By mid morning we headed out to the pond a few hundred yards behind our house.

We carried a couple of folding chairs, my camera, and found a shade to sit in.  For the most part we just sat there and talked...took a few photos...talked some more, and enjoyed the the morning and later the cooling effects of an afternoon breeze.

I had fun watching her get excited about taking some photo's...looking for interesting things to zoom in close to like the Lady Bug crawling on  Buttercups, one of the days favorites, and finding parts of the pond that would tell the story of that day.  Too often we hurry about looking for stuff and never see really it in our rush to find it, when by simply sitting and slowing down, the good things tend to come to us instead. That's what happened that day...ordinary things suddenly became interesting subjects to observe and photograph.

We shared the camera...I took a few...but she did most of the picture taking and did a pretty good job of it.  The day at the pond was split into two sessions...the morning, and then again that afternoon for a couple of hours.  Between the two we grabbed a bite to eat and stopped over at Romanza Johnson Park and enjoyed the flowing waters of Trammel Creek.  It was a good relaxing day.

On Friday, I loaded up the canoe, fishing gear, and packed a lunch, then headed over to Shanty Hollow Lake about a 30 minute drive north of Bowling Green.  It's a great little lake perfect for canoe fishing, but alas, the fishing turned out rather slow.  You know, I really didn't care...I just enjoyed getting out.


I spent most of the day there soaking up some sun, and exercising my canoeing and casting muscles.  I didn't even take the camera as I just wanted to unwind and not worry about anything interfering with that endeavor.

Although I enjoy photography and it has become a larger part of my life in recent years, I often feel like I've lost a part of my identity as the traditional activities like fishing and canoeing and even spending a day at a pond have succumb to the trials of making a living far more than I ever envisioned.  I realize circumstances change, our lives evolve as we get older, and often we allow complacency to fill the gaps that develop.  I suppose taking a couple of days to spend a day at a place like the pond, or to revisit those older passions, become more important the older you get.  I'm certainly grateful for having had the opportunity to do so.

Keith

Kentucky Morning

A photographer longs for moments like the one that came to life above the Kentucky landscape on that day.  Too much time had filtered away since I last witnessed a morning like this one.  I suppose I needed to witness that exhibition of light as much as I've needed anything in recent years.  Hunting, fishing, canoeing...all historically important  elements in my life were fundamentally nonexistent that year, save for a few random outings.  Although I managed from time to time to break away from my doldrums with camera in hand, nothing of consequence resulted.  It had been a rather dry spell activity wise...what I needed was that one special day, that one defining moment where time, place, and light converged to create an extraordinary exhibit of radiance.

On a mid October dawn, the rustic natural beauty that is Kentucky displayed herself in front of my lens, and for a brief magnificent moment, I was granted the opportunity to witness part of creations most wonderful choreography.

A month before the hot dry remnant of the end of summer still permeated the region.  While driving the back roads of Barren County not far from my home, I turned down a narrow crumbling old road that eventually narrowed to a dead end at the top of a shallow rise.  I stopped for a while and meandered along the road simply enjoying being out and taking in the scenery, breathing the country air.  Falling away from the road to the south lay a quaint little farm with a cornfield growing in the bottoms separated from the rest of the land by a split of trees and a series of rolling pastures.  Cattle bellowed and song birds flittered here and there.  Beyond the cornfield stood a wooded strip backed by a sharply rising ridge.  Between the line of woods and the ridge ran Barren River.

Something spoke to me that day, bidding a return visit when the conditions were right...perhaps in another month as the fall colors started to appear.

That month passed...fall was stirring and the colors of the season were just beginning to adorn the hills.  I rose well before daylight one crisp Saturday morning and arrived at the top of the rise a few minutes before sunup.  The sky was already aglow and the sounds of country living were adding their music to the morning symphony.  A light fog drifted across the valley and hovered lightly above the now partially harvested cornfield.  The morning progressed rapidly toward daylight and I struggled to keep up...shooting photos in rapid succession needing to be in three places at once.  I rushed further up the rise and noticed how the first beams of the morning sun were just beginning to touch the tops of that spit of trees that separated the two fields.

Time passes quickly at first light, and I knew something special was about to happen, so I quickly setup my tripod and camera...checked the exposure...framed the shot...and waited for that defining moment I knew was sure to come.

As the sun climbed higher and peaked over the ridge to the east, a beam of light broke through and cast a radiance that burst into a flame of color as it was captured by the front edge of the trees.  The fog that drifted below began to lightly glow...I almost missed the moment as it lasted but a few seconds...but when I released the shutter, I knew that one of natures most cherished gifts...a brilliant new dawn...a new Kentucky Morning...was mine.