In the garden of the daylilies

 

Happy 4th

These photos were taken at the Olentangy Summer Blast, a local high school annual event.  I’ve learned a couple of other things from photographing fireworks at the OSB (see my tip post here)  firework displays are erratic.  You never know how high, low, wide or what shape a blast will be.  It helps to have a vantage point that will allow you to capture the entirety of the exploding rockets if at all possible.  In my case, I had nowhere to back up to in order to get a better spot to capture a wider range of the fireworks without being on someones private property… and they had warning tape stretched across their yard.

Have a happy 4th of July and be considerate of pets and people that don’t take well to fireworks.

The Sunrise, The Moon and The Lifeguard Hut

Once past the hotel swimming pool and onto the beach, there was more to behold as the moon slowly said farewell to us and to the rising sun.

Daydream Shrub Rose

But in your dreams whatever they be
Dream a little dream of ……

The Sunrise, The Moon, The Palms and The Pool – Color Version

Sometimes you just have to stop and capture that moment in time for it will never exist again.  Yes, I know that there will be other sunrises and moons etc. over this swimming pool but there will never be an exact moment like this again.

 

The Sunrise, The Moon, The Palms and The Pool

One day we actually set our alarm to wake up in time for sunrise on the beach.  We had to walk past the hotel pool in order to get to the path to the beach when I saw this and knew I had to capture this wonderful moment.  It was the best sunrise of our stay as the other days the sky wasn’t as alive.  This is an example of high ISO when you are shooting hand held in a low light situation.  The ISO for this shot is 5K and while in the past this would’ve made one horribly noise filled image, today’s modern cameras can handle this and higher without too much damage to the image.  Some people even like a certain amount of noise in their images for that old film effect.  Plus, there are so many noise reduction programs and other ways to reduce noise in Photoshop and Lightroom.  What was important to me was capturing this oh so brief moment in time no matter what the ISO was.

It and the rest of the shots we took that morning were worth getting up at 5:30 in the morning on our vacation.  I will share the color version with you tomorrow.

Shot details:

F3.5 – ISO 5000 – 1/40 – 35mm – Canon 5D MarkIII

 

 

The ocean…

I grew up around rivers and lakes which while nice never enthralled me.  When I finally saw an ocean I was overcome with the beauty and enormity of it all.  Staring off into the horizon where the sky kisses the water;  that was and still is a beautiful scene to me.  As much as I love swimming and splashing in the ocean, I can be quite content just sitting there listening to the sounds of the waves; sunrise before the masses descend upon the sand is the best.  Of course when it’s a crowded beach there are a lot of sounds that do not fall under the header of ‘peaceful’ but such is humanity and a beach on a warm sunny day.

So whenever I can, I try to visit an ocean and feel renewed.  Plus fresh seafood is definitely a major bonus.  Cannot beat that!