The Beginnings of Winter

It seems to me that every year at about this time, I begin a slump in all things photography related.  The beautiful color of Fall is past, the leaves mostly lie on the ground in various stages of brown.  The other vegetation is dying off and its color a faint memory.  When hiking around outside, the images no longer jump out at me.  Things get rather dull and boring.  My hope is that I can take it as a challenge and create strong images in the midst of all this decay.

As chance would have it, when lunchtime rolled around today, I needed a break from work and the computer.  I quickly packed a camera bag with some gear and off I went on the bike to the local trail.  I intended to only be gone around a half hour, but that normally is enough time to clear my head and have some fun.  Pedaling down the trail, I was stopped a few miles in where the trail goes under an overpass.  Constructions crews were doing work with a crane and wouldn’t let anyone under.  No bother, I’ll just backtrack to a small pond I passed.  It was here that all of these images were taken.  I decided to try for more detail oriented shots and even maybe some abstract, as I normally try and pull the entire landscape into a shot.

The above shots are of the pond itself, with this layer of green algae or something on top.  It looked as if everything in the water was being sucked underneath the green and there was no escape.  So far, this is exactly how I was feeling about the coming of Winter in general.

This final shot is the usual all encompassing picture that I would compose.  After hanging around for 20 minutes and just letting my mind wander, I had to pack the camera back up and pedal my way home to finish out the work day.