people places n things
Early morning at Clove Lake
Coming off a stretch in which I worked 6 out of the last 7 days, and another stretch in which I worked 10 days in a row, trying to help complete a massive task that exhausted our entire team, I finally had some time off. Five wonderful days off in a row. And my favorite part of my days off, is to sleep late with no alarm to yank me out of bed unceremoniously at 4:00 in the morning. Then after breakfast taking a nice looong hot shower.
So what did this first morning of my vacation find me doing? It found me getting up at a quarter to six (no alarm was necessary, I was going to stay in bed until my body woke up and felt like getting out of bed) grabbing my equipment, packed from the night before, and since I showered just before going to bed last night, I was out of the door and soon was stepping off the bus in front of Clove Lake by a quarter past six.
I walked the length of the lake in the still quiet early morning air, then after scoping out the places I wanted to photograph in, I came back to this spot to take advantage of the fabulous early morning lighting to record this peaceful scene. On these type of mornings the sun hasn't had a chance to heat the air and stir the breezes. The leaves are still, the waters calm the early suns baths your scene in wonderful gentle light that fills in deep shadows and reveals details without the harshness of the high bright light that soon will follow the suns trek into it's customary spot high in our sky.
The utter lack of wind turns lakes into giant mirrors which creates perfect reflections that almost never happen once the sun is high in the sky. I have been coming back to this spot for 8 years now, ever since my first Sigma 18-50mm lens botched this lovely spring scene. It was a great lens at capturing macro shots and other scenes medium distances in. But shots from medium distances out to infinity were always soft and poorly detailed. I finally purchased Nikon's own 16-85mm zoom to replace it, and though it had no macro capabilities, and wasn't nearly as fast, gave me sharp results on every type of scene I put in front of it.
Once I determined how good this new Nikkor was I came back each year to try and recapture that same scene, however all the different elements that made that shot so special that spring morning in 08' have never been completely repeated since, until this very morning. Even today everything wasn't exactly the same, and I had to choose to stand at a different spot and record the scene differently. But it was close enough, and provided a fresh prospective to boot. Reaching into my bag for my trusty 16-85mm zoom I knew with calm certainty that this time the shot would come out perfectly.
