I skipped the gondola ride the last time I took students to Venice, but my students didn't. I was killing time while they took their ride, crossed one of hundreds of bridges and, low and behold, there they were! (They are in the 3rd gondola from the front.)
By Scott Shephard
The weather report suggested a "frost advisory" for this morning. As much has I dislike winter, I do like the early frosts that come to our back yard. This photo might suggest why. I love the contrast between the color of the foliage and the white frost crystals that rim it.
By Scott Shephard
. . . but I took a bunch of photos of this tree before I got kicked out of the courtyard I mentioned in yesterday's post. This photo is a variation on yesterday's theme.
By Scott Shephard
Shortly after I took this photo in a courtyard of a downtown Seattle building, a security guard came over to tell me that I couldn't take photos of the building, the courtyard or trees in the courtyard. I left baffled. Security issues? Copyright issues? Who knows. I wonder what Mother Nature would say about this?
By Scott Shephard
You are looking at some of the most valuable "farm land" in the world. And interestingly, the land behind me (on the other side of the road I am standing on) is even more valuable. This photo was taken a few miles from Beaune, France.
My wife and I had taken the train from Dijon to spend the day in Beaune but when we got off the train, we saw a bicycle rental shop and decided to bike around wine country instead. Though it rained, it was a great day. However, wine country is hilly and a the ride was a little more strenuous than we had bargained for.
This is the same grove as the previous photo of aspens but a different view and treatment.
By Scott Shephard
I don't hunt and fish but to me photography is occasionally like both of these enterprises. When I gear up in the morning, as I did the morning I took this photo, I never know what I'm going to "catch."
In this case I was wandering around Center Lake in the Black Hills and found this fisherman just as the sun was poking through the trees behind him. The light does a brilliant job of rimming the fisherman and of bringing the reeds along the shore to vibrant life. I was in the right place at the right time! There is no limit to the quantity of photos you can catch, but I feel lucky if I get one good one per outing. And I never talk about the one that got away.
By Scott Shephard
For the last several years, Deb and I have taken a trip to the Black Hills in mid October. This photo was taken several years ago on an outing to Deerfield, which is 30 miles or so west of our cabin.
This photo is a little jumbled - what do you look at? Interestly, my eye is drawn to the one, dominant focal point, which is the triangle of grass that leads to the center of the photo. But then, when my eye follows the triangle to the center, there's nothing special to look at. I'm reading Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" right now and I'm thinking that there may be a hidden Masonic code in this picture. In fact, there may be hidden codes in all of my photos in "A Photo A Day."
By Scott Shephard
Sometimes a photographer has to go where he/she isn't supposed to. In this case, I wouldn't have gotten the photo if I had taken my place in their formation. Fortunately, I was mostly hidden since we are facing the audience here. This photo was taken during the 2008 WHS homecoming game.
This photo was taken in a small village named Vrboska in Croatia. But I could easily be somewhere in Italy or Greece, where I have observed the same fashion for older women. I don't know why they wear black, unless it has something to do with the tradition of mourners donning black. Perhaps women such as this one who wear black are widows?
By Scott Shephard
I like what Nature has done to the man-made lines in this sidewalk at a public building in Olympia, Washington.
By Scott Shephard
Flowers again. This is post #200 and I'm starting to repeat myself. I should have called this blog "A Picture Every Other Day." :-)