I was in meetings most of the week in Virginia Beach. The crowds were scarce due to the chillier weather and it was relatively quiet. Some evenings I spent time with coworkers but others I got away to take photos. Before going, I found First Landing State Park online and decided I would try and go. It’s a large park and has plenty to photograph. The first day I went, I drove through the south entrance. It’s at the end of a culdesac which made me think I was in the wrong place for a minute. I had such a wonderful time that I went back later in the week to the northern entrance to explore the more swampy areas, which proved more enjoyable.
One quick note: I’ve been futzing with my display settings to get things to look a bit better when printing or exporting. Please let me know if these look abnormal on your screen!
The light seemed to hit this moss in a way that spoke to me. I like that the more you look, the more moss you see. Generally, I’m just a sucker for moss. If I touch it, it doesn’t even feel real. The fact that it’s alive and growing is astounding to me. I like how the lower limb here has smaller pieces that will eventually grow into the focus of this photo, the larger strand. I think this photo may be a bit busy with the texture of the leaves.
The park had various bridges above all the swampy mud. This photo was taken from one of them. In looking at this photo during this writing, it’s very green. I’m not sure if I like that or not. The front and center cypress tree would’ve been nice to highlight more, somehow. I tried some closer-up shots on the base of the trunk but they were so bad that they got immediately deleted from my camera. Had I been able to get lower down to the ground, I may have liked them more.
I tried a bit more intentional camera movement here. This one turned out much different than the one I took at Back Bay. It’s got much more contrast and the reeds seem to continue vs disappearing into the sky. Again – not much to say about the ICM photos. They’re fun…
I must admit that I’m not sure, exactly, what the subject of this photo is. Probably the cypress tree in the middle but the moss all over with the hint of fall colors in the back was nice. I wish I had zoomed in on that part of the scene a little more closely. This photo isn’t nearly as good as I had thought it would be in the moment. I’m still learning these things. It was quite dark under the trees and exposure time was long. I had to be very still because I was on a wooden walkway that was easy to shake. It took a few shots to get this one.
The northern part of the park has a trail that runs along the bay to the west. I rounded a corner and was met with this scene. Hopefully, I’m getting better at recognizing these situations; Immediately, I pulled out the 20mm to capture this lovely moss and went for the sunstar. The pixels on the right are blown out, now that I look at it. That’s too bad. Maybe this would’ve benefited from some exposure stacking but I didn’t think about it in the moment.
As it was getting dark, I spotted this heron. I don’t think I had a flashlight with me and I knew that if I stopped and took pictures of it, it would be very dark for the rest of the hike back to my car. I’m not too scared of the dark so I stayed! The heron was trying to eat. This photo shows a bit of movement on top of the water from the fish swimming below. Every once in a while, this bird would shift slightly as if it were prepping to strike. However, it never did and I finally gave up on the action photo. I really do like this picture but it’s almost hard to look at the heron’s head for too long. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps the contrast is too high…? I wish I had gotten a couple of photos from a lower angle just to see how they looked. I couldn’t get much higher without moving significantly behind it thus making a bad angle for a photo.
The cover photo is from the northern part of the park. The stump was just out there all on its lonesome begging for a photo – so I gave it one. Thanks for reading. Christmas is over now and my big house project is nearly complete. Hopefully, I’ll have time to get out and take more photos soon. If you’d like to subscribe to my little blog, please type in your email in the box below!