Work was in a bit of a craze this past week or so. Also, I’m trying to finish a woodworking project; I let the blog slip last week. However, I’m getting back around to it as things slow down for the end-of-year lull and I’m very excited to continue documenting my travels from October. As mentioned, I would supply content from coast to coast and this week I will finally deliver!
After trekking around California (beginning in Monterey) I flew to Virginia Beach for a week of work. The seafood was wonderful and the sights were gorgeous. I could further rail on the Southern Arizona climate, lack of vegetation, drab scenery, and so on, again this week, comparing it to Virginia Beach but I shouldn’t. Tucson already has it bad enough as it is. Virginia Beach, with its Cyprus Trees, beaches, and wildlife, is wonderful even without Tucson as a comparison. I planned my travel such that I could arrive early in case of travel delays. Fortunately, I arrived on time shortly after lunch and had the afternoon to kill before meetings the following day. I had planned on driving down to the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. It was about an hour away and may have given me some great opportunities for photos but as the plane flew over it on our approach into Norfolk, I began having doubts. After landing a coworker and I decided to go to the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge instead. It was closer to our hotel and on the beach.
Back Bay is south of Virginia Beach. It’s about a thirty-minute drive that feels like any other beach town with condos on stilts and sand creeping into the street. It was a quiet drive in mid-October. Arriving at the preserve we found a couple of trails along the bay. In the photo above I tried to capture the motion (ironic) of the scene. The reeds are bent over in the wind, the water is moving, and a careful observer can see a bit of blur in the foreground. It’s significantly cropped - I could have done better there. It’s also a bit busy with the foreground. Perhaps this would’ve been better if the foliage were thinned out by about 50% but I liked the shot with the breakwater in the background.
As we strolled along we found a short dock leading to a swampy lookout over Back Bay. About ten feet from the lookout, and water moccasin was looking in! It was a perfect moment for my new lens. The challenge, for this photo, was getting the focus right. I thought I remembered using manual focus with focus peaking. In reviewing the photo on the computer I see that the dead plant is more in focus than the snake’s nose or eyes so perhaps I misremembered that. It would’ve been nice to get that right. I could, and maybe should, crop this photo but I’m leaving it as-is for this post. I like how much framing is going on here. Between the dead thing above the snake, the out-of-focus branch on the left, and the dead stick across the bottom, the snake is framed up from all sides.
As we were walking along I realized the reeds were a reasonable candidate for some intentional camera movement. My friend, Jim, is really into ICM. I figured I’d give it a go to see what all the rave is about. Much to my surprise, I found it fun. The little flicking motion was entertaining to try and get right. There’s not too much to say about ICM photos. Perhaps if I do more of them I’ll find some different or interesting techniques to try.
I almost love this photo but I don’t think it quite works. The light is hitting the branches pretty harshly and I had to back off the exposure on the reflection some. I like the growth right along the water but I can’t figure out exactly what about this photo keeps it from being as nice as I’d like it to. The branches are a bit blurred which is really bad given the exposure time. I’m not sure what happened there but that could certainly be better. I think this would’ve been a better photo if the water were more calm. A more clear reflection might have been an interesting effect. I think that’s probably what I was going for anyway.
We briefly made our way down to the beach on the east side of the preserve. This little crab was running along the path. Crabs are so funny to me - how they run sideways. He stopped a couple of times for me to take a photo. I like how he is backlit while the sand behind him is not. The texture in the sand gives a bit of interest to the photo as well.
As we were walking back to the car we saw a heron having an evening meal. It’s fun to watch animals in the wild especially when they’re eating. This heron was picking up the fish, I presumed, he had just caught and was about to scarf it down. I took a few photos to document the event. However, upon loading them once I got home, I saw that the heron had, in fact, stabbed the fish with his beak. You can see the beak come out on the other side of the fish! So instead of witnessing the heron pick up his meal, I watched him impale it and swallow it whole. It’s quite amazing and a bit disturbing how large this fish was in comparison to his conquerer’s neck.
Thanks for reading. I’ve got one more post of photos from Virginia Beach and then I’ll have to find some new content. If you want to get emails with new photos, please subscribe below!