Fairview Reservoir, October 2014

I joined forces with a couple of other neighborhood photographers -- Robert Cannady and Andy Marquez -- to plan a little walk around our pond for anyone who wanted to come out for a little photo instruction. Afternoon rains unfortunately ended up causing most folks to cancel, but a couple of diehards did come out.

The rain stopped, and while the conditions still weren't necessarily what most people would consider to be ideal for taking pictures we tried to demonstrate that there was still beauty to be found.

The rain and some earlier winds had knocked a lot of leaves off the trees.  Piled up on the ground, they created appealing patterns.

The sky was still thick with clouds, which provided interesting textures.  And the winds were calm, allowing for reflections of the trees along the shore.

We discussed how it can be tricky to compose shots without distracting elements like houses in them.  But with the right angles and perspectives, it's possible to make the area feel more like a remote alpine lake.

The absence of wind enabled us to also capture nice reflections of the textures from the clouds in the water.

Back in November 2012 we had a ton of Canada Geese at the pond.  This year, none yet.  Just a few ducks, who stayed close enough to shoot on the chance that we had food for them.

I wish I'd gotten this male Mallard's eye a little sharper.  But I still like his colors and the ripples from his wake -- enough to break the guideline of having your subject appear to be moving into the image rather than out of it.

Another shot that breaks guidelines, both because there's more room behind the subjects than in front of them and you can't see their faces.  This was around the time the pair of domestic hybrid ducks that have been residents of our pond for a couple of years now realized that we in fact did not have food.

The clouds to the west stayed too thick to get any sort of view of the sunset. But they broke up enough to the south to provide a little color to go with the textures.

Like I said, I understand that the conditions weren't optimal.  But often you don't get the choice to wait out gloomy skies or come back another time, like when you're on a guided tour.  In those situations, you need to know how to make the most out of you have to work with.  Hopefully the couple of folks who made it for our little workshop learned a bit about how to do that!