A busy travel schedule kept me away from home and from pursuing my passion lately. But any time I come back from a trip, I can’t wait to get down to the Mississippi River and maybe find some interesting light or a good subject to photograph. The river is always good for a surprise and it is never the same twice. Look at this image and compare it with the photo in my last blog post from exactly a week ago. It is the same spot on the dyke at Mud Lake Park and both days a thunderstorm moved in. It is even shot with the same lens, the gorgeous Nikkor 16-35 mm/ f4 VR.
Today I climbed down the rocky slope of the levee to get closer to the water and make the round leaves of the water lilies my foreground. The tripod was left home but there wasn’t much time anyway to set up, because shortly after it started to rain heavily. The click was made with 22 mm, 1/20s, f/8, and ISO 640 dialed in, and thanks to vibration reduction in the lens I was able to handhold the camera. I usually don’t like such high ISO settings for landscape photography (noise reduction = loss of detail) but today it was the only way to get this shot halfway sharp.