And The Camera Stayed Dry

Just a Peek of Yellow, originally uploaded by Nadia McIlhany.

I had planned to shoot the sunflowers over at McKee-Beshers WMA in Poolesville, MD. But they weren't ready yet. Seems that a wet spring delayed planting and the flowers were not up yet. This, of course, messed with local camera club field trips - as well as my own planned trip. Well, instead of taking the opportunity to sleep in on Sunday morning, I changed my plans and joined local photo clubs and the Washington Photo Meetup Group at the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in northeast Washington, D.C. My last trip to these gardens 2 years ago was not so good. That was the trip when my camera decided that it wanted to go swimming. Unfortunately, cameras can't swim. At least it is not one of the Nikon D200's advertised (or unadvertised) features.


I decided that I would try the gardens again and met one of my newest photo friends, Dorine, at the gardens at 7:00 a.m. - and we were late. Luckily my Nikon D300 (the D200's replacement) knew its limits and didn't even try to swim. Yay!!!


The lotus were all overrunning the ponds. I was looking for that shot where you look down into the top of the flower and get the yellow pod and the beautiful pink petals. However, I think that I was about 2 weeks too late for THAT shot. The lotus plants were all very tall - standing anywhere from 2-4 feet (maybe more) up from the surface of the ponds. I could barely see the tops of the flowers, let alone get into a place where I could shoot down at them. I've put an earlier date on my 2010 calendar for next year's shooting.


As one of my mentors John Barclay says ... you need to shoot what you find ... so I did.


Click on the image in this post and you will be wisked away to my Flickr Photostream where more shots from the morning reside. Enjoy and please come back again so seem my evolving photo journey.