Here in the Pacific Northwest, it seemed summer lasted only a few weeks this year. We had one of the latest spring snows on record. And just a few weeks ago at Mount Rainier National Park, summer wildflowers were blooming next to ground cover ablaze in fall colors.
The vast majority of my images are taken with the camera mounted firmly on a tripod. For the image of a great blue heron catching a fish for dinner, however, I used a much different type of tripod: the side wall of an inflatable kayak that was beached on lily pads.
The lucky part was driving behind this bald tree and finding two bald eagles using it as a platform to hunt for food. The not so lucky part involved wading in a freshly-fertilized field to line up the tree with the rising moon.
On a first date, no less.
I captured this image — one of my most popular — on my first attempt, but I certainly wouldn't call it a lucky shot.
It required getting up hours before sunrise, finding my way to the lake in the dark, and waiting for more than a half-hour on the frozen ground for the sun to finally clear the horizon. But the resulting image was definitely worth it.
