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This weekend I went out to a few parks with a friend. Here are the results:

Click each picture to see a larger size.

So, I’ve decided to try something new. Here are a few pictures I’ve taken.

Here are the pictures I took last week at a little park off Thomasville Rd called Guyte McCord Park.

This park is an excellent place to take photos. The patrons seem to be an older crowd that enjoys watching birds and wildlife.The park has lots of plant and animal life (mostly birds) and contains a large center lake in that can be circled on foot. Near Cline St on the east end of the park there is a small shelter with a bench under it for sitting. Within this shelter one can find a small box with full of pictures, poems, writings, notes, and all sorts of interesting things. I think there may even be a bird guide in the box!

I saw this guy as I got near the bench on the east side of the park. I took this picture using the following: 55-200mm, ISO 800, f/4.5. Some areas are under exposed in this picture, especially around the eyes of this bird. In the upper left corner of the image the sky is very over exposed. I have other shots of this bird and I was torn between them and this one. Some of my other shots have a better composition where the bird is not the complete center of attention but the colors are not too good, so I settled with this image instead. You can see the tree, clouds with the red of the bird being a good contrast to the green of the leaves on the tree.

Here is the sheltered bench where the majority of the park patrons stayed. From here you can watch birds fly from over the lake onto treetops. Attached to the shelter there is a box where you can find a folder and a couple of books. The folder contains paper where you can take notes, write poems or leave messages for people. I have left one message there, but I have not checked to see if anyone replied. I can’t even remember what I wrote! There maybe a book on wildlife or birds as well. I couldn’t decide how I wanted to shoot this one, since a picture of just the front of the shelter seemed boring. I eventually settled on getting most of the roof and leaving out the bits on the left side of the shelter. I turned the camera sideways so that I’m getting an image that is taller then wide. I like the assortment of moss and fern growing on top of the roof.

While walking near the lake shore frogs would scare into the water at my presence with a screech and a splash. This gave me the idea to take a shot at the frogs, which ended up being a failure since not scaring them when I approached quickly became an impossibility. Since getting the frogs was a failure I looked up and spotted this water plant near the shore and took a picture of it. You can see the branches of the trees on shore around the plant in the foreground and in the middle ground there’s a translucent piece of grass growing out of the water. I like the blue against the green in the image, it gives off an interesting feel.

On the north side of the lake you can find a canopy covered path. The lake is on the left and a nice wooded area to the right where the near by neighbors live. This is a picture of one of the trees along the path, taken using my 55-200mm lens. I leaned right up against the tree a justed the shutter for a long exposure and took a shot.