10 September
On
In Black and White, Landscape, Sunset
With

Sue and I spent a few days at SML this past weekend.  There was supposed to be a hot air balloon festival of sorts, they were going to launch the balloons at 8:00pm on Saturday night, after it got dark.  Should have made for some interesting photos as the burners fired in the dark.  But, it was called off because of rain and threatening weather in the afternoon.  Turned out that the weather would have been fine by 8pm, but certainly didn’t look like it earlier in the day.  I did get to photograph a really nice sunset Saturday evening though….maybe better than a bunch of hot air balloons flying around!

First up, a photo from Friday morning before we left.  I had to make a trip to Charlottesville early on Friday, so caught this one on the way.

Sunrise over a grassy field.

And this was Friday night’s sunset.  Not too bad, but Saturday night’s was better….

Sunset over Smith Mountain Lake.

They were offering, for $5, tethered hot air balloon rides on Friday evening.  Not very exciting for pictures, but the lines were quite long for the rides.

Tethered hot air balloon rides.

The next two are from Portside.  We hung out there for a while and had a beer.  We should have eaten lunch there, it looked a LOT better than what we’d eaten earlier for lunch.  These two photos are pushing the HDR thing a little bit….maybe a little bit too much…..

Old boat at Portside, Smith Mountain Lake.

Portside Bar and Grill, Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia

Okay, we’re getting closer to the sunset.  This was Saturday afternoon….impending rain.  Can’t really blame them for canceling the hot air balloon thing.

Clouds over Smith Mountain Lake Virginia.

Another version, in black and white….

Clouds over Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia in black and white

And the sunset.  No color enhancement needed.  It is slightly underexposed which punches the colors a bit, but that’s it.  The whole sky to the west was this pinkish orangeish purplish color.

Sunset over Smith Mountain Lake Virginia

A few minutes after the one above…

Sunset over Smith Mountain Lake Virginia.

Last one before it got dark…

Sunset and Clouds over Smith Mountain Lake Virginia

 

04 September
On
In Landscape
With

I guess it’s the time of year for mushrooms, they’re everywhere.  Here are a few more from our woods…..

19 July
On
In Landscape
With

This was the first time we’d be down there, LOVED it!!  I got up for the second sunrise down there and was hooked, only missed two sunrises the whole week.  And we loved that wide, hard beach.  Great to bike on.  It was hard to narrow down the photos, but here are some favorites from the week:

 

The one below is probably my favorite.  A pelican diving for his breakfast at sunrise.

 

18 July
On
In Personal
With

When I went outside this morning I noticed we had a visitor.  This little guy was standing next to our driveway.

He took a little tour of the yard, and……

….introduced himself to Tiger….

….and eventually wandered off into the woods.  I posted a few of the photos to Instagram (which cross posted to Facebook).  I had to go to Charlottesville, so I left thinking the excitement was over.  On the way to C’ville, I got a message on my phone via Facebook asking about the goat, from someone who had lost a goat that looked exactly like this one.  Turns out they were neighbors a few miles away, and I had no idea they had goats.  I filled Sue in on all this in case he showed up again…..and he did.  She was able to lure him into a pen what we use for our two goats, using Ritz crackers.  We let the owners know that he was penned up safe and sound, and they soon came to get him.  I’m not really sure how we would have found the owners had they not seen his photo on Facebook.  🙂

I hung out with him for a while while we waited for his “parents” to pick him up.  Goats are very social and like to be around people.  He would get upset when I’d leave him alone.