Beset by light

Beset by light — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

It’s been a while. Thanks to poor weather, uneventful skies, the return of major league baseball season, and poor scheduling I haven’t been out shooting in almost two weeks. And while it’s good to step away, double digit sabbaticals get a bit too long for me. Suffice to say, I’ve been jonesing.

With what looked to be a solid setup I made for the Stafford Forge Wildlife Management Area. It had recently gone through a scheduled controlled burn and all the undergrowth had been taken down to sooty black earth weeks ago, yet low green was already beginning to thrive in the nutrient rich remnants. Fire is life down here in the pines. It’s just amazing how quickly this place can transform in a manner of weeks. I took a picture of the clearing riddled with nascent grasses that I’ll post tomorrow.

As for tonight’s picture, well after some largely meh long exposure attempts I switched on the fly and transitioned to bracketed exposures as the sky really started doing its thing. It played it coy tonight, colors were tempered and muted well past the sun slinking under the horizon until suddenly the lights really came on. I particularly like how the offset oranges and reds to the right reach across to kiss the golden marsh grasses to the bottom left. For me, it makes the photograph. I hope you enjoy.