Cordelia's Mom, Still

After dropping my daughter off for a medical appointment, I had a couple of hours to kill.  What better place to spend them than at the Amherst Town Library, followed by a trek through Walton Woods Park?  (Yes, again.)

It was a gorgeous summer day, with temperatures only in the low-80s (Fahrenheit).  I took along both cameras, and the manual (which I had printed out) for the Nikon.

The good news is – I’m getting better at playing with the lighting controls.  I was able to get the blue out of most of the pictures.

Ok, that photo does still have too much blue, but I took it before I took the one at the top of the post.  See how I’m coming along?

The bad news is – in getting the blue out, I also managed to take out most of the saturation, so the photos are a little subdued.  Looks like I still have a lot of work ahead of me.

(I’m sure all you professionals and wannabes out there are enjoying my learning experience, maybe because you went through some of the same frustration.)

Anyway.

It also seemed like the ideal time to see if I could walk all the way around the pond.  Previously, it has always been too hot and my legs weren’t strong enough.  But this day, I felt pretty good.

Probably, I didn’t look like I was dying and maybe I even looked like I knew what I was doing with that long-lensed camera.  The older gentleman fishing near the entrance to the park greeted me, and we had a very nice conversation about the weather, what kind of fish are in that pond (big-mouthed bass, who would have guessed), and the best time to take photos of the pond (apparently, just before sunset – facing in a certain direction and standing in a certain spot, which he enthusiastically pointed out to me).

I had seen people fishing there before and was never sure they were doing so legally.  But today, I saw the sign:

That was near the end of my hike, however.  Prior to that point, I took a few photos from the darker, woodsier side of the park:

Far entrance to the Nature Trail

That’s the edge of the pond at the top of the photo, and yes, I climbed through that mini-path – but the pond photos didn’t turn out well, so I’m not sharing them.

Stream leaving the pond. Until I saw that stream, I didn’t realize the pond actually had running water. I always thought it was stagnant.

I’m happy to say I made it all the way around, and lived to tell about it.  That’s especially good news to me because it means hubby and I can go visit different places and maybe I can actually do enough walking to enjoy them – provided I do it at my own pace and stop often, and provided the outside temperature is comfortable.

Once home and resting, I became doubly frustrated while trying to edit my new photos, so finally I just gave up and decided to see what some of my previous photos would look like in black and white.  I had previously take two daylily photos, one of which I published here in full color, but the other was not as good.  However, the “bad” one looks just dandy in black-and-white, I think:

Not all beauty comes in full color.  Sometimes black and white is just as attractive.

May the rest of your weekend be enjoyable and peaceful.

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Images by Cordelia’s Mom/TeddyRosalie Studio