I went for a winter walk today. Since I live near Lake Mendota I decided to head over to Lake Monona for a change of pace. Starting at Monona Terrace I headed southwest along the bike path by John Nolen Drive. It wasn’t quite as sunny and warm as yesterday but it still had a bit more of an early spring feel than a winter one.
I don’t have much camera gear to choose from, but for walks like this I really like my 17-85 mm EF-S lens. It’s wide enough to give nice wide-angle shots despite the fact that my Canon 7D is an APS-C camera with a 1.6x crop factor. The wide shots show quite a bit of barrel distortion but Lightroom’s Lens Correction feature takes care of that with a single click. If you’ve never used that you should give it a try.
Although it was fairly overcast, a little blue sky showed through and some of the clouds had enough texture to provide visual interest. The lake had very little ice, but ice fishermen could be seen in Monona Bay even though the ice there can’t be more than 2 or 3 inches thick. Scores of Canada Geese floated near the shore.
The photos below were taken on my walk. You can click on an image to enlarge it and then use the arrow keys to move through the photos. They emphasize Monona Terrace more than the lake, but, it’s hard to ignore that lovely Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building that floats out over the shoreline.