The rooftops were covered with frost this morning, reminding me that even though the weather has been great for quite a while, winter is sneaking up on us. With rain in the forecast for tomorrow and significant drops in the temperature due by the end of the week, I thought I would take advantage of the sun and hike through a favorite nearby site, Owen Conservation Park. This time of the year the sun is quite low in the sky so even at 2 in the afternoon you can see long shadows and strong backlighting. I’m usually looking for flowers or the great spreading oak trees, but today I was captivated by the grass.
I never read Walt Whitman and I don’t know what inspired him to name his famous book of poems Leaves of Grass, but with a breeze in the air and the prairie plants swaying to their own silent tunes, I tried to capture the look and feel of some of the leaves, grass and otherwise. Since the grass was in almost constant motion, I set my shutter speed at 1/500th of a second. The light was strong enough that I was still able to use an ISO of 100 or 200. The two photos above were taken using my 17-85mm and the two below were taken using my 70-200. In some cases with the longer lens, the movement of the leaves gave my camera fits as I tried to focus on a certain plant or leaf, only to have the focus jump to the leaves in front of it or behind it. I went to manual focus to calm things down.
We encountered about a half dozen other people on the trails. Maybe they were out for the same reason we were. Maybe they were pondering the pros and cons of Christopher Columbus’ voyages. Maybe they’re in limbo due to the outrageous right-wing government shutdown. Whatever the reason, they all seemed to be enjoying the scenes of autumn in the prairie.
