Something Different

  Most of my photographs are strictly of the flora and fauna of the Bayou.  Mother Nature provides the settings and I just point the camera.  Until recently, nothing has been staged.  If my photograph had a grasshopper sitting atop a frog, it truly happened.  (Yes, there is that actual photo on the blog and if you wish to see it, go to this link.  https://msbayoulady.blogspot.com/2016/09/in-real-world-frogs-eat-insects.html )  But like I said, recently, I have "staged" a few experimental photographs.  

  This morning as I was meandering through the gardens, I noticed a handful of stones in the birdbath.  It is my habit to place pretty stones there as I find them.  The water washes them clean and causes the stones to sparkle.  The birds do not seem to mind the extra perches in the bath so all is good.  It was those stones, the rising sun and an old piece of driftwood that gave me a bright idea.  I placed the driftwood on the ledge of the arbor and balanced one of the stones on top.  Shoving the wood over to where a tiny sunbeam came through a small nail hole in the arbor wall, I, then, positioned myself behind the stone.  Wow!!  The pink stone was gorgeous! The sunbeam flowed through the nail hole and lit up the stone!  I tried another.  Yep, same results.  Absolutely stunning!  

  Who knew a couple of dirty rocks, an old piece of wood and a bit of light could create something like this?  Not me.  (Keep in mind that these are no special stones but are just finds in the gravel of our pathway.)  I have always taken the "lazy" approach to photography and let things just fall into place as they may but, now, ideas are flowing!   Then again, maybe this is a "sign of the times" that I am getting too old to be traipsing about in the marshes and mires of the Bayou in search of things willing to be photographed.