Story Behind Image

A Visitor To The Wild Potato Vine /  by Todd Henson

A visitor to the wild potato vine.

In mid-July my father and I walked around the shoreline trail of Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I’m often drawn to the various flowers, many of which look very similar. In this case we found what I believe was a wild potato vine (Ipomoea pandurata), a member of the morning glory family, with their beautiful white flowers and deep pink interior. 

As I was attempting to find a decent view of a flower an insect, I believe some kind of bee, flew right into the one I was looking at. I then focused all my attention on that flower, getting as close as I could and attempting to see into the dark interior of the flower. The insect had flown in head first but by the time I had my camera positioned it had turned itself around and was facing me. I’ve photographed insects like this a few times and always enjoy the view it presents. Notice how the insect has its legs splayed out pushing against the flower to position itself.

Below is a slightly wider view to show the flower with the vines and leaves, and if you look closely, the tail end of the insect.

A wider view of the wild potato vine flower with the bee inside.

Tech Talk

For those technically inclined, I was photographing with my 105mm macro lens. It was an overcast day so I had my ISO up a bit to better see into the darker regions and still keep a high enough shutter speed for me to handhold.

For the wider view I used an ISO of 800, an aperture of f/6.3 and a shutter speed of 1/640. These were general middle-of-the-road settings while I was exploring the scene.

When I moved closer to see inside the flower it might have made sense to raise the ISO to better see the much darker region, but I didn’t think of that and was working fast before the insect left the flower, so I stayed at ISO 800. I was much closer to the subject so I had the foresight to stop down my aperture to f/9 to try to get more of the insect and interior in focus. The closer you get the shallower the depth of field. Stopping down the aperture helps get a wider depth of field with more in focus, and at this close range the depth of field is very small even with smaller apertures. But stopping down the aperture requires a slower shutter speed (ah, physics!), in this case 1/320 second, which I hoped was still fast enough for a sharp image.

In the end I’m pleased with how it turned out.

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Sunrise, Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge, January 2023 /  by Todd Henson

Sunrise, Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge, January 7, 2023

In mid to late-December, 2022, my father and I hiked trails at Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia. It’s a location I don’t get to all that often and because of that we thought it would be a good place to revisit. While there we heard these extremely loud birds out in the marsh and wondered what they were. I only had my wide angle lens with me so the best I could do was capture some very distant images and record a little audio, which was enough to later identify the birds as tundra swans, a species that winters over in this area each year.

There was a time when the only lens I brought with me was my longest lens and wildlife was, by far, my most common subject, with birds being what I most sought out. Since then I’ve branched out and now I seek out many more subjects, but I’m still very drawn to birds and other wildlife. So finding these tundra swans and learning they overwinter here lit a fire in me to photograph them. So on New Year’s Day, 2023, my father and I returned to the refuge with my big lens (and my wide angle, just in case). As luck would have it, it was a very foggy morning so any birds we saw out in the marsh were just silhouettes in the fog. It also happened to be low tide and the swans seem to prefer slightly deeper water, meaning they were much further away than they’d been in December. We could hear them but not see them.

I checked the tide charts and found that January 7th would have a high tide at the marsh right around the 7-8 am time period, so we planned to give it another try. And luck was with us. We did get the chance to watch a small number of tundra swans out in the marsh as they woke up, stretched, and started their day. They were still at a distance but with my long lens I was able to create some decent images of them.

But wait a minute, you might say. There’s not a single tundra swan in the photograph I’m presenting today. What does any of this have to do with the story behind this image? Well, the story is that I never expected to create this image. I was focused on the tundra swans. But thankfully I also brought my wide angle lens and we just happened to arrive at the observation platform not long after sunrise. So I brought up my camera with the wide angle lens and quickly created a series of handheld images of sunrise over the Great Marsh. The river you see in the background is the Potomac River. And the land in the distance on the other side of the Potomac River is Maryland.

So the lesson of the day is one I’ve relearned many times. Always be open to the unexpected. Even if you go out with a single goal in mind, be open to the possibilities nature presents you. You just never know what you’ll find, though with time you learn some of those possibilities and can prepare for them.

And about those tundra swans, I do hope to share some photos of them with you in the not too distant future. Nothing spectacular, but a nice collection of photos I’m happy with that represent some of the behaviors we observed.

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Painting with Woodland Waters /  by Todd Henson

Woodland Waters

Most often I go hiking and photographing in the morning, and mostly on weekends. But every so often I have the opportunity to go in the afternoon on a weekday. Either I have the day off or I take off work early, grab my gear, and head out in search of new images. In this particular case it was mid-May and I’d left work early with a specific goal in mind, one that has nothing to do with today’s photograph. I was working on a post that would show the stages of growth of pink lady’s slipper orchids and I wanted to check in on the flowers, see how they were progressing this season. But as this post will demonstrate, it can be beneficial to stay open-minded to other opportunities as they present themselves, to keep your eyes open and to practice those skills that help you find interesting subjects.

With all that in mind, this trip also resulted in the recent post, One Afternoon Six Critters. While on my way to and from the location of the lady’s slippers I happened upon a number of interesting critters, mostly insects but also a lizard. And of course I took the time to stop and photograph each of them. Thankfully, I’d started my hike just after 1 pm so I had plenty of time to hike, and being mid-May it was still cool enough I wasn’t worried about overheating and I had plenty of water.

As I’m sure you can guess, today’s photograph also came out of this hike. Many of these trails are along a small creek and sometimes something catches my eye in the water or on its surface. The sun was positioned such that it was lighting up the trees on the far side of the creek while leaving the water in shade. This created what I thought were some interesting and painterly reflections. That’s one of the elements that often draws me to reflections, how they can create an almost painterly feel to a photograph. I also like how, being a reflection, they have a slightly different perspective than if we were looking at the actual scene above the water. And if you add in the element of clear water flowing in a shallow creek such that you can see some of the rocks below the surface, you get this great combination of elements.

One thing I found interesting about this trip were the number of images I created of each subject. I often create many images both to try to get something in focus and to try different compositions, different angles and perspectives. So it was no surprise to me that I created 32 images of the eastern tailed-blue butterfly, or 40 images of the black-and-gold flat millipede, or 22 images of wild geranium (by the way, the post Considering Composition for a Wild Geranium also resulted from this hike). But I’m very surprised I only created 2 images of these creekside reflections. Why? Thinking back, I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps I didn’t think they’d result in much so didn’t spend time on them. Or perhaps I was happy with that single composition and didn’t feel the need to explore. It’s also possible I was tired, though just after this I found the millipede and took the time to create 40 images of it.

In the end I don’t know why I created only 2 images of the creek, but I’m glad I stopped long enough to at least create those. The more I sit with this image the more I like it. I don’t know if it will work as well for you, but please let me know whether or not it does in the comments below.

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