Today we return to a location I’d recently photographed. I wanted to view the scene through a different lens. And I brought along some waterproof boots, letting me walk out into the shallower parts of the creek looking for a slightly different perspective.

When we arrived at the scene, a small stretch of shoreline along a shallow, slow-moving creek, there was still a very small amount of mist hovering over the water near the rocks. It was diffuse enough you really couldn’t see it directly as mist, but more for how it gave that slight foggy look to anything beyond it. It was fading quickly, so I waded out into the water looking for a location to setup my tripod.

I focused on the same bit of scenery I had during the previous visit, but by using a wider angle lens, a 16-35mm, I was able to take in a bit more of the surroundings. The leaves had continued slowly changing colors, with a touch of yellow and orange mixed in with the pale greens. I wanted that to be a focus of the photo, along with the great patterns of the trees and rocks and their reflections.

Seeing the fading mist and the yellows of the foliage brought to mind my Singh-Ray Gold-N-Blue polarizing filter, so I put it on the lens and turned the polarizer to find the right mix of gold and blue. This is not a filter I use every day but I love having it around. It can add an almost magical shift to the colors of the photo, and I think it worked really well with this one, giving the fading mist along with the rocks a slight blue tint and enhancing the yellows of the foliage.

It was still early enough the scene was a bit dark for the camera. That combined with the polarizer gave me an exposure time of 3 seconds, long enough to see some of the movement of foam on the water. I’m often surprised in situations like this. I expect the water will flow in one direction but find it flowing in directions and patterns I’d not seen without the aid of the camera and the long exposure.

I will likely return again to this spot, perhaps in the coming days or later in the year. I’d also like to spend more time exploring the areas just beyond this scene. Perhaps there are other little portraits of nature just waiting to be seen.

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