Swamp, Geese, Flowers and Wind

I remain a little bruised and weary over recent events, but I am returning to something resembling normal. While I am still not into following blogs, I may get there soon. Meanwhile, I post a bit of an update.

It has been a long while since a walked into our local woods, such as they are. Invariably, I seem to take photos of this spot, and they are often stitches for some reason. It's a swampy and woods area shot from a boardwalk. I always like peering in there although my peering doesn't result in fantastic photos. This is a stitch of three upright shots put together in the newest version of Lightroom. You no longer have to shell out to Photoshop to do a pano stitch. The same applies to HDRs.

On the same afternoon, Sue and I took a lunch to Riverside Park where we read a bit and played a bit of music. To a large extent, we were able to do this because it was the only day without fierce winds. It's been a windy week or two to say the least — even a windy whole spring come to think of it.

The geese eventually exited the water and munched on land, getting somewhat close to us. On our right were two families (not shown); on our left were all of the singletons — those who were not lucky enough to mate or who have not yet laid eggs. This arcing branch of the willow always makes such an inviting frame.

The next day, yesterday, I went for another little saunter. I tried a number of photos, but the only one that I kind of liked was this of pink wildflowers blowing in the wind, which came back with a bit of a vengence after our one day (actually a partial day) of reprieve. I guess I caught them at the right second with a fast enough shutter speed that they actually came out pretty sharp considering the elements. Life is full of surprises; I hadn't had much hope when I snapped the shutter.