water lilies

2 am and i am lying in bed wide awake, bright moonlight streaming in the bedroom windows. much as i try to sleep, i can't. i am thinking about how i would take a night shot, my first. temptation wins. i gather my camera and tripod and photograph a number of rooms in our old house by moonlight. next i pull on a coat over my pajamas and wander around the yard doing the same. before i know it, i am driving through the center of our sleepy town in my pajamas, gear beside me, destination unknown. if you are, or know an insomniac, this should make sense - maybe.

i turn down my favorite road heading out of town and about a mile in i reach a pond that flows into the bay. i have posted multiple blips from this beautiful spot. still, i have never seen it more beautiful than i did this morning. maybe it was the moon. maybe it was the hour. maybe it was my state of mind. who knows. i look out over the pond. mist is rising from the still water and floating gently across in waves. the pond glows against the blackness of the spruce in shadow on the far shore. the line where the water meets the shore, it shimmers. a raft of shore bound water lilies capture and reflect the moonlight. i have found my blip. i grab my gear from the car and set it up. now what?

not to break the mood, but some tech talk. i have four (and only four) elements i want to capture: black background in shadow, flat illuminated pond, textured sparkly lily pads and wispy translucent moving mist. for me, this would be a challenge in daylight. so - i immediately give up on the "less is more" theory of life. "more is more" when it comes to shooting digital photos. i need to keep the photo dark enough so that highlights of the trees on the far shore won't emerge, but light enough to make the pond glow. i work that through as best i can. then the tricky part. i want the sparkly detail on the water lilies but i don't want to lose the wispy mist. if i push the ISO very high (8000), i have a fast enough speed to capture the mist, but i lose all detail in the lily pads. if i drop the ISO very low (100), the lily pads look their best but the photo falls flat without the glow of the mist. in the end, i chose to favor the lily pads (ISO 400). i thought their sparkle was the capture of this photo. that said, i did make sure that a hint of mist remained. the only editing of this photo is leveling and one "fade" in iPhoto. if anyone has any thoughts - love to hear them.

back to the story. in the end, i had taken over 100 shots. i was cold (still in my pajamas), my mind was spinning from trying to solve this challenge, and yes - i was finally tired! i gathered my gear, drove home, climbed into bed and promptly fell asleep. i could not have imagined a better dream.