Timing is Everything

Photographers spend a lot of time thinking about light, chasing the right light, lamenting poor light, and then when the timing is just right they find the perfect light for their shot.

Timing is everything.

Back in August, my husband and I took a trip to Port Crescent State Park on Lake Huron. It was our second back-to-back year visiting around the same time. We joke, its the one vacation where we actually slow down and take it easy. Spend time on the beach, kayaking, and swimming in the blue waters of Lake Huron. We usually look forward to the sunsets, which were interesting this year with all the northern fires. The air was heavy that entire week with storms, humidity, and hazy subdued sunsets.

This image came from the most vibrant of sunsets the entire week. The driftwood structure was like a jungle gym for kids during the day. This particular evening, you could feel the storms nearing. I stayed out with camera well past when I thought the color was done and captured the moon rising over the driftwood in calm waters.

This might be the last image ever taken of this driftwood feature. Timing right?

Storms did in fact roll in over night - the lightning woke the campground up before the thunder. Several tents did not survive the night along with trees and this driftwood structure.

Driftwood Sculpture, Lake Huron, August 2021

The Details:

Camera: Olympus OMD E-M5 Mark III

Lens: Olympus Kit 14 - 150mm, taken at 14mm

ISO 200

Aperture: F22

Shutter Speed: 40 seconds

The Story Part 2 - Westport, Ireland

This trip was memorable and chalk full of stories in general. We had just graduated college, started careers, and gotten married in the span of about 5 months. And this trip was my first overseas and hopefully not the last. On this particular day, the older Olympus camera I had been using to get back into photography suddenly died - would not power on - it was a brick.

Not wanting to miss opportunities to look back on this trip, we were in Westport, north of Galway and spotted an old Kodak sign and camera in the window of the local "chemist".

So we went in and I walked out with a Panasonic G2 that was already outdated compared to what I could have gotten stateside. The camera had been on sale that summer but the store owner hadn't removed the sale sticker - so we negotiated the sale. So, while just getting back into photography, I learned a new camera on the fly overseas. And we loved this town -we actually made another stop and spent some time wandering the streets and in this old bookstore.

So, while this is by no means a great photo - it's even a little out of focus - it takes me back in time to a town that still had a local chemist, bookstore, coffee shop, and town square in northwest Ireland. And that ability in itself makes it a good photo for me, even if most just scroll on by as they do the many thousands of images we see daily online.