You Know You Have It Bad When.....

As I mentioned yesterday in my introductory blog, I took up photography a couple of years ago when I purchased my first DSLR camera. I'd had an SLR camera, but never really got into photography at the time.

After my purchase of my DSLR, I just loved the photos that came out of my camera, and found myself venturing out at all hours to various and sundry places just to take photos. I was totally hooked. Initially, sunrises and sunsets were my 'thing', although macro (close ups) of plants were also vying for top place.

A lady I knew is a photographer and she asked me if I'd like to join the local photo club, seeing how enthused I was about my new-found interest. The answer was a resounding yes, and although it's been frustrating at times, it's a great learning experience and challenges one to continue improving. There are four or five levels in the club and one has to attain a certain number of points in order to attain the next level. I'm finally in level two. Yay!

Monday nights are photo club nights, with the first Monday of the month being our exhibition night (unless it's a holiday, then it gets moved to the following Monday). Mondays are also my border run days where I ship orders out of the US to my overseas and US customers. As I've moved away from the community where the photo club is, it's a bit of a drive now to get there. As the border is in the same community, I go later in the day to combine both trips into one.

It still means a few hours between dropping off the orders and when photo club starts at 7:00pm. No problem, of course. Take my camera and visit the local park, Mill Lake, that I used to bike around daily, before dinner at Mom's and off to photo club. I have this!

My first stop would have been the cherry blossoms in the park, but that particular tree was pretty much done with it's blossoms, so that was a bust. Next stop was around by the pier where the magnolia trees were in full bloom. Yes!

The usual ducks and Canada geese were quacking and honking on the water, and a cormorant on it's log perch in the lake flapping it's wings. Redwing blackbirds flitted in and out of the reeds and saplings near the floating boardwalk, their red and yellow epaulets flashing brightly in contrast to their black feathers. I was too slow to capture their movement, but did capture a couple of them in song on branches. I haven't downloaded them yet, so have no idea how they've turned out.

As I was standing on the floating boardwalk photographing the Redwing blackbird singing up in the willow tree, a little brown bird flew right into the reeds and did not fly back out. Peering through their dead leaves and stalks, I saw the edge of a nest hidden, and the bird moving around in the nest. More photos, naturally.

On my way back from the boardwalk, I noted two Canada geese, doing what I thought looked like a mating ritual. They had their necks curved and heads close much like you see swans do, forming a heart shaped silhouette. It quickly went from that to ducking their heads under water then bobbing up again. One would put it's head under water and come up, then the other would.

This went on for a few minutes, then the next thing I know, the male is on top of the female, she's totally submerged so it's a good thing their mating habits only last a few seconds. That was it. The head under the water thing, and off they went. Alrighty then.

One guy walked by me and asked if I got a good photo of the geese. I'm like, uh, no, I'm not into goose porn. So now I know how Canada geese mate, and it's probably something I could have gone to my grave not knowing.

This morning, still in my nightie and before I even had my cocoa, I had my camera out taking photos of the tulips that were on their last legs on my dining room table. Is photography a passion, an obsession or an addiction?

You know you have it bad when it precedes your morning beverage.