It’s always a good day to shoot.

Recently we had a lot of cold, cloudy, rainy weather. Each morning a voice in my head said, “There’s no light out there for photography. Everything is dead in the winter. Stay in bed!” But then I had some strong coffee, told the voice to stuff it, grabbed my new camera, and headed out. Every time I was glad I did.

Often the thing I intended to shoot didn’t work out, but then I stumbled on other rewarding subjects. That’s how I discovered our heron population. I was going to try a new macro lens for mushrooms, but quickly gave up on finding any in near freezing weather. I was convinced that it had been a waste to go out on a rainy day, but then I spotted a heron. The photo below is all I got at that point, but then I knew to come back. The result was my recent Great Blue Heron article.

Here is a shot from the next day.

Stalking the herons led to other birds.

For the image below, I began with the Exposure 4 preset B&W Split Toning > Platinum (cool). To find it, start typing “platinum” in the search box above the presets. You’ll see it after you type a few letters. Then I went to the Age tab and added the texture “Wet Plate (border)”. For other great black & white work, see the recent Simon Griffiths portrait project.

These white birds (gulls?) were tolerant enough for me to get pretty close. Click this photo to see it larger.

You’ll need to click this next one to see detail. I may use Blow Up to create a big print for the Alien Skin office.

All this fun came from leaving the house with my camera on a cold rainy day. There’s no such thing as a bad day for shooting.