The Small Picture

Sometimes, looking at the Big Picture causes you to miss the interest in the Small Picture.

Early one morning shooting sunrise on the river, I watched a spotted sandpiper (Actitis macularia) perch on a submerged tree stump, and realized what interesting things the clouded sky was doing to the calm water. Sometimes when you're in the middle of it all, the curious colors don't register, and this one didn't have the full impact on me until after I got the slides back from the processor and looked them over on the light table. Now it's one of my favorite natural abstracts.

For a bit of interest, go here. Look at the main photo there, towards the bottom in the center. See the four little bumps in the water? Yep, that's three of them in the photo above – same location, same time, taken minutes apart.