Shell Lake, Wisconsin

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Along Lake Superior in Wisconsin

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

Last night’s sky…

…courtesy of Michael’s iPhone (always work with what you have!)

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Eeek…city folks! Run for your life!

This isn’t the shot I was going for, mind you. We were driving through the farmlands of the Shenandoah Valley and saw these goats behind the fence and since I think goats are adorable, we stopped to get some photos. As soon as we got out of the car, they scrambled back to the barn, ears a’floppin’! So, I got the tail end of goats instead. Look at that goat looking back (the only one not running yet)—probably thinking, “They look pretty harmless to me and they might have snacks. Why the rush? Waahhhhhh…”

Farm animals galloping…this reminds me of the “one that got away.” Picture this: Spring. 1990-ish. A day trip to Harper’s Ferry, camera gear in tow. Michael and I drive by a truly bucolic scene…a tall sloping hill crowned by a bright red barn with crisp white trim. Black and white cows dotting the landscape, white fence in the foreground. Cornflower blue sky, puffy white clouds, lovely trees, bright green pasture. Idyllic!

“Quick! Pull over!” Michael pulls over and I start setting up the appropriate camera and lens combo from the trunk of the car. He crosses the road to lean over the fence and survey the scene. I hear mooing. My hearing being what it is, I assume it’s a real cow. It is not. I am unaware that it is Michael, sounding remarkably cow-like. What can I say? It’s probably something that only city slickers do when they see a farm animal. An attempt to be a cow whisperer, perhaps?

I start to cross the road to capture what clearly will be the best saleable stock shot of a farm EVER. I get to the fence and there are no cows on the hill. Nary a one. Just an immense field of green. I ask, “Where did they go? Spontaneous combustion?” Michael looks over at me sheepishly (no farm pun intended) and says, “Oooh, sorry. They’re all down here.” The cows, hearing his moo, had galloped (bet you didn’t know they could move that fast) down the hill to the culvert below the fence, where you couldn’t see them unless you were leaning over the fence. “Thanks a lot. You’ve now ruined our future earnings on the best farm stock shot EVER.”

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Hallelujah light over the Blue Ridge Mountains

Day trip 8.8.2011, going south on Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park, lovely weather (especially for August!), lovely sky (dramatic cloud formations and rays of light), and lovely company (Michael’s nephew Sean and his wife, Anna—visiting from Columbus, Ohio)

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Love only the sunflower

Ancient Aztec Flower Song (anonymous)

Be indomitable, Oh my heart!
Love only the sunflower;
It is the flower of the Giver-of-Life!
What can my heart do?
Have we come, have we sojourned here on earth in vain?
As the flowers wither, I shall go.
Will there be nothing of my glory ever?
Will there be nothing of my fame on earth?
At most songs, at most flowers,
What can my heart do?
Have we come, have we sojourned on earth in vain?

Photos © Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Here comes the sun(flower), do do do do…

I shot this image at McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area in Montgomery County, Maryland. The sunflowers are shorter (once again) this year (some barely knee high), so it’s a challenge to get shots head on without groveling in the red dirt. The field was buzzing with honey bees, bumblebees, Cabbage White butterflies, cucumber beetles and various other flying critters. Very few of them cooperated for this photographer, though. I was bombarded several times by wayward bumblebees who tried to fly through me to get to a prized sunflower on their radar. Michael and I shared the field with only three other photographers (and a poorly constructed scarecrow that we thought was another person). I used a wide angle lens (atop a tall ladder) to get this shot.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Revisited: Sunflower closeup

Originally posted July 11, 2010

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Windmill in hallelujah light

I photographed this windmill in Bulverde, Texas yesterday. My sister and I were out scouting for locations for me to photograph those wonderful cloud-filled vistas found only in Texas!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Wide open spaces…

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Lake Land’Or

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Visit my newly-updated Zenfolio botanical gallery!

Below is a small sampling of more than 500 images in my newly-updated Zenfolio botanical gallery. Click here to visit the entire gallery. I’ll be revising the design to include galleries for portraits, stock, weddings, events, landscape, commercial and travel images as well as a bio, contact information and pricing for various services.

Sunset over Victoria Harbour, B.C.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

This is one of my favorite sunset images, shot from the ferry as we entered Victoria Harbour in British Columbia on a trip we took with my friend Sue and her mother in fall 2008. See lots more photos from that wonderful trip in the links below:

Lavender, shopping, cheese, wine, a whale, and yet another sunset

Virginia creeper-clad Fairmont Empress Hotel

Never too many flowers

Dahlias as far as the eye can see…

In the pink…

Shine on, shine on harvest moon…

Butchart Gardens, Passel #1

Butchart Gardens, Passel #2

Visual and aural overload at Pike Place

Cabin in the woods

If it’s Thursday, this must be Bloedel.

There’s a baer in them thar woods!

Wildlife in Spokane

Sunsets over Bainbridge Island

Afternoon at Lake Land’Or

Yesterday Karen and I could hardly believe it was still just February—the temperature was almost 70 degrees when we were at her lakehouse at Lake Land’Or. I spent considerable time trying to entice the ducks to come to the dock so I could photograph them up close—to no avail. So, I had to be content with capturing lovely abstract tree and water reflections instead. We enjoyed the weather while it lasted—today is incredibly windy and in the 50s.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Record shot: Sunday sunset

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Fall in Virginia

Since I haven’t been able to get my bounty of fall photos this year, I’ve made a collage of my favorite images from the past three years. These were all shot in various parts of Virginia, including my own neighborhood. Enjoy!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.