Sometimes when I have my camera in my hands, my attention is drawn to the amazing shapes, colors, and pattern of the natural world—I don’t need a specific animate subject to shoot. Here are a few of my more abstract shots from Monday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
Even though I may not have had a main subject, in the traditional sense,I wouldn’t say that I was photographing nothing—au contraire, I was photographing everything.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
The weather has been very conducive to Benjamin and I going “adventuring” this week, which has left little time for computer exploring. Many times, as we are ambling along, Benjamin says : “Wait Gem, I found something!” The “somethings” may be a pebble, a mushroom, a different flower, or plant that requires a closer inspection. He will turn leaves over to see what might be hiding on the other side…a bug or other things of interest. When we just returned today and saw your numerous posts, we started with this one. After listening to the post and looking at each enlarged photo, Benjamin said : “Mr. Mike finds lots of somethings too, cool!” Thank-you, Mr. Mike…we loved your somethings!!
I hope your weather today was as beautiful as it was for me–sunny and about 80 degrees. I am thrilled to hear that you have been venturing outdoors on adventures with him. We are kindred spirits in our sense of curiosity and wonderment, despite the 60 year difference in our ages.
You’re right, that isn’t nothing!
Beauty, it seems, comes in all shapes and sizes and surrounds us all of the time—if we take the time to notice. 🙂
I agree!
Scenery can be a picture in itself.
I totally agree,though I must confess that I have little experience with landscape photography. It seems to me that photographing scenery requires a different mind set that the kind of wildlife photography that I enjoy.
It’s similar with writing. Describing a character’s actions, appearance, and writing their dialogue is a different skill set than describing scenery or a setting. The former has movement and the latter is static.
Great analogy!