While walking through the woods with my camera, a variety of things are likely to catch my interest. These range from insects to flowers to trees to spiderwebs. Nearly anything. Once something catches my interest, I’ll stop walking, declare (not to myself) that “I’m taking a picture now,” then take several pictures. I often end up crouching down to get a better angle and adjusting the zoom and focus several times. All of this repositioning and adjusting is in an attempt to figure out what caught my interest in the first place.

For instance, while walking yesterday, I noticed this area and decided I needed photos of it.

Ignoring the poor focus overall, this wasn’t the shot I wanted. The trees are lovely, but they aren’t what caught my interest. That was the water. I don’t remember adjusting the focus to be on the reflection in the water, but that’s where it ended up and it seems fitting.

Judging by the angle, I crouched down at this point. The water is more of the focus, but still not what I was looking for. I wanted just the water, not the trees. (Or at least, I wanted the water and the reflection of the trees, not the trees themselves.)

I zoomed in a bit, but it’s still too cluttered. The sticks are lovely where they were carelessly placed by the trees; however, I didn’t want them taking focus away from the water. The reflection of the trees isn’t as clear in this shot either.

Finally I figured it out. Leaves on a glassy surface. Somewhat evenly spaced trees in the reflection with a touch of the sky. A few casually strewn sticks. A bit of grass and moss. This is what caught my interest. And it turned out to be my favorite picture of the day.