A couple of weeks ago I had it all planned out! I had looked at the weather for the coming weekend, it was going to rain on Friday, turn warm that night, and be significantly cooler by sunrise Saturday morning. However, what I thought would be the perfect recipe for a foggy morning for a photo shoot turned out to be a beautiful pleasant sunny event. Of course I was quickly reminded that I’m a photographer not a meteorologist.
Never the less I had planned to meet a student out by a local lake to do a shoot so a shoot we were going to do. The question was if there was no fog, what would take pictures of? After a little thinking I realized it made for a great opportunity to for me to practice what I preach so often… “If you come to a photo shoot and the conditions are not what you expect, you go with what you have.” Another concept that photographers I keep in mind as a nature photographer is, “In photography, you are not photographing an object, but how the light reflects off that object.”
This was taken on MLK day of this year. The image on the left was taken a 6:30 am while the same shot was repeated at 9:30 am. What was the difference? The light and fog. Timing is everything in nature photography!
With these two ideas in mind I spent the time before their arrival scoping out the possibilities trying to see what how we could play the “the light” and what shooting opportunities we had available.
By the time the student arrived most of the warm glow of the morning sun had been lost. However there were many opportunities left. 
The shot of the little foot bridge was fun because it gave us a chance to play with the filtered light through the bushes just to the left out of the image. Although many people say you should never shoot directly into the sun, using the tree branches to defuse the sun’s direct light allows me to capture this early morning scene.
The morning light was just about spent when this Great Blue Heron decided that he would fly in for some breakfast. It took about 15 minutes until he decided to move on to a different fishing hole in order to capture this shot. 
But the key here I remembered to advanced my ISO from the 200 for the earlier shots to 800 to stop the action of the flying birds.
While waiting for the Great Blue Heron to fly this group of Canadian Geese flew over. Fortunately, I had already advanced my ISO high enough to capture this shot.
Even though it was not the foggy morning I had planned on I did not pack up and go home. I used the subjects and light I had and made it a fairly productive morning. I was able to use several different techniques that I was not expecting use with positive results. Finally we experienced another beautiful morning in nature supplied by the Lord. I will repeat the quote of Ansel Adams from my website… “Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter…”
