I have no idea what possessed me to look up at this particular juncture during my foray along the Grove of The Patriarchs Trail in Mount Rainier National Park. I think it might have been to see if I could spot the little bird that was singing so exuberantly. The moment my eyes lit upon this forked tree top and the spider web between the prongs, I immediately thought of Sauron’s searching eye in The Return Of The King.
Copyright Rebecca L. Latson, all rights reserved.
Whenever I feel restless and in need of some photographic therapy, I head out to the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge, a little less than 20 miles from my home in southeast Texas.
This past Saturday morning, I headed out that way with the intention of getting to my favorite spot in the refuge to capture some scenery shots with the ground-hugging mist floating above the landscape.
As I drove along the refuge road, I noticed all these spider webs sparkling in the morning sunlight.
Naturally, I had to stop.
Of course, this meant by the time I arrived at my favorite spot, all the mist was gone.
That’s ok.
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Note: capturing images of dew-dappled silken strands strung across the air from one tree/fence post / plant stem to another is a bit of a challenge with a telephoto lens. The lens simply doesn’t want to autofocus on something that ephemeral, choosing instead to either focus beyond the web, or not at all. I probably should have used the manual focus except my eyes just don’t focus as well as they used to and manual focus on anything other than infinity is a chore.
For the images above, the ISO ranged from 400 – 500, shutter speed ranged from 1/125 – 1/320, f-stop ranged from 5.6 – 7.1 and the focal length was 400mm.
Filed under Brazoria NWR, nature, Photography, telephoto lens, Texas, Wildlife Refuge
Where The Trails Take You Photography 
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