Sun stars

Yesterday morning dawned soft, the sky a rich shimmer of sherbet orange.  This morning was simply brilliant.  As I walked through the first curve on Woodridge Road, the low sun's rays pierced the trees.  Dazzled, I was grateful for the billed cap I was wearing and wished, although briefly, for my sunglasses.

It was only a thought, really ...  Sun stars.  Could I remember how to set up to make one with the camera?  A small aperture -- f16 or smaller. The most important thing.  I focused on the clouds, metered off the sky and recomposed. 

Ta da.

For another and slightly later effort, check out this link:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarboxje/7583772228/in/photostream

My favorite bridge, locally anyway ...

I don't know how in the world it happened.  How did I manage to arrive in Columbia over a half an hour early for a visit and lunch with a friend.  Given our capital city's traffic, there wasn't time to run any errands, thirty minutes not being quite long enough for anything on my list.

What to do?  Maybe I could show up that early.  But, I didn't want to test that maybe.

But, there's a beautiful bridge.  We have a Blue Sky print of it over our bed, a Christmas gift from Tal one Christmas nearly twenty years ago.  The new River Front Park is on US 1, where the bridge crosses the Congaree River from Cayce into Columbia.  I stopped there, enjoyed a short walk, sat on a bench with a great view of the bridge and made several pictures at the end of the morning on this pretty autumn day.

 
In the end I was only a minute or two late!  Lunch was good and our visit was better.  Getting to see the Gervais Street Bridge up close -- and not while driving a vehicle -- was an unexpected bonus.