Sticks and stones

After wandering around in West Arlington yesterday in search of photo subjects, today I decided to head in the other direction and drove to East Arlington and up Kelly Stand Road when I got out of work.

There was still quite a bit of snow on the mountain and the "abandon all hope, ye who enter here" warning sign hadn't yet been removed, but the road itself was clear and more of the small pull-off spots along the way were starting to be visible once again. Even better, it hasn't yet been warm enough for the road to thaw completely, so I encountered very little mud. I kept driving until I reached the one large open area next to the road, parked, pulled on my overshoes, and carefully picked my way down the bank until I'd reached the river. There I took a photo to see what the camera's brain picked for the aperture setting:



It was in about the middle of my camera's range. So, as an experiment, I manually set the aperture as small as it would go, a difference of 4.5 f-stops, to make for a larger depth of field—in other words, to get the camera to focus on everything evenly. And this is how it came out:



I really like how the water pouring over the rocks is blurred in the second photo, myself.

Along the river bank, this arrangement of rock and branches caught my eye:



A closer look at the branch on the bottom:



As I drove back to Arlington, I saw this and loved the way the setting sun was hitting this hillside:



I was just a bit further down the road when I noticed these rocks. I don't know if this is the way they naturally broke, or if they were cut back in the day, but I liked the look of 'em nonetheless:







Here I was trying to catch the way the green fungus stood out against the dead leaves behind this fallen branch:



Finally, I spotted this intriguing formation among the trees. At first, all I really saw was the contrast between the moss; the rough, craggy bark of the large tree; and the lighter,smoother bark of the small tree growing across it:



Then I stepped back and took in the entire picture, only then realizing that the small tree, which was clearly a different species, hadn't just taken root and grown from the base of the large tree—it had also wound itself right around the latter's trunk, just like a vine. Very cool:



Now, if you'll excuse me I have a pint of Black (Guinness) and Tan (Bass Ale) to finish before it gets too warm...