At the end of a rainy week, nature finally became generous and kissed us on a sunny day. A sunny weekend is a priceless gift! Under the pretext of shopping, I kicked my family out of the house and we had a great walk in the park. Of course, I took my camera with me; I was not alone there - a lot of townspeople came to relax and soak up the stingy autumn sun ... this brought me a good harvest of pictures.
I brought three lenses with me: a Sigma 150mm, my almost daily telephoto, a Zenitar 16mm fisheye, and my best wide-angle 16-35mm, but in fact I wasn't tempted to use the last two, and everything you see was shot by the Sigma.
Sometimes you don't even need a cool plot - just good light is enough to get a masterpiece and a beautiful photo. Apparently this kind of light I had in this photo. The girls in the frame doing understood it the same way, and took a moment to make their charming selfies.
Pond is full of gold reflections... and ducks.
Communication is the key.
Folks and their pets... of course, the pets did not stay at home! I had a few curious encounters.
Poor doggie! Her master is not playing with her, preferring to read chats in his smartphone instead :( such a bastard...
I saw in the hands of a pedestrian walking towards me ... an OWL! Isn't it amazing? To be honest, such cases are rare. And this is actually the first time I've seen a live owl. I didn't have time to prepare or think about anything, I was instantly aroused, but I didn't forget to press the trigger - I managed to take one single shot, and fortunately it turned out well. There's a lot to see here... I especially like the hostess's face here. They say that pets copy their owners... what do you think, who influences whom in this case: the owl on the mistress, or the mistress on the owl? (My opinion: judging by her face, I would rather see a hawk or a falcon in her hands!)
Girl posing by the fountain.
All collect beautiful picturesque maple leaves -- both kidz and their parents.
Feeding ducks and pigeons. (We prepared a packet of wheat bread for the ducks too. Endless fun!)
This girl was shy like a deer, refused to pose even from a distance of 10 meters :)
Selfie with a pink baloon.
Two young fishermen.
One of the highlights of the walk was already waiting for me when we left the park and headed back home. Near the metro (the most interesting thing often happens near metro stations) I heard sounds that cannot be confused with anything: bagpipes! Surprisingly, I have lived for so many years, and I still have not had a chance to hear the bagpipes live. But now this omission is a thing of the past. Both I and my wife and daughter listened with great pleasure to two plays, made a charitable contribution to the busker's box (I always try to do this, and I carry a credit card in my wallet, in my pocket there are small "real" money - partly just for these goals).
The man was a multi-instrumentalist! He played his pipe and a flute at once. Awesome music, and a great experience.
Despite the attached macro lens, I was not in the mood for capturing mushrooms macros (after all, it was a family walk, and macro genre requires some focusing and devotion). This time I wanted rather to watch the street life and people's faces. Nevertheless, I noticed a fair amount of mushrooms spilled out on the lawns of the park - mostly Coprinus sp., but also I met Pholiota squarrosa, first time in this season. They are so beautiful and photo-friendly, that of course, it was impossible to pass by and not take a picture. No questions.
Back to streetphoto. 😎 I took a load of captures and simply cant stop adding them to the post... but I should stop somewhere, really.
Another highlight of this walk were soup bubbles. First we saw a large soap bubble floating on the water. Then we saw a large flock of small bubbles flying in the air ... and then I discovered their source - one young lady with a large bucket of soap solution stood near the bridge and delighted the kids with clouds, huge clouds of soap bubbles. I just couldn't get out of there, and I got so much joy that twice (!) I went to her donation box and left my coins there.
I took a lot of photos that will need to be carefully sorted and bad takes removed, this will require a separate post, but for now - this is how it looked.
We met two cats, and I was able to photograph one of them very close. She was hiding in the thick grass behind the fence - she felt completely safe! That's why she let me so close without fear that I was almost able to take a macro photo of it's eyes. Kidding! :) Anyway, I took some portraits. By the way, it was not I who discovered the cat, but my daughter - many thanks to her for this. Let me round up my photo-walk on this note. And -
Happy Caturday!
| location: | St.Petersburg, Russia | October 2022 | natural light |
| camera/lens: | Canon 5D | Sigma 150mm | raw-conv |
Thanks for walking with me, see you next time.
All images taken by me, copyright (c) 