Month
Oct. 10
Koi Under Lily 1
Capturing this Koi under a Lily pad at the Mission in San Juan Capistrano was not exactly what I had intended. I was trying to shoot leaf patterns in the back fountain. I had captured some images a couple years prior that I thought were really surreal but the pads haven't been cooperating for the last couple of years. I had made a few prior trips to the Mission this summer but the pads didn't appear to be improving. Great for tourists, but not enough character for what I was trying to capture.
I tried a few shots of Lilies with my 200-400, then a 50-150, but it just wasn't happening. I pulled out my 8-16 mm wide angle lens (yes, Sigma 8-16), and tried shooting lily pads close up. The Koi thought I was going to feed them so they started cruising the water in front of the lily pad. I noticed this immediately and began shooting images of the lily pads with the Koi in the foreground. I like "deep" images so I included other lilies and some mission structure in the background.
I've only posed one of a couple dozen koi images and may be more selective in the future. I am getting more critical of my images, not because that's what I am told, but because I feel like it. Generally when I go on a 3 or 4 days photo trip, I like to show up a day early, take a lot of lousy shots, settle down, and then try to do some real creative photography. I don't do photography full time, so I'm always a little shutter happy for the first day or so.
The image was taken with a cropped frame DSLR, at an aperture of F8, shutter speed of 1/200th second, ISO 320, hand held but leaning on the edge of the fountain wall.