Description

This is a close-up of the base of a geyser. I thought it was cool, so I included it here. I love how the water is just starting to come down, swelling the base of the geyser. The blue shade was a gift from the sun, something I wasn't expecting. But the unexpected sometimes helps instead of hurts.

Technical Explanation

Sometimes you don't know what you are going to get until you get your pictures back. I knew I had something here, but I wasn't sure just how good it would be. I used a very fast shutter speed to be sure I didn't get any blurring. Luck plays a big part in pictures like this. You don't want to take the picture too early, otherwise all you'd see is the blur of the speeding water rising up into the air (as you can see at the top of this picture.) If you take the picture too late, the water comes crashing down and you don't see the dry land contrasting the gush of water. I know I lucked out. But that is why photographers play the odds. There is no way that a photographer gets every picture. I've taken a lot of bad pictures, but I show you only 5% - 10% of them. If I take 1000 pictures, that is 50-100 pictures that I can show and you'd think that I am a great photographer. But believe me. I've taken some pretty lousy ones. (Maybe I'll post some to show you what not to do!) That is because I experiment. I expect some pictures to come out bad. Then I see the results and try to learn from it. Fortunately, this one I got in one take and I think it is very cool.