Edith L Moore Nature Sanctuary

 

The Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary is a lovely urban forest classroom which one can traverse in an hour but if you are a photographer, you can spend all day and more there. Whether creekside images or vibrant landscape photography, you can capture the flowers and greenery close-up and at a distance, but bide your time to walk away with portfolio-worthy images of colorful birds, various reptiles and a number of furry, cuddly creatures as they go about their day. The list continues with macro shots of bugs, bullfrogs, butterflies, cicadas, bees hovering over flowers and an unending array of botanies.

Your Digital Photo Academy instructor will advise you on waiting for the light and how to position a bird or wildlife creature within their environment to share a visual narrative with the viewer of your image. Sometimes catching the main subject dead center works but then other times it leaves the image just that, “dead.” There are a number of easy-to-learn composition strategies, like Rule of Thirds and Leading Lines to dramatically showcase your topic and engage your viewer with a more committed visual interaction with your photographs.

The park terrain varies and each option offers a different view ranging from the lily pond just south of the porch of a rustic, pine log cabin built in 1931 by Edith’s husband, Jesse, to photo ops of bird and wildlife sightings while waiting on the south porch itself. Anchor the scene with a striking white ash tree, dating back to before the Civil War or make the massive columnar trunk the main subject of the image, leading from the vertical line of the trunk up to its majestic crown of leaves above. The female ash trees produce single-winged seeds in late summer which are savored by birds and small mammals. Other photogenic trees are also present on the property such as the bow wood and the loblolly pine by the Rummel Creek.

You will likely learn the art of panning to capture a forest inhabitant on the move, a cardinal pecking at one of the bird feeders, or maybe a screech owl in flight. It takes a few tries but inevitably one learns this technique that will be useful during every future photo excursion whether a casual family outing, a stroll in the neighborhood or once-in-a-lifetime travel experience. You probably already have your own signature style of taking photographs, even if you are not actually aware of your choices when releasing the shutter.

Your Digital Photo Academy instructor will quantify your photo techniques. demonstrate and supervise new ones and help you gain insight into how your brain is intuitively choosing to aim the lens and work the camera controls. Once you are aware of the various composition and camera control options, you can choose, “to,” or choose, “not to,” employ a specific photo approach. The workshops are fun and informative.