July Image of the Month

Towards the end of the month I was pretty sure a peony was going to be image of the month. After all, I had 18 images of peonies that I'd given 4 stars to. If there was only one of them, it would have been an easy choice, wouldn't it? But things in life are seldom easy, and it's good to be suspicious when they are. As one of the characters in one of my unpublished chunks of writing says, "Complicated is always the way to bet."

But then Neil Zeller posted an evening trip out to capture the galactic core rising over Forget-Me-Not pond as a primer for the trip to the Great Sand Hills in Saskatchewan. (You can still buy in to this trip here.) I had never been to the pond, and the weather looked promising. Normally when I want to view some celestial phenomenon it clouds over. We got out there and the weather was perfect, warm, clear skies, no wind, and few bugs. 

Often I set up the digital camera and let it run. This implies that I've carefully chosen the composition, and that I want to build an image with star trails, or build a time-lapse video. I wasn't really in the mood for either, I just wanted to get a nice photo of the core reflected in the pond. I tried a couple other compositions for fun, but was struggling with a bit of camera tech that stopped working. 

What I was really up to was my first attempt at star trails with the big film camera. I've got a couple exposures left on that roll, and I hope to find or create some images today or tomorrow, then get the film developed. If I get any interesting images I'll talk more about the process on my other blog. 

So really, choosing the image of the month was easy. It's the runner ups that are hard.

2nd runner up

I am imagining the conversation between these two.

1st runner up

This is the first time this pink peony has made the podium.

Image of the Month

This is one exposure, lightly edited.