Another Trip to Benton Lake

Benton Lake has become my favorite place to photograph wildlife.  Wide open spaces and a water source to attract migrating bird species, I have seen everything from the common meadowlark, killdeers and Canadian goose to an owl, cinnamon teals, and northern shovelers.

So last week, with Lady K being cranky and only soothed by a car ride, Texter and I made two trips in one day to Benton Lake.  Here are some of the pictures made during that ride.

There are several bird boxes set near the road which attract barn swallows.  I am use to seeing boxes with purple martins in them, but not boxes for barn swallows.  I liked how this box and bird were set against the sunset.

The sun reflecting on the water with the water fowl and reeds was so calm and beautiful.

The water was still and the ducks were reflected nicely against the surface of the lake.

The ride had to end with the setting of the sun.  The refuge is only open sunrise to sunset.  Lady K had happily slept for a couple of hours and Texter and I had enjoyed a calming and beautiful end to the day. 

Grunge Sunset

I love the look of some of the layered photos coming out.  I go between the HDR pictures and pictures which remind me more of something that could have been art journaled.  So using this Photoshoproadmap tutorial, I used my pictures and some pictures of sidewalk rocks that I used for my grunge textures and came up with this....

This is a picture of the sunset last week at Wake Tech.  The grunge layers came from pictures of rock slabs on a sidewalk at work I had taken.