In Search Of Shade

Monday, June 25, 2012

Leon Creek Greenway, O.P. Schnabel Park Trailhead, north

Today's photos:

The summer heat high, the ridge of atmospheric high pressure that builds over the Southern Plains including South Texas every summer bringing triple digit heat, is firmly in place this week. "In Search Of Shade" will be the theme for all my walks this week and more than likely the rest of the summer. By the time I returned to the car today it was 99°(F) and the high temperature later in the afternoon was 103°.

It is generally 12 degrees cooler in the shade of a tree canopy, so today I stayed primarily on the creek bed trail where the tree canopy is relatively dense and continuous. One of the challenges this presented was that most of what I photographed was also in the shade, sometimes in very deep shade. This adds a degree of difficulty in the photography making it more difficult to get an accurate light meter reading and decreasing an already limited depth of field with the lens settings. Focusing becomes much more difficult.

Overall, the photographs in this series do convey the experience of the walk. This is by far one of the most vibrant sections of Leon Creek with a very diverse range of both flora and fauna.