Arriving at the Right Place at Precisely the Right Time

Natural light can be very fickle. The photographer, Ernst Haas, pointed out that a good photographer is like a good poker player who makes the most of whatever cards are dealt. When working with natural light, the photographer must know how to make the most of whatever light is illuminating the subject.

Without realizing it in advance, I had arrived at precisely the right time as I was walking along the edge of the woods towards the pavilion trailhead at the Judson Nature Trails earlier this month. The light illuminating a Virginia Creeper vine growing up a tree trunk with the dark woods in the background was magical. The vine popped out of the surrounding visual chaos:

People seem to get Virginia Creeper confused with Poison Ivy, I suppose because the individual leaflets have a somewhat similar shape, but Poison Ivy has three leaflets per leaf and Virginia Creeper has five leaflets per leaf. Thus the rhyme: "Leaves of three, let it be. Leaves of five, let it thrive."

This set of photographs was taken at the Jack Judson Nature Trails (a.k.a. The Hondodo Creek Trails) in the Olmos Basin in Alamo Heights on Monday, September 9, 2013.