About three weeks ago, Monica and I were perusing the internet in search of our next 3 Hour Photo Trip. I stumbled across a place about an hour and a half away, that had a rather strange sounding name: Big Hill Pond State Park in Pocahontas, TN. The pond that is the park’s namesake, is actually a “borrow pit” from which dirt was removed to build a levee for the railroad that would run between Memphis and Charleston. This borrow pit later became a large pond or small lake. The park is touted as a haven for waterfowl and many other animals. On our trip, we were not fortunate enough to see the waterfowl, but we were lucky enough to see a few deer, climb a 70 foot fire tower and stand above the forest canopy (pictures of that will follow later this year, especially when the leaves begin to change in the fall).
We arrived about an hour or so before sunrise. I was fighting fog on the windshield for the entire trip: turning the temperature up high enough to keep the fog away, and yet keeping it cool enough to be comfortable. Little did we realize that the lake was similarly having the same fight. For just as the sun began to shine in the horizon, we witnessed the most beautiful display of misty fog rising off the lake, creating magnificent displays of purples, pinks, blues, and almost every color you could imagine. It has often been said that the best way to experience change is to make a plan. That being said, our planned birding photography trip quickly became a landscaping photography trip. Although I would have loved to see some loons, geese, or a wood duck (what I was really hoping to see)…the elegant and peaceful sunrise over the misty lake was indeed breathtaking.
After I took several pictures from different angles of the lake, I had to snap a couple of the waning gibbous moon. For an object some 238,000 miles from the earth, it never ceases to amaze me how my little camera can freeze this celestial object’s journey, and for a moment in time – it is mine and mine alone. With it’s lines and craters, beauty and scars alike – every facet is captured to be gazed upon again and again.
If you’re looking for a wall portrait for your home or office, you couldn’t find much better than a peaceful portrait of a misty Big Hill Pond State Park sunrise. So leave me comment and let me know which sunrise you want to wake up to on your wall. Or just let me know your own sunrise experience and hopefully my pictures brought those memories back to your mind once again.
Until next time, whether in your own backyard or maybe just 3 hours away, Enjoy our Wonderful World!
RM Goldsmith Photography 