Outdoor drain
A lot of novice photographers worry about equipment, thinking that it takes the latest. most expensive, most featured gear to take good photos. Of course having good equipment helps, and professional calibre cameras and lenses will last longer, take more abuse, and maybe have a high-end feature that will help in extreme situations, but such gear just isn’t necessary for the overwhelming majority of subjects and situations.
What is important, though, is curiosity about the world and an eye that notices the possibilities in everyday objects.
This outdoor drain is an example of those two statements. This image is of a drain in the Demonstration Garden at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum, near Superior, AZ. I’ve walked past it scores of times on my many visits to BTA. I’ve been attracted to it by the unusual pattern of the grillwork – something I don’t recall seeing elsewhere. I’ve also been intrigued by the way the color of the grillwork so closely matches the color of the soil, and I wonder if someone at BTA went out of their way to find such a good color match.
This was taken on the morning of 7/5/09 – a pleasant day outside and away from the extra heat of Phoenix. Although I’d gone hoping to get more bird photos I came back mostly with lizard shots (like The Gila Monster I posted previously). I used my “point and shoot” rig for this: my old Nikon D70 with modest 55-200 Nikkor lens at 55mm, ISO 400, 1/400th second and f/10. The gear was far less important than just seeing this interesting design and walking over to it for a photo when the morning light really set off the grillwork.
Its my favorite image of the day!
Rich Ditch's Photography Blog 