Best of 2013: May

                         
                           

Inner Light

On the Fifth Day of Christmas, I am reminded why this is both a fun and occasionally frustrating way to produce a "best of" album. It's fun because going through a month's photos looking for a pick if a great way to reflect on the year. It's frustrating because some month's you have a wealth of choices and others, the pickin's are rather slim!

May of 2013 was a good month. The semester ends in early May, and I celebrated with a trip to South Louisiana. I went to Baton Rouge first, where I met Google+ friend Irene Kato for the first time, not to mention her delightful family. After a lovely photowalk of her back yard and the neighborhood encountering many wonderful flowers, I sat in her kitchen and enjoyed her children, good conversation and watching her husband skillfully make delicious pot stickers, which we all consumed with abandon.

From BR, I went to Lafayette, Opelousas and New Iberia, then home by way of Camp Hardtner and my beloved quarry, and I shot all along the way. But perhaps the most amazing place of all was Lake Martin, southwest of Lafayette on the eastern edge of the Atchafalaya Basin. There I shot dragonflies, a great blue heron, egrets, and an anhinga, plus cypress trees draped with Spanish moss and the most amazing dinner-plate size American lotus (Nelumbo lutea) flowers.

A group of dedicated photographers on Google+ established a community they call "High Quality Sharing Photographs" or HQSP for short. Every day they pick and promote winning photographs in a variety of categories. picked this one. This shot was honored to be selected an HQSP Winner. You can see the winner post here: HQSP Winner July 6, 2013