Heavy overcast lighting gives new look to images taken at Yates Mill Pond Park

It wasn’t until I arrived at Yates Mill Pond Park on a heavily overcast Sunday morning that it occurred to me that I could get lighting unlike any I’ve had before during my 2.5-mile walk in the forest. 

And because of that lighting situation, no sooner had I started the walk that I pulled out my iPhone 13 Pro and started shooting pictures. I resigned myself to the fact that this was going to take a bit of time. And I was right.

The Triangle area of North Carolina and elsewhere in the state had received a much-needed healthy dose of rain the previous day and night. And the gloomy sky conditions carried over into Sunday. In addition to being overcast, it also was spritzing very tiny drops. Thankfully, the wooded forest protected me from getting wet. 

The acorn you see in the photo leading off the post is something I shot at the very end of the walk, on the main boardwalk bridge almost at the point where the bridge first passes over the pond. I got low to the ground to get this and a few others that I didn’t feel were quite as satisfactory. You can judge by glancing at the shots below. 

I did shoot some more leaves, too, some fallen, some still hanging onto trees. But mostly, I shot landscapes -- a silhouette or two and unusual or simply curious shapes, a few of which reminded me of letters. 

I saw a few Vs, a few Ys, an E, a K and I even saw what I would describe as a trident. And there the usual unusually twisted narrow branches and other assortments of odd shapes, a few of which I have presented here before, but never before in this kind of lighting. 

As always, to view a larger version of a photo, simply click on the image. To view a full gallery of the 100+ pictures I took on this visit, follow the link in this sentence. 

Above: The first of many that I’ll title simply “Gnarliness.” 

Above: A gnarly branch silhouette. 

Above: Some more Gnarliness. 

Above: A leaf-covered bench top. 

Above: Here's one of my Ks; the tree on the left and the two-plank boardwalk. 

Above: A tree trunk with lots of knots. 

Above and below: The bottom and top of the same pair of trees whose trunks cross each other in the middle. 

Above: One of the tridents. 

 Above: Another of my Ks, although this is a little stretch, I admit. 

Above: More Gnarliness; below, an upside down V. 

Another trident (above) and a unbalanced but shapely Y (below). 

Above and next three photos below: More Gnarliness. 

Above and below: Letter Ys with partially amputated branches. 

Above: An upside down Y. 

Above and next three photos below: Fallen leaves holding water from the overnight rainfall. 

Above: Lower case version of the Greek letter Eta ... or in the American alphabet, a simple E. 

Above: I haven’t seen many black leaves before. These looks like they’d been dragged in mud, and maybe they had been. But they were out in the open when I came across them. 

Above and below: A couple of photos taken using the iPhone’s portraiture feature, which gives the shooter a wide-open lens and smooth bokeh. 

Above: I’d really like to know what kind of tree this star shaped leaf came from. Anyone know?