Moon over Yates Mill Pond Park

Sometime pre-2012, in the middle of the new millennium’s first decade, while I was still living in Indianapolis (and working full time), I was out for a very early morning run through Garfield Park, which was very close to where my house was. 

And on the tail end of the run, as I was climbing the hill on Pagoda Drive, I noticed off to my right that the moon was perched perfectly over the campus of Emmerich Manual High School, which sat on the park’s western border. The visual excited me, and for 30 seconds, I gave thought to sprinting home, grabbing my DSLR camera (I did not have a cell phone at that time), and running back to capture pictures. I even quickly came up with an alliterative headline on the blog post bearing the resulting photos: Moon over Manual.  

I was deterred, however, by the thought of possibly missing the moment in the time it would take me to run home and run back. But I also worried that doing so would make me late for work. 

So instead of throwing caution to the wind, I sighed and told myself I would get it the next time it happened. 

As you might guess, there was no next time. 

I later did some Internet research to try and learn how often the moon could land in the exact same visual position like I had seen that morning. And the response was demoralizing. Today, I don’t remember exactly what the answer was, but it basically foretold that years of waiting would be involved. 

On Aug. 31, when I arrived at Yates Mill Pond Park for my regular walk, I had my iPhone with me ... and an angel nudging me in the form of the man you see in the lower right corner of the photo leading off this post. 

I wasn’t looking up at the sky as I made my way down the main boardwalk over the pond, taking pictures of reflections on the perfectly still pond. But the man saw I was a picture-taker and directed my attention to the placement of the moon right over the short overhang on the boardwalk. I looked up, and there it was. I took three pictures integrating the moon into the landscape (the two others are the first two photos below). Below those are the reflection shots.

Twelve days later, on Sept. 11, I was again in the park for my walk and nearing an end when I came across the striking colors on a tree growing from the pond (first photo below). I took the other pictures closer to the tree. I wasn’t as impressed with those, but ... for the sake of wrapping up the story, I present them here, too.

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Introducing new blog header photo

Don't rub your eyes too hard if you think you're seeing multiple copies of the same photo on this page today. 

Because you are. 

Today's post serves to introduce the new header photo at the very top of the page. A copy of the photo also appears as the lead-off photo. A vertical orientation of this scene appears below. 

This shot was taken during a Feb. 6, 2026, visit to Yates Mill Pond Park in Raleigh, N.C. I've done so much shooting at this park, especially in the past year. As any regular visitor to this blog knows, it's become a favorite place of mine for both photography and exercise.

I got the idea to change the photo after observing the ninth anniversary of my residency in North Carolina on July 10. It occurred to me that after using two Indy-based concert photos in the header for the first 17 1/2 years of the blog, it was time to represent the new community in the header photo.

I liked this image on several levels. The clouds and the reflections, foremost. But also the almost total apparent monochrome tone except for slender horizontal sky on the right side and in the pond reflection. This is exactly how the image turned out using my iPone 13 Pro. I did not selective coloring in post-processing.

The landscape scenes replaces the black-and-white photo of Bishops band member Georgette Fraction, who made her debut in the header in October 2021. Before her, that spot was filled by a shot of Indianapolis-area bluesman Tad Robinson singing at an April 2010 album-release concert at The Jazz Kitchen of Indianapolis.

Check out my traveling photographer blog, Travelin’ Shutterbug.

With leaves now fallen, Yates Mill Pond woods landscape exposes a stark vista

It wasn't until recently that I learned that there are as many as 60 species of heron in the Wild Kingdom. So while doing my 2-mile walk Friday at Yates Mill Pond Park, I was excited to see that a heron was in photo-range distance for my iPhone while it slowly walked in high steps in the pond near the main pedestrian bridge.

If I had brought my DSLR camera (Canon 6D), I'm certain I would have been able to get a much clearer and sharper picture than the ones I got with my iPhone 13 Pro (see lead-off photo). A little farther away from the heron and the bridge were the set of water fowl shown in the photo below. Notice the small group of ducks in the distance from the fowl in the foreground and, in the extreme top of the image, a solitary duck that appears to be swimming toward the others. 

These two photos were the highlight Friday of my photo shoot, and they came near the end of my walk. I didn’t pull out my phone to start taking any pictures until the last half-mile or so of the trail course while still in the woods west of the pond.

I started taking pictures to document the stark vistas I had been admiring in light of how almost all the leaves on the deciduous trees had fallen or blown away. But also, the fact that there were no longer leaves on branches to admire made scores of fallen (or snapped) tree trunks and branches stand out unlike anything I had experienced there previously. 

The first 10 photos below illustrate (I hope) what I was describing in the paragraph above. Below those are some simple landscape photos, including the farm on an adjoining property, which I’ve photographed and presented here before. There are also shots of the trail and a particularly favorite gnarly tree I always come across while walking this trail. 

I finish with some pond reflection images, including a couple featuring the pedestrian bridge and a modest covered area at the bridge’s midsection. 

Photos taken while walking 2-mile trail at Yates Mill Pond County Park

The lead-off photo is intended to be a kind of teaser for this post, entailing another visit to Yates Mill Pond County Park in Raleigh. 

Don't get me wrong, though; it’s legitimate. Fully. But the real purpose for this post is not so much the pond and the colorful trees surrounding it. But a sort of new angle for doing yet another post on a park that’s become a favorite, partly because of its proximity to home and partly because of a two-mile trail I’ve been using a lot in recent months for my daily walks.

In fact, the bulk of the photos I took there on Sunday were taken on the trail itself. It occurred to me not long into Sunday’s walk that I hadn't stop to illustrate the sundry things I see and come across on my walks there. I’ve taken lots of pictures before while on the shorter, one-mile trail that actually surrounds the pond. But not from the longer one that loosely follows a creek that veers from the pond deep into a wooded area adjacent to the pond.

The two-mile trail has segments that resemble normal trails, such as the first photo below.  

But it also has ghosts! Like the one shown in the lower right corner of the photo immediately below.  OK, OK. I kid. On occasion, I toss into a post a photo in which I accidentally include myself, and I was in a playful mood while composing today’s post, so I’m going to leave it. 

In all seriousness, the photo below also depicts one of about seven or so wood-lined sections of the path that the park installed because the path exists in a soft-land area that often stays wet and/or damp well after a good rain. You’ll see a few other examples of this in photos further down in the post. 

The photo above is another example of a mostly routine view of the trail ahead of me, while the first three photos below illustrate some interesting shadows I came across along the way. 

Perspective was another photography quality I tried to indulge Sunday. And on this day, it often involved looking upward. The photo above was the initial orientation I captured of this portion of a tree. I turned the camera to the landscape orientation to get a different perspective of the same tree in the photo below. 

 

Above and below: Two more “looking upward” shots while on the walk. 

Above and below: Some foliage along the trail’s loop portion farthest from the starting point. 

Trees — and/or portions of them — were another subject of the shoot. The photos above and the first five photos below are good examples. When my eyes first came across the third photo below, I initially froze in my tracks, thinking it was a snake poised to make a strike at me!

The photo above is a mid- to upper-section photo of one the most intriguing trees I came across close to the trail. The first photo below is a more details view of the tree’s middle and bottom sections, while the second photo below is a detail view of its lower section. 

Above and below: Two more sections of wooden-covered portions of the trail because of soft ground underneath. 

One of the reasons I like this trail for my walks is that it is undulating and riddled with tree roots. Actually, I’d prefer much less of the latter; one can easily trip on a root while tackling the trail at a brisk pace, and I sheepishly admit I do a brisk walk, even on this trail. So you have to be watching the ground almost constantly. The photos above and below are two examples of trees roots waiting for a visitor to pass successfully. Additionally, the one below is on a steep — albeit brief — climb. So a double hazard. 

The bridge over the pond (above) is ahead and to the left, signaling the two miles is nearly complete. All that’s left is a straight wooden bridge (maybe 330 feet long) and then a right turn into the parking lot.

Closing with a couple of “pretty” shots. The one above is a view of the turning colors as seen from the bridge over the pond (autumns colors are just starting to emerge) and the one below is a section of a creek off a second bridge deeper into the trail route.