Four Days in Januaryat Yates Mill Pond Park

Day 4

Jan. 12, 2026

The fourth day of this series was notable for the bright sunlight that had returned to the North Carolina piedmont. The sunlight helped render the lead-off photo that is full of straight (and leading) lines, as well as diagonal lines and nicely spaced shadow patterns along the rail tops of the pedestrian bridges. 

The sunlight also played a role in several of the other photos you'll see in this post, beginning with the first photos below. 

And oh, about that sign on the orange cone on the far left ... there was absolutely no ice or treacherous footing there that day. 

To view a full gallery of images from this shoot, follow the link in this sentence.

Above and first four photos below: Shots I made from a second pedestrian bridge, not far from the main bridge shown in the lead-off photo. Some pretty dramatic contrasts, not to mention lines, angles and patterns. In the fourth photo, I made a shot of the bridge rail's shadow ... including my head sticking out as I took the picture.  

The above is probably my favorite shot of the day, a wonderful and dramatic vista of scores of trees, most of which are leafless, and their shadows casting a synchronistic pattern on the ground. An exception to the lack of leaves is the horizontal patch of golden leaves across the lower portion of the tree trunks. And all of this cast against a blue sky.

A photo that reminded me of an “other world” visual (above), and a nearly fully leafless tree amid sparse green vegetation (below). 

Above and below: More tall trees, golden leaves, a closely cropped tree trunk and an angular branch arched over the landscape (below).

 

Above: When I returned to the main pedestrian bridge, I saw a heron gliding across the small portion of the pond. I have no idea if this was my blue heron from the day before; I couldn't get close to it with the iPhone zoom. But I like the capture of it in rippling water just before it crosses the tree reflection ... with a duck in the background. 

 

Above: Another reflection in a slightly different section of the same area of the pond. 

Above and below: On the return trip from my walk, I stopped at a second pedestrian bridge (which isn't far from the main bridge) and took these photos of the shadows and lines there. 

When I made it to the original bridge (above and below) on the return trip, the sun had apparently shifted sufficiently to render the shadows to what you see here. 

Four Days in Januaryat Yates Mill Pond Park

Day 2

Jan. 9, 2026

I told a longtime acquaintance that on my Jan. 9 visit to Yates Mill Pond Park, I felt unusually inspired as I encountered what seemed like unending appealing photo compositions. 

I was surprised because it was winter, and as I noted in the first installment of this series yesterday, I’d visited the park that day to walk, not photograph. I just blindly presumed that snowless winter just wouldn’t lend itself to photography in a park. 

Boy, was I wrong. This park has a woods of considerable acreage, and as I found out, its winter “look” is most definitely photogenic.

On this day, the compositions just kept jumping out at me. Such as the silhouette you see leading off the post. This presented itself on a lark; I happened to turn around on the walking trail to look back at that odd-shaped tree trunk, and lo and behold ... it gifted me a silhouette. 

Moments earlier, approaching it from the other side, I certainly saw the odd shape, but I’d come across it before while walking the trail, and I had photographed it. So it was not new. But I’d never seen it in this backlit form. For those of you who haven’t seen it in a previous post, I present it below in normal exposure. 

I was shooting in the same general direction when I took the gnarly branched tree trunk in the first two photos below, so the slight backlight make the tree trunk itself dark (as in the first photo). In post processing, I boosted shadow detail as show in the second photo below. Below that are a few other tree oddities I came across walking the trail.  

Another oddity I came across — and which apparently had not jumped out at me previously — were these grassy mounds (first five photos below) on either side of the loop portion of the trail. In summer, these areas are green grasses and foliage. The converted yellow-orange mounds of late autumn and winter are what caught my eye.

The next area of interest I ran into were striking streaks of shadows. The first five photos below are among those I captured. 

Woven into the landscape in areas where there were no off-season yellow mounds were clusters of green vegetation with elongated leaves, illustrated in the first five photos below. 

And then there were the trees where yellow or bright brown leaves still clung to the branches, presenting striking vistas when surrounded by many other deciduous trees bereft of their leaves. 

Then there were the oddities on the ground — the tree roots, rotted trunks or fallen branches forming unusual shapes: 

Next, the landscape itself ... starting with the tall, still green trees towering over a mini-shelter on a pedestrian bridge (first two photos below), tall bare trees lining the forest (next two photos), a couple of tree greens on the landscape (next two photos) and a rectangular show of sunlight along a path backed by more tall lumber. 

To view a full gallery of photos from this shoot, follow the link in this sentence.

Then we return to the pond and/or forest stream, where rippling reflections, geese and ducks, and tree shadows on water caught the eye.