The morning light on a calm Lake Olathe creates a photographic opportunity to remember. And how I’ll remember the lesson I learned this morning.

Lately, I’ve been admiring the self portraits of many photographers on Flickr.com, therefore, I set up my laptop to preview images and control my Canon 40D. The only drawback to this setup is… Automatic Focus is disabled. Forgetting that your lens is on manual focus when shooting kills great landscape photographs. While the image to the right is nice as a web image once you get into print quality, this exposure is not worth the paper it’s printed on. Hopefully, I don’t make a lack of focus a habit. Focusing my own eyes is rough in the early mornings and my first 10 clicks today proved it. I returned to the same lake shore and hour later, but the early morning color just wasn’t there.

Photography is a skill that requires the preparedness of an Eagle Scout and the technical skill of a NASA rocket scientist. Too bad I can’t be both at the same time.

Below is a better exposure, just not the color I was hoping for…

Recommendations for improvement are welcome.