The Nikon 105 F2 DC is still hogging my camera's attention like a spoilt child, but it produces the goods when asked so I can forgive it its indulgence.

A great American photographer, Jay Maisel, often advises photographers to go out "empty", i.e. with no preconceived plan of what they're going to shoot; or, if they have a plan, to drop it. He talks a lot about being open and receptive to what happens around you, and if you're fixated on shooting one particular thing then you could well miss the other things which turn up.

Today I went out with the express purpose of shooting tulips at the local park. It had rained for a good day or more, so I was going on the assumption that there'd be lots of water droplets on the tulips. 

On the way, though, I noticed something else: there were (as you'd imagine following a lot of rain) puddles of water everywhere, and as there was almost no wind, they were pretty still. Didn't take long to realise that this could be a good time to shoot reflections. The place where I shoot is also surrounded by a lot of water, so tulips were out (I did shoot a few, but not as many as I was originally planning to) and reflections were in.

First reflection shot. Turned out that I cut off the man's head and shoulders. I wonder if reflections need model releases? :-)

Second shot, more or less same vantage point but in portrait orientation to get everything in that needed to be:

There was some great late afternoon sunlight coming through. I put these two through a lightroom preset to give them a warmer feel, and I like how they turned out. First one is heavily cropped to emphasise the sunny area:

Second one also cropped, but not as much:

Red tulips are tricky to shoot for some reason; they often look mushy even when they're sharp. I had to play around with the levels on this one quite a bit:

Red tulips

I went back to the Lightroom "warm" preset for a few more shots, and it really gives them a nice glow when you have nice natural light in the first place:

Even a regular old bench can look pretty neat with the right light and a bit of help:

And I even tried it out on a flower shot : 

Nice symmetry here. This one also benefits from the Lightroom preset:

Shooting a castle and its reflection is all well and good, and looks nice. But turn it upside down, and you get something more trippy:

Even more so when you get the whole thing in:

Finally, on the way back, there was a pretty nice sunset:

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