This week, Sarah from the blog Travel with Me is guest-hosting Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #210 and she is asking us to pick three favorite photos from different categories and explain why.

Landscape

Of all the places I’ve been to, of all the pictures I’ve taken, I kept coming back to this photo. I took this photo last May outside the motel I was staying in. It was the second day of my road-trip and I had booked this specific motel for the purpose of getting the sunrise shot because where I live, I don’t ever get to the sunrise due to the mountains, only sunset.

I first traveled to this spot in 2018 but I had booked the motel too far and ended watching the sunrise from the road, where, even though I’ve parked on the shoulder, there’s always a risk of getting pulled over for parking illegally on the shoulder.

To get this shot, I scouted the location the night before and used the app Photopills on my phone to check when the sun will make an appearance on the horizon. Thankfully, east of the motel was an enormous open field, perfect to watch the sunrise. I was going to use a tripod but luckily, there was a retaining wall, which allowed me to set down my camera and get a leveled, steady shot. About 10 or 20 pictures were shot as I watched the sun ascend and after reviewing these shots, this was by far my favorite.

Wildlife

Of all the wildlife shots, this is definitely my favorite of all because I wasn’t in a moving car, I wasn’t adequately faraway that I didn’t have to be afraid of the bison attacking me, and I was also to capture this creature with a telephoto lens.

A large herd of bison was lying on the field that day and we knew we hit the jackpot when we saw the road was lined with cars and people with tripods, cameras with super-long lenses, and binoculars. Quickly, I swapped my 17-70 mm lens for the 70-300 mm lens and hopped out of the car. I didn’t end up taking a lot of pictures – about 5 or 6 – and ended up editing 3 of my favorites in Lightroom afterwards.

Macro

If I remember correctly, this photo was taken with a macro lens filter, one of those screwed-on glass filters. I still find it hard to take pictures with those filters on sometimes.

Anyway, 2018 was the year I quit my previous job and with not much to do at home, I decided to plant some dahlia tubers. That was the only year I planted dahlias. They didn’t come back the following spring because I didn’t know I was supposed to dig them up before winter, store them in my basement, and re-plant them in the spring. Wow, that’s complicated.

They were pretty while they lasted and I’m not sure if I’m ever going to plant dahlias if it meant I have to search the ground for tubers in the fall. I rather like those perennial plants that aren’t too fussy about the winter.