Happy Sunday! Anne from Slow Shutter Speed is the lead on this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge and she has picked one of my favorite topics – Reflection.

When I took this photo somewhere in Osaka, Japan almost two years ago, I told myself, “You will have a need to use this photo in a challenge one day.”

Guess what? That day has come!

If I’m not mistaken, this photo was taken near the Umeda building, as my mom, her friend, and I exited the building, trying to hail a taxi to our next location. It was also my birthday, so maybe it’s why I remembered so clearly.

Anyway, searching through my photo archive, I don’t think I’ve taken many photos of buildings with reflections. After all, there are no skyscrapers where I live. The closest skyscraper is probably 30 minutes.

This is one of my favorite wildlife photos I’ve ever taken and I don’t have many, so it’s saying something. What made this photo so special, in my opinion, was the way I felt when I took this photo.

I was with my aunt on a dirt road in the middle of a wildlife refuge area, trying to spot America’s majestic icon – the bald eagle. Each February, bald eagles come to seek refuge from the cold in northern Utah, which, in February, it’s one of the coldest months of the year next to January.

Although we didn’t spot any bald eagles that day, the emotion I felt on that trip was that I could take it easy, that I was no hurry, which is how I always seem to feel when I go on trips with my mom. She stayed home that day as she had no interest in wildlife. “I see it once, I see it all,” is her motto.

So when I can feel I can take it slow and easy, it shows in my pictures.

I will close with this photo. Yes, it’s a black and white photo of a rock. The location, I believe, was the Bonneville Salt Flats on the border of Utah and Nevada. There tend to be water during the winter and early spring, depending on the weather.

I wanted to find the original image and see if I can edit this but couldn’t find it. It must be in one of my many flash drives since this photo was taken 9 years ago. Oh well, I think it looks better in black and white. I believe I turned it black and white at the time to make the stone’s reflection in the water stand out more.