When ever I teach a workshop, or speak at a photo conference, I always started my program off with the benefits of macro photography.
One of the five benefits is shooting close to home, and I have four parks within twenty minutes of my home, and most of my best images were shot at those four parks.
Holland Ponds was one of those parks where I have gotten many of my favorite images.
Back in 2004 when I started shooting at Holland Ponds, the ponds were easy to access, and I got so many great images of floating leaves, and frogs in those ponds.
Over the years the plant growth at the edges of all the ponds have made it impossible to see the ponds, let alone shoot anything there.
Here is an image of a pathway where years ago, you would see ponds on both sides of the trail. Now you can see how bad the bushes are, totally blocking access to the ponds.
Here are a few of my favorite images from these ponds, If you've followed me over the years, you have seen these images.
Here's one that looks like a Monet painting.
There was also a path that I would find lots of teasel to shoot, and here is what the path looks like now, overgrown, and the bushes are crowding out the Teasels, so not many left to shoot.
Here is my favorite of all my Teasel images from the past.
I did find a few Teasels left to shoot, so I did get this one image with the sun backlighting the edges of the Teasel and stem. It will be my last image shot there.