Visit Your Sewage Treament Plant

OK, I'm kidding. But that's exactly where I shot this photo--at a stream near a local sewage treatment plant. And I had no idea this pretty stream was there.

I was out last week on my second day of testing my new D90 and decided to drive down to a small park on the shore of the Housatonic River, just a few miles from home. The river was pretty boring but there were some nice tall phragmites (river grasses) growing near the edge of the parking lot and so I drove over to take a look. Much to my surprise I found this pretty stream behind the tall grasses. The light was fading fast, but I was able to pop off a few dozen different exposures hoping to get a nice flow of water over the rocks. I shot this frame at 1/15 second at f/10 with a 70-300mm Nikkor lens.

Here's the weird thing: I couldn't see the stream clearly from on foot, but from the high window of my Ford van I had a clear view--so the best shots were all made from inside my car. I just rolled up a sweater and laid it across the door frame and was able to shoot fairly long exposures without any camera jiggle.

Anyway, the most interesting part of the shots for me was that I had no idea this stream was there and I go to this park a lot. I never saw the stream before. The stream is, I think, where water (hopefully clean and treated) flows from the sewage treatment plant into the Housatonic River (a fairly big river--probably a half-mile wide in some places). So, you never know where you'll find a good stream to shoot--just don't look too carefully for the source of the stream.