The Hoquiam River runs through the middle of my hometown of Hoquiam, Wash. This photo is taken near the end of its journey, on the southeastern edge of town, less than a mile from where the river empties into the Grays Harbor bay.
I had thought that I was going catch the golden hour when I left my apartment (which is about one block from the river, and maybe a mile from this spot) on the Sunday evening that I took this photo. I wanted to catch the sun on Beacon Hill, which you can see in the top right of this photo. But, as soon as I got into position, the sun dipped behind a cloud bank that ringed the horizon, and then the clouds closed in completely.
Which left me with low light conditions. I set the ISO to automatic and worked with the aperture and shutter speed to get the exposure right. The ISO for this shot was 5000. The resulting grain gives the photo a old-timey feel. To emphasize that effect, I used the camera raw filter in Photoshop to desaturate it and add the quality of a black and white photo, without losing the green of the grass.
The old-time, nostalgic feel seems to make this spot beckon as the perfect place to cast a fishing line.
And there was at least one fisher on the river that evening. As I walked home I got an almost decent shot of a great blue heron wading along the shore.
Hopefully next time it will be a shot worth sharing. Until then...
...have a great day!