Michael Mroczek

New Year's Day

Cattails blowing in the wind

At the beginning of every year, I resolve to incorporate photography into my daily routine. Today was no exception. I don’t intend to label this endeavor as a 365 project, as it might not be a daily occurrence. I once atempted a 365 project back in 2017, which lost momentum sometime in March of that year, despite being one of the most productive times in my photographic practice.

Moreover, I believe such projects are often associated with social media. Consequently, I have decided to discontinue posting on social media and have no intention of resuming it. I'm still wrestling with the idea of what it means to publish something every day in my post social media existince. If I have personal projects, that have no real beginning or end, does it mater if I'm "posting every day"?

My intentions for this year are that that this website, and I'ts accompanying archive, become my only creative outlet(s)

Mid-Day Waffling with a Camera

Yesterday I spent some time photographing a few subjects in the backyard. The wind made it an interesting challenge, but also provided some opportunities to experiment with a few techniques. For most of the day I watched how the wind was blowing the cattails in our yard back and forth.

blurry cattails blowing in the wind

Lately I’ve been thinking about how to incorporate more movement into my photography. I set my lens to its smallest aperture and set the slowest shutter speed possible to get my desired exposure. Using a wide-ish lens, I immersed myself into the confusion of the reeds.

Bird Report

In addition to the resolution mentioned above, I began the day like I do on most days when not working, and that's by looking out of the living room windows for interesting birds. We are in the time of year where we should start to see different types of migrating waterfowl on the lake. We have mallards year-round, but I have been on the lookout for what I've generalized as “fancy ducks". I find it much more fun to say "I'll be right back, there are fancy ducks outside!" while skirting my parental duties. "Honey, there's a hooded merganser on the water" doesn't have the same feel to it.

Early in the morning, I spotted what I think were some ring-necked ducks bobbing on the waves. Unfortunately, when I ran outside to photograph them, I spooked a group of mallards at our neighbor’s feeder, who then scared the group of ring-necks on the water. A lesson learned.

a flock of irds in the sky

Later on, we walked to Ashley & Ryan’s for breakfast. From their house further up the lake, I noticed a small group of ducks and ventured down to the water to take a closer look. From what I can tell, these were possibly green-winged teals, but it's hard to tell. This group was also wary of my presence, which leads me to think that they are definitely a species that isn't used to being around humans. I will have to keep my eyes out. Unfortunately, the photos I took during these two sightings are not worth sharing.