Laura at Wall Doxey Part 2

More from the Park

Last week, I shared some photos of Laura from our visit to Wall Doxey State Park in Mississippi. But wait, there’s more! Instead of photo overload in one post, I decided to split them up into two posts. So here are the rest of the photos!

First up is this portrait-style photo. Except that it is in landscape orientation. Who says that all portraits have to be in portrait orientation? Not me.

Anyway, I liked the trees as a background here, both the leaves as the main background and the tree trunk at the left to anchor everything down. It was difficult to find a place where the lighting was even because of the sunlight coming through the trees. But we did find a spot that was mostly shady, and that is what we used here. You could use a fill-in flash to help fight the shadows, but I prefer natural lighting.

On the Trail

We stopped here along the trail as we were walking. Actually, this part was more of a road than a trail. For a while, we had been walking on a very narrow trail around Spring Lake. But after a while, the trail ran into a road that leads to a scout camp area, and that is where we were here.

Once again, we had to find the right place for natural lighting that was even and not shadowy. I think this spot worked out well for that. By the way, on our walk all the way around the lake, we saw a grand total of two other people. It could be that there were others up ahead of us on the trail going the same direction that we were going, but I really doubt it, based on the number of cars that were there at the park that day.

On the Dock

One of our last stops on our walk around Spring Lake was this dock that went out over the lake. I believe its main purpose was to serve as a fishing pier, similar to the pier pictured in the previous post of Laura photos. As you can see in the background, some of the railings were missing, so you should be careful where you lean if you go out on that dock.

I said this was our last stop around the lake before we left Wall Doxey State Park. But if we had gone in a clockwise direction around the lake, then this would have been our first stop. We actually had a brief discussion to decide whether we were going to hike around the lake clockwise or counterclockwise. Nothing serious, just asking the question and then randomly choosing counterclockwise. That decision was mainly based on the fact that the fishing pier in the first group of photos was visible in that direction.

What’s the Plan?

So often these days, our best times are the ones that we have not planned. The things that just happen are at least as good as anything that we have planned, if not better.

On this day, our plan was to drive to Wall Doxey, eat our lunch, and do some walking. That was all we planned. We did plan ahead enough to fix our picnic lunch before we left home, but that was about it. That was partly because we did not know for certain what we would find there since we had not been before. But that was also because we have learned that planning is sometimes too stressful.

You can spend a lot of time worrying about what you are going to do and when you are going to do it. How you are going to do things, and in what order. And then you spend even more time worrying when things don’t go according to what you have planned. Then you have to try to replan everything to get back on track. And then plan what will happen after that, too.

More and more, we just show up and see what happens. It does help to do a little bit of planning, but not all that much.

For example, for our Kauaʻi trip, we had planned our flights, our place to stay, and our rental car. And that was it. While we were on the plane on the way there, others around us had all sorts of guidebooks and maps. They had lists of everything they wanted to see and schedules of when they were going to see it. Everything was planned out in detail. Maybe that worked for them.

We might have done some different things if we had planned out our trip more. We might have found different things to see if we had researched more of what there is to do there. But I am pretty certain that we would not have had any more fun. And we probably would have had more stress to get that same amount of fun. That has become our philosophy for more and more of the trips that we take these days.

Don’t worry too much about what will happen. Just show up and enjoy life!

Bible Verse

And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. - Luke 12:29-31

About the Photos

As with the previous Wall Doxey photos, these were all taken with the Sony Alpha A7 camera and the standard lens. The prime lens would have been good for these types of photos, too, but I didn’t want to carry around my large camera bag and swap lenses. So these turned out just fine.

As with everything else about this day trip, I didn’t plan out any of these photos. We would just find a good spot and say, “Let’s take a photo here.” And so we did.

Photo: A single Raw exposure, processed in Aurora HDR. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Sony Alpha A7 II
_Lens: _ Sony FE 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS Lens
Date: October 12, 2019
Location: Wall Doxey State Park, Mississippi