The Cutting Room Floor

Water skiing at sunset at Little Moreau Recreation Area in July.

My summer photography has been focused on South Dakota State Parks for my online column over at www.southdakotamagazine.com: (http://southdakotamagazine.com/stateparks).  Typically an average of 20 or so photos are posted with each column. That means interesting shots are sometimes left on the cutting room floor.  This happens mostly because I have similar shots already picked out and I'd rather show a variety rather than four different angles of the same flower. That said, I decided to post some of my favorite shots that were edited out of the columns on this post as I still like them.  Click on a image for a larger file to view and thanks for stopping by!

Fawn at sunset at Little Moreau Recreation Area in early August.

A crab spider perched on a sunflower.

A couple shots of a wildflower I couldn't ID for sure.  A friend of mine thinks it could be a dotted gayfeather but I'm leaning towards western ironweed... which appears to be a showier version than just regular ironweed.  Either way, it is a cool looking flower.

Rain drops on leaves at Lake Alvin Recreation Area after a light shower went through in the morning.

Sunset at Lake Alvin's fishing dock.

A couple versions of me experimenting with long exposures at the boat dock at Lake Alvin.  I had the shutter open for 25 to 30 seconds and walked into the shot with a Colman lantern (on dim) and then painted my silhouette at the end of the dock with a flashlight once I got there. Being able to see the Milky Way in the southern sky this close to Sioux Falls was an added bonus.