Foto Friday - Courage to Lead

This week, I returned to the Bethany Center in Lutz, Florida, for the third of four retreats with my friends and colleagues in the 2015 Courage to Lead cohort. In spite of the fact that my opportunities for photography were more limited than last time because of the Florida summer weather, I was able to get some pretty decent shots.

The wildlife were out in abundance - deer, white ibis, sand hill cranes with their young - but it was always cloudy and they weren't very cooperative anyway. However, this red-tailed hawk was perched in a small pine tree on the lake and he was quite full of himself, incessantly screeching. As you can see, he allowed me to get very close.

The sunset last night was spectacular. These shots are in the sequence in which they were taken with the intention of showing how the sky changed over a half-hour period. In this shot, I set the aperture with the objective of creating a starburst effect as the sun approached the horizon.

As the sun dropped behind these clouds, I zoomed close because I liked the effect.

This is the last shot before the sun set below the horizon.

It always pays to wait for the "God colors" that splash across the sky once the sun sets.

It pays, too, to turn and look behind you because there are great colors and light in the sky opposite the sunset.

Hands down my favorite shot. The colors are indescribable. Notice also how still the water became once the sun was down. The lake mirrored perfectly every color in the sky and the silhouettes of the trees and reeds. In a word, beautiful.