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This was one of my first prints in Photography class, before my head was polluted with ideas of “composition” and “contrast” and “dust-free negatives”. And it was also one of my best prints all year. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.

So this is the requisite “tree branch reflecting in the water” photo that a “Reflections” assignment just begs for. I took it at Oakland Lake, which, at the time, was covered with algae. Something about sulfites, I don’t know. But a few months later, this huge floating machine with a conveyor belt and an algea dump-tank scraped all of the scum off the surface and restored my precious lake to its usual pristine self.