Adventures in Side Lighting

Early on Saturday morning, before going on a hike with the eminent N. Simpson, Esq., I made a brief picture stop at Discovery Park. I wanted to capture first light in the South Meadow area, specifically the northern half of the meadow (behind the historical buildings). I wasn't disappointed. I love the lighting on this one:

This next one is one of the better pictures of yarrow I have ever taken, and one of the closest-up. As with the above picture, the warm side lighting seals the deal.

I also wanted to try photographing one of the fireweed stands backlit by the sun. Things didn't turn out as I expected - the sun rises so far to the north this time of year that the stand was more sidelit than backlit, and the stand did not receive sunlight as early as I though it would. But I got this interesting one, a picture of barely sunlit leaves with fireweed in the background. I seldom used flash, but I did here, and it was the better decision. I used it at a pretty low setting, just enough to fill in the shaded leaves a bit. Any brighter of a flash would have created some awkward-looking shadows among the leaves and inordinately reduced the difference between the sunny and shaded areas of the leaves.