One of the many benifits of taking and looking at photos is that it helps us relive the momment.

Now that it's the dead of winter and I look at this tropical photo I remember it like it was yesterday.

The warm sea air, the beauty of the water and the nice surprise when the pelican flew up on the dock just as I was sitting there with my camera.

I can't be everywhere I want to be when I want to be there, but I can revisit them everytime I look at the photos.

As I continue to learn about the stock photo world I have read many articles about creating photo's that leave space for some one to add text, or even an insert into the photo. This is call ed an unfinished photo.

As odd as it sounds, sometimes you can add something to a photo to make it unfinished.

Here is a nice background photo of some colored golf tees. But by adding the golf ball it then becomes unfinished. The ball gives room for some one to add something to the photo.

Another take off of this is to frame something, thusly leaving room for copy space.

This again is what I would consider an unfinished photo.

So you see, I am trainable.

I do not consider myself a winter person by any stretch of the imagination.

This is a little odd for as far north that I live but I really do enjoy the changes of seasons.

And after the midway point I feel like there's light at the end of the tunnel.

If nothing else as the days get longer my energy seems to pick up.

When it's dark at 5p.m. my energy is gone by seven. Now each day is getting longer and closer to green instead of white.

I'd much rather look at trees with full leaves than twigs that look dead.

In fact I'd rather mow lawn for two hours than shovel snow for ten minutes.

Some how my wife ended up getting right in the whole nature food chain.

Because she wants to help the birds in the nasty winters she always makes sure the bird feeders are full.

This of course makes all the birds very happy, and brought in several varieties of birds including many Morning Doves.

But we were not the only ones watching the feeder. A sharp Shinned Hawk did just what the other birds did,, came to the feeder for food. But he wanted Morning Doves, not bird seed.

The Hawk got it's food and perched in a nearby pine tree. It was so interested in it's food I was able to grab the tripod and get within 15 feet of the bird to get some photo's.

So as bad as my wife felt for putting the Morning Doves in danger.

As far as I can tell the only ones that ...

We all for some reason enjoy going fast. We indeed have a need for speed.

We will stand in long lines at an amusement park and pay good money to go fast. We love the thrill of it.

So how can we transfer that feeling of speed to a photograph?

One way is to use what our mind already knows and put it in the photo.

Here's one example, we have all seen a plane climbing into the sky. When we see the photo we can almost here the engine pitch upward as it struggles to break the laws of gravity.

The smoke helps to give a visual of speed.

On the other hand a plane diving at a steep angle has an increasing downward pitch.

In all the movies that's all you can here when the planes are diving is that loud increasing roar of the engine.

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