Welcome to Shutter Notes, our new weekly community feature. Shutter Notes will be a chance to get to know our community members a bit better. Each member will share a little bit about themselves and an image they’ve chosen.

Bob McCormac is a former IT program manager who is now enjoying his retirement. Photography has been part of his life for the last eight years or so.

Bob was asked how he would describe this image in just one sentence and his reply was, “serenity in the summer.” I think that captures the overall feel of this water lily reflected in a pond quite well, don’t you?

Bob

How Bob created this image

This pond is in his own backyard and is a constant source of activity of flowers, bugs, birds and more. He’s always out there looking for something to photograph.

General editing was done in Lightroom and then into Photoshop for fixes and applying the look he was after. Bob wanted to emphasize the reflection in the water and to give it a smooth appearance. Looks to me that he achieved that quite well.

In the process of creating this shot, he learned that it really took trial and error to get the final look. Most times, the end result Bob has in his mind comes to him well into the editing process. The use of the Levels adjustment in this particular image was key to getting the results he was happy with.

Please join us in the Photofocus Community and find the complete description and instructions on how to submit your image for consideration here.

Please only submit one image at a time and for now only one submission per person. We’ll ask for more at a later date if we need them. If you have any questions, comment here or send me a message within the community. We look forward to your submissions.

If you have any photographer friends you know would enjoy or benefit from being in the Photofocus Community, be sure to invite them!