It’s Day 2 of my Facebook Seven-Day Nature Challenge. One of my favorite shots from our Northern Minnesota travels features a mother loon and her chick. We were on Fishhook Lake, just outside of Park Rapids, Minnesota enjoying a beautiful summer day. You can see more photos taken that day here.

For the photographer types, details of the shot are: Nikon D7000, Tamron 18-270 mm lens at 155 mm. f/6.3 1/640 sec. ISO-200.

Last week I was challenged by my wife’s brother, Terry, to put up my best nature photos in a 7-Day Nature Challenge. Being on a long road trip, I put off my challenge response until I had time to put together my collection and share it.

Though Terry’s challenge came to me via Facebook, I decided that I would share my photos with my Journeys readers as well. This panoramic shot was captured at Lake Itasca State Park in Minnesota. Lake Itasca is the headwaters of the Mississippi. The early morning mist hadn’t yet dissipated on this cool Autumn morning.

The image was captured with my Nikon D-7000 f/14 1/60 sec. ISO-100 Tamron 16-300 mm lens @ 16 mm There were two 3-shot HDR exposures at -2,0,+2 EV merged into a panorama and HDR processed in Adobe Lightroom.