A Surprise on a “Charlie Brown” Tree

A walk around Markgrafs Lake brings a delightful sight.

Rita Gilliam has loved photography since she was a small child. She purchased her first DSLR camera six years ago, hoping to gain the skills to take her daughter’s senior pictures (which she did).

“I took community education classes to learn the functions of my camera and how to take better pictures,” Gilliam says. “One of the lessons my instructor taught me was to look for unique scenes in everyday situations; that’s how I caught the image of this lone bulb on a ‘Charlie Brown’ tree. I was walking around Markgrafs Lake to capture some winter photos and was pleasantly surprised to spy a tiny red Christmas bulb that someone had hung on a branch of a little tree next to the trail.”

Gilliam captured the image using her Nikon D80 with 55-200 zoom lens. The clinical dietician, who lives in Woodbury with her husband and two children, enjoys nature photography but says her favorite subjects are kids and the elderly.

-This photo earned third place in the nature category in Woodbury Magazine’s 2014 Focus on Woodbury Photo Contest.