I recently left home for a photography vacation. It was a sunny day with beautiful clouds and a five-hour drive to get to my destination. I decided to get off the highway and use secondary roads in order to stop safely on the side of the road and capture images.

I was on a road parallel to the shore of the St-Lawrence River. At one point, I stopped to approach the river but was unable to get to the shoreline because of thick bushes obstructing access. I spotted this lovely, lonely plant stem on my way back to the car. I used a 190mm focal length (35 mm equivalent) to isolate my subject. I raised the ISO to give me a shutter speed of 1/800sec to avoid wind movement blur.

I was pleased with my choice to detour on secondary roads. I stopped at several spots to take advantage of gorgeous images, which increased my travel time to my destination by 1 1/2 hours.