After a long day at work, amateur photographer David Sites often takes off in his Tidewater powerboat for shooting expeditions on the Chesapeake Bay. The route from his South River home typically runs by Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse.

Just after sunset on a June outing, Sites watched as a great blue heron alighted on a rock near the historic beacon. “Clouds were so thick that the sky lit up yellow. I was sort of in the dark so the heron didn’t notice me,” he recalls. “It was an opportunity to get a picture of him.”

Sites loves capturing the beauty of the bay all year round. “I go out whenever I can,” he affirms. “It relaxes me.”