It's Sunday, and I'm up when?? 4:30am *cue rolling eyes here* (6/24/18)

I said I was going to do it and I did! I was up, not willingly but I got up. Grabbed the clothes I wore the day before, and out the door I went. My snake-boots were still in the car from last night. I would need those at Long Pine Key (LPK for short). Never know what's lurking out there in the picnic area in the dark; didn't want some Eastern Diamondback making a picnic out of me! I stopped at my 'reward-for-getting-up-early-place', Starbucks. Iced mocha coffee and a piece of banana bread. Mmmmm And I was on my way. It was sprinkling when I left the house. Now heading into the glades, it was dry, and dark. I was making pretty good time.

Leaving the house, rain.

In the park, not a drop!

I was only running 15 minutes late. I factor that in with my wake up time. I always tell myself I need to be onsite an hour before sunrise. That gives me some wiggle room if I'm late; like today.

Just set up, before the first shot was taken. Just beautiful

Sunrise wasn't too spectacular. This is not a great place to shoot sunrise near the summer solstice. Well, unless you walk to the south end of the lake. But, hey, I was just happy to be somewhere in the Everglades, and vertical. I wasn't about to go walking where it wasn't necessary. LOL

I took my usual shots, then as the sun rose I glanced around for the light hitting some interesting foliage. Maybe a nice saw palmetto to place in the foreground. Up, down, into the pine rockland forest, and back to the lake.

Saw Palmetto bush. 

I finally sat down on the picnic table, wondering what my next shot would be, and a bird landed on the table. I just turned my head a bit. It was a female cardinal. Not 3 feet away from me! Then another! I couldn't believe it. I had seen cardinals in the area before, but holy cow! There was no way I would be able to get my camera off the tripod and able to shoot these birds. So I just watched until they flew off. How cool was that! A few minutes later I saw 2 male cardinals on my car! I was able to get a few shots of these guys. Almost like they wanted to get in. Perhaps they are taking lessons from the vultures who try to eat the rubber gaskets around the windshield. Who knows.

They too flew off after a while. I figured that was my clue to get out of dodge and go home myself. I was tired and hungry. It had been 2 1/2 hours since the Starbucks visit. Time for an egg muffin and back home.

Back home I downloaded my images and finished off the second coffee, trying to stay awake. Hell it was only 9am! I wanted to get at my photos, so I fought the yawns, turned on some tunes and got to processing. Some interesting shots, some not so much. All in all, it was a great day. And come to think of it, I didn't notice too many mosquitoes. Wonder what's up with that? I shall not worry about it, only be glad they didn't bother me too much.

I wonder what next weekend will bring...

Saturday... in the Park (6/23/18)

Lull in work today so I decided to revisit my website. Not sure anyone is looking but it makes me happy to be creating something that maybe someone, someday, will appreciate. And it is a much easier place to visit to see my best work, or what I feel is my best. Unlike my Facebook page where I will post 10-20 of my best of that day's shoot. I've come up with a plan. Create a blog post each time I go out to shoot, and include some images of the day. make it more interesting. Here's my synopsis from Saturday.

Had a great time this past weekend.

Saturday I met up with folks from the camera club to hang our artwork at the Ernest Coe Visitor's Center of the Everglades National Park.

Afterward we went to the Gator Grill for a burger. Interesting place. I'd go back, definitely, for a quick bite or a snack mid-day.

Then back into the Everglades park to go storm-chasin'. Well, we tried, found mostly grey cloudy skies, nothing "brewing" as far as storms were concerned. We parted ways, most left for home, I went south to check up on my favorite spots; 9-Mile Pond, Paurotis Pond, West Lake... All looked pretty much as they did a few months earlier.

Paurotis pond was teeming with birds! Very good to see that again. Although I feel it will be short lived. As soon as our normal dry season returns next winter, minus the water from the heavy rains of a hurricane, it'll be as it was before. But, I'll hold out hope.

So back to the story, I drove down to Flamingo. Pretty vacant down there, as it normally is this time of year. So sad to see the old cypress tree gone. Only an empty spot where it once was. The only tent platform there seems to be broken. I guess an autumn camping trip to that spot is out for now. And I also discovered that there are no water-front campsites in the main campground (where there's electricity and water hookups). Which is fine I guess. I'll just camp near the bathrooms for the night.

But I wandered off topic; again. After I found no inkling of any storms, I decided to head back and stop at LPK; try out a test shot for a new technique, focal length blending. First you find an area with foreground and a tall background. I opted for a spot in the north end of the lake, facing south. Someone had placed a bench near the edge of the lake, sweet! Then there was the lake, and then the tall trees of the island. So I got down low, took a shot, then I moved the camera angle up and zoomed in more. I wasn't looking for perfection, just to see what I can do in post-processing. The images looked ok. I took a few more for good measure and left.

When I got home I worked on this first. I didn't do as instructed in the tutorials. I basically did a layer blend in Photoshop. I matched up the top layer of the second image with the bottom layer of the first. The meeting point was the lake. I was able to blend them in using the water as a medium. I thought it actually looked kind of neat!

Lower half

Top Half

Finished Product, cropped and converted to black & white for effect

When I pulled out on to the main road, I could see the dark skies to the north and east. I checked my Weather Bug app and there was a heavy thunderstorm over Broward and into Miami-Dade, making its way south along the coast. I was going to get my lightning yet!

So I drove to the open area between the road to Royal Palm and the entrance gate, and stopped at a pull-off area. I set up the camera and heard rumblings happening all over. The Lightning Bug was going off so I knew it was catching something, even though I couldn't see it. And to be honest, I didn't care. The clouds forming overhead were spectacular! So I sat in my car, listening to the radio and watching the sky. People pulled up behind me, curious as to what I was doing. Must be something right? Gator? Snake? Noooo, not even a bear! LOL  Just looking for lightning. They pulled over for nothing. Silly tourists, they should have asked. I'd have told them all I know about the Everglades. Their loss.

The storm clouds moved south and another storm from Florida Bay to the south moved in north and joined forces. You could see the rain falling out of the sky, it was awesome. Mother Nature at it's most destructive, but as it destroys it also builds, that's the beauty of it.

Storms dumping over south Miami-Dade County

I finally took the camera off the tripod and shot some photos for a camera club challenge coming up, I'll keep that a secret for now. Then back on the tripod to shoot the clouds and rain from the middle of the road. Then I headed for home. I thought about stopping at a new spot I found for the sunset, but that was over an hour away. I had been in the park since 11am. There will always be next weekend. Homeward...

Processing these images was fun, lots of "deletes" as there were hardly any lightning strikes or none that I could see anyway. I was able to process 2. The rest were clouds and of those I had to take out lots of duplicates. But as I discovered when I was in Okeechobee the week before, I had a tremendous amount of dust spots on my sensor. The cleaning guy did a terrible job. Its time I learned how to do this for myself.

All of the circles are where the dust spots were!

Early to bed tonight, I'm going to attempt another sunrise, attempt being the emphasized word here. Some days I'd rather see the sun rise through my eyelids lying in my own bed. LOL

Still Working On The Site - Almost There!

I had yet another occasion to promote my work but missed the boat because I had been dragging my feet. This past weekend was the City of Homestead EcoFair. The very same EcoFair that I discovered the South Florida National Parks Camera Club 3 years ago. The same fair where I hope we inspired others to join and get as much out of it as I did.

But, I had a woman want to buy my "Anniversary" Biscayne Sunrise photo. I may have over priced myself for a sale as she walked away. I did give her my name and email address and told her a website was in the works. Hopefully she did look up my Photography Facebook Site and will be contacting me about another image. That would be sweet!

So I did a race to the finish so to speak to get my images all 'starred' so I know which ones to include in my portfolio. Unfortunately, I am way to indecisive to make such calls. In turn, I have way more images in my portfolio than one should have. And that will come with further experience. Its a process and one I hope to continue. I don't have any illusions of getting rich off of my work, but a few $$ here and there to pay for a night away to photograph something new would be nice.

But now, with the help from my friend Jason Eldridge, the website is functional and not bad to look at either. I have links to both my Facebook and Instagram pages and other websites. Feel free to leave a comment or two (once I get that function operational).

Until next time... get out there and see what you can see.