I took a short walk on the beach the other day. I found myself under the Cocoa Beach Pier. As I was walking around watching the waves as they advanced and then retreated over the sand. My eye was drawn to the reflections on the thin layer of water as it slipped back into the ocean. I have always been fascinated with reflections. I liked the way the water flowing back into the ocean was distorting the reflection, giving it an eery feeling.
Feliz Cinco de Mayo! Mi esposa y yo pensamos que una buena manera de celebrar el Cinco de Mayo sería contar con una margarita en la playa. Así que mezclamos un poco de margaritas y dirigirse a la playa. Este es un gran momento del año para estar en la playa en la Florida. La humedad es todavía baja, la temperatura no muy por encima de 80. Es sólo el tiempo perfecto para un viaje a la playa. Llovió todos los días de la semana pasada. Así que estábamos listos para un día soleado en la playa. Fue un muy buen día de relax en la playa.
Spring has sprung with an explosion of color, like fireworks on the 4th of July!
I needed to get a good photo of a red shoulder hawk. I was at the Tosohatchee Wildlife Management area a few weeks ago and I saw a nice one. The hawk was hunting in a location that would make it easy to get a good photo. So when I needed to get a red shoulder, I thought I would return to the TWMA. Hopefully my friend, the red shoulder hawk, would still be there. I knew it was a long shot; things rarely work out the way we want them to. I arrived at the Tosohatchee in the morning to take advantage of the morning light. I drove to the place where the he had been hunting on my previous trip. Unfortunately, he was nowhere to be seen. I drove deeper into the TWMA to maybe find another hawk. I did see a kestrel, but he was too far away to get a good photo. I thought this may be a good time to go back and check on my red shoulder friend. I drove back to his hunting grounds and still no hawk. I still had lots of time, so I thought I would drive around and see what else I might find. I only got a few yards and I saw a pretty swallowtail butterfly on a thistle. I got out of the car and started to photograph the butterfly.
I took quite a few photos when I finally looked around me. There was not just the one butterfly; there were 15 – 20 of them on thistles all around me.
I was having fun with the butterflies when I heard my hawk calling close by. For the longest time I could only hear it calling to its mate. Then I saw it flying over the trees. The hawk was heading toward the area that I had seen him in before. I followed his flight through the trees. I was looking through the trees and I saw him. He landed in a dead tree. The tree that he landed on, although it was in plain sight, it was way too far away to get a good photo. We sat and watched each other for the longest time.
He looked at me and I looked at him. He must not have been totally looking at me. He jumped off of his tree and down to the ground, as if he found something to pounce on. I watched for the longest time, but I never saw him again that day. I failed on this trip to get my hawk photo, but just because you fail at your main objective, that doesn’t mean the whole trip needs to be a failure. Even though I wasn’t able to take any great photos, I still saw lots of cool things and had a great time in the field!
It's another month, and another issue of Junsjazz Digital Magazine has been published. Issue #7 presents a sampling of minimalist photographs from my image collection. It's all about simplicity and order, and organized emptiness, if you can call it that. As tradition for the past four issues now, half of the magazine (which has grown to 34 pages from an original of eight) is devoted to guest photo bloggers and their works.
I really enjoy foggy mornings. The fog gives the landscape a surreal feeling. A foggy morning seems very quiet and tranquil to me. The fog changes the way everything looks. It’s like you are in a totally different world.
Here are a few of my favorite images from the Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge near Deland Florida:
Living in Florida, I have not been longing for spring’s long-awaited arrival. We actually have had spring most of the winter this year. Having spent most of my years in the north, I do sympathize with my northern friends. I think the most used subject for posts the past few weeks has been some form of “we can’t wait for spring to get here!” I just want you to know that even though, I am here, and you are there, I do feel your pain! Also I have been very jealous of all of your beautiful wintry, snow, and ice photos you have all been taking. I hope you don’t get to take too many more of them this year! 
I can’t pass interesting light and shadows without photographing them. I was on my back porch this morning and I saw how the light was falling on my fern and one of the chairs. So I grabbed my camera and took a few photos.They sit next to each other so they were getting the same morning light. The light was the same but it affected the two objects differently.
The Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands at Viera is a great local birding site. It’s known locally as the Viera wetlands. The wetlands are part of the water treatment plant for the area. You’re probably thinking why would I want to go birding at a water treatment plant? It’s dirty, smelly and yucky! Well it’s not. It’s actually a very nice place to visit. The treatment plant has created several ponds of water to help them filter the treated water. Over the years, plants and vegetation have grown in and around the ponds, helping to filter the water. When the vegetation showed up, so did the birds. There are several pairs of breeding birds at the wetlands. This makes for great viewing during nesting season. If you only have a short time and want to see lots of birds, the Viera wetlands are the place to go! But plan on spending some time at the wetlands. You never know what’s around the next corner and you won’t want to miss it. During the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife festival I photographed two fieldtrips at the wetlands. The first fieldtrip to arrive was pretty much a straight up birding group. The fieldtrip was led by Michael O’Brien and Louise Zemaitis, two excellent birders. Michael and Louise are very knowledgeable on all things birding. They are fantastic at explaining all about any birds or habitat that you are seeing. This is a great fieldtrip for all levels of birders; you will defiantly learn something new.
Don’t drop your lens hood off of the observation deck. I will photograph you in an awkward position trying to fish it out of the water!
The second fieldtrip to arrive at the wetlands was a photography workshop led by Kevin Karlson. Kevin is a fantastic bird photographer as well as knowing a great deal about birds. Kevin Karlson and Mikael O’Brien along with Richard Crossley co-authored a field guide titled “The Shore Bird Guide.” This is a must have guide for identifying shorebirds. However on this trip Kevin Instructed the group on how to photograph birds in flight. The day before Kevin gave a class on photographing BIF and today is a hands on extension of that class. I for one have a hard time photographing birds in flight. It doesn’t seem like it would be that hard. The bird flies by and you take his photo, easy, right? Not really, usually the bird is out of focus, or not exposed correctly, or both. Kevin is a great teacher and he works with everyone until they get it right. He uses this amazing technique where he changes his exposure as he is photographing the bird. You need to be keenly aware of what direction the bird is flying as well as what direction the light is coming from. Depending on the situation you may need to add or subtract exposure as the bird flies past. You also need to be very familiar with your camera and how its settings work. This technique takes a huge amount of practice. Once mastered, the results are excellent bird in flight photographs. Kevin also explained all of the other BIF issues like focusing, lenses, tracking the bird, and many other things that come up when photographing BIF. This was an excellent workshop and I’m sure the participants (me included) learned a few things.
Each day of the festival is capped off with a speaker from the birding world. Most are usually well-known naturalists and biologists who work at different conservancies around the country, but there are also photographers and other ornithologists featured. These lectures are presented in an intimate auditorium on campus that allows easy Q&A and audience participation. I’ve been to many and they are always very entertaining.
The first night’s keynote featured Greg Miller. Back in 1998, Greg did what the birding world calls a “big year.” This is when a birder crisscrosses the country to see as many bird species as possible in a calendar year. Quite the achievement if you can pull it off. Especially since Greg was holding down a full time job at the time. Greg was one of three birders to each get over 700 birds that year! Phew, that’s a lot of birds! It turned out to be a heated competition between the three birders. It made a very interesting story. So interesting in fact, Pulitzer Prize winning author Mark Obmascik wrote a book about it called The Big Year. The book caught the eye of the people at Twentieth Century Fox. They made it into a movie, also called The Big Year. The movie stars Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson as the three birders doing a big year. The Jack Black character was based on Greg Miller and his escapades during his big year. Greg told the festival attendees his amazing and humorous story about doing his big year, having a book written about it, and being involved in the movie. Greg was asked to be a bird consultant for the movie. He was not sure if his consulting duties would entail meeting any of the stars or not. As it turns out, Jack Black had never portrayed an actual person before. So Jack wanted to get to know Greg and they actually did some birding together. Wow, can you imagine birding with Jack Black! Greg tells a very funny story about getting to know Jack. He eventually got to meet Steve Martin and Owen Wilson as well. Greg is a fantastic story teller. He had the audience in stitches as he told them of his big year, well years, as it turned out. I have been attending keynotes at the festival for years and Greg’s story has to be one of the best! If you have not seen the movie The Big Year, I suggest that you run right out now and rent it! It’s a great story and an entertaining movie.
