Since I hadn’t gone through my photos from that morning in Sanford, Florida, I used an iPhone image I like from under the bridge at Wayside Park for last week’s blog post. I’ve processed the others now and have several more that I’m partial to.
For comparison purposes, here’s another photo I made in almost the exact same spot back in 2013. There have been a few changes in the vegetation and the bridge structure. (And the photographer too!)
The old bridge over the St. John’s River (October 2013)
And finally, when I thought I was finished at this place, I walked to the end of the bridge to look around. For some reason I didn’t do that in 2013. I’m glad I did this time, because the scene was pretty pleasant!
A quiet morning on the St. Johns river. Looking South East toward Lake Monroe
For those of you viewing this on the web, the header image is a small portion enlarged so you can see the person fishing on the dock. They didn’t catch anything while I watched, but I’m guessing they still enjoyed the morning as much as I did!
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Stay positive, be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if you think you’re done, walk a little farther – you might be pleasantly surprised and make a nice photo!
The entrance to Lake Monroe Wayside Park is on the right hand side of Highway 17-92 as you leave Sanford heading east. It’s just before the bridge over the St. Johns River and there’s a boat ramp and some interesting views there. I hadn’t been in a while and decided to go last Friday.
The river was like a mirror and the early morning sky was pretty too. This was what it looked like under the highway:
I suppose the point of this story is that we should occasionally revisit places. They might be worth photographing again.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Stay positive, be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can, revisit a spot and make some photos – you might like them even even better than the last time.
I like it and the Flickr folks seemed to like it too. It’s a two frame composite blended from these images:
Image 1, exposed for the water: ISO 100, 16mm, f/11, 13sImage 2 – exposed for the sky: ISO 100, 16mm, f/11, 2.5s
I think the the subject and composition are nice, but the mixed natural light and bridge lighting are too different. I could have tried to use selective white balance (see: https://edrosack.com/2011/10/30/using-selective-white-balance-to-fix-problem-photos/) to fix this, but I think it would have been hard in areas where the colors overlap.
Anyway, today’s secret is that wild lighting can look a lot better in B&W. The Lightroom B&W conversion tool has sliders to adjust the intensity of eight different colors in an image. Wide color differences in the photo combined with all that control gives you a lot of variability and choice when converting to B&W. To me, the B&W lighting in the finished version is much more attractive than the original colors.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Your visits, comments, and likes are always very welcome and a big motivator for me. Be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if the light is wild, make some B&W photos.
The A. Max Brewer Bridge over the Indian River is my favorite. Not for how it looks (it does look nice!) but because it leads to the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.
My favorite bridge
Here are a few things I was fortunate to see the last time I crossed over.
This flock flying over the water next to Gator Creek Road caught my eye. I’m pretty sure they’re Sanderlings, although in one of the other photos there was a single Yellowlegs mixed in with them. It’s fascinating how their motions are so coordinated.
Synchronous Sanderlings (?)
As I watched the sanderlings, I noticed other things happening. Mullet were jumping and there were several Dolphin chasing them. Terns, gulls, and osprey overhead and Cormorants in the water were also going after the fish. It was a tough morning to be a mullet in Gator Creek.
Morning Dolphin
I stopped at the Wild Birds Unlimited Trail on Black Point and walked out to see if the Cinnamon Teal was still there (didn’t see it). Savannah Sparrows were hopping on the trail and in the bushes. This one chose a great perch next to a spiderweb.
Savannah Sparrow and spiderweb
And finally, a drowsy yellowlegs picked a very nice setting to pose for me:
Drowsy Lesser Yellowlegs
There were many other things to see. In addition to alligators and regular birds, there were some Northern Shovelers, a few Ring-necked ducks, an American Wigeon or two, some Black Skimmers, and a Kestrel.
It seemed like about half the cars I saw that morning had out of state plates – people driving long distances to visit a place that’s close by for me. I’m so lucky to live here in Central Florida, near my favorite bridge.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Your visits, comments, and likes are very welcome and a big motivator for me. Be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can, make some photos in one of your favorite places!
Here’s one more post to finish up with photos from our road trip. These are all from time we spent at and near the new Central Florida Photo Ops field office in Nashville, Tennessee.
I’d never heard of the Parthenon in Nashville’s Centennial Park before MK took us there. It was originally built for Tennessee’s Centennial Exposition in 1897 to celebrate Nashville’s nickname: “Athens of the South”.
Nashville Parthenon (iPhone)
The original structure was meant to be temporary. Nashvillians liked it so much that they didn’t want to tear it down – so they kept patching and repairing it until 1920 when the city decided to rebuild it with permanent materials. In 1982, work started on the statue of Athena which was completed in 1990, making this an exact size and detail replica of the original temple in Athens, Greece – both inside and out.
The surrounding Centennial Park grounds are beautiful too with many things in bloom while we were there.
Centennial Park flowers, by the Nashville Parthenon (Thanks for this idea MK!)
The next photo is a multi-frame, stitched panorama I made of Nickajack Reservoir on the Tennesee River. It was another one of the very pleasant scenic surprises we encountered at highway rest stops on our journey. This one was along I-24 near Jasper Tennessee.
A peaceful pause
Natchez Trace is a historic forest trail extending about 440 miles from Nashville to Natchez, Mississippi. It was created and used by Native Americans for centuries. European and American explorers, traders, and emigrants also used it in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Natchez Trace Parkway is a scenic highway running along the route of the original trail. It was built starting in the 1930s and the final sections were completed in 2005.
Natchez Trace Parkway bridge, as seen from a nearby overlook on the north side.
There are many historic sites along the parkway and sections of the original foot trail are still visible. I’m hoping to explore some of these next time.
The header image is also of the Natchez Trace Parkway, from the base of the bridge by the National Park Service sign.
The Stones River photos in my Memorial Day post from a few weeks ago are from Tennessee too.
We enjoyed our first visit to the area and are looking forward visiting again. Next week though, I’ll try to get back to some Central Florida Photo Ops! Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Take care of yourselves and each other. And when you can, make some photos!
The last time I wrote about covered bridges was way back in August of 2007 when we visited Indiana (The Covered Bridge Capital of the World). I find them interesting, so maybe it’s time for another article!
When we were in Bethlehem, PA, we had some extra time and Lynn found a web page describing a tour of covered bridges in the area (Lehigh Valley Covered Bridge Tour). We printed out their PDF brochure (from this link) and set off one morning to explore.
We ran into trouble right away trying to navigate to Bogert’s Bridge using a street address. We ended up pulling over while Lynn figured out the lat/long location for each one. Using those proved much easier and we didn’t have any further nav issues. If you go, here are the numbers we used.
Covered Bridges of Lehigh Valley Pensylvania
Bridge
Location
Bogert's
40.56916667N, 75.49861111W
Manasses Guth
40.62833333N, 75.55361111W
Wehr's
40.62867N, 75.56972W
Rex's
40.6348N, 75.6127W
Geiger's
40.64645N, 75.62351W
Schlicker's
40.66166667N, 75.62722222W
Kreidersville
40.72361111N, 75.49305556W
The early morning weather was nice with blue skies and some puffy clouds. But the sky got grayer the farther we went.
By the end of our tour at the Kreidersville Covered Bridge, it was raining. In the larger version of this (click on the photo to see) there are streaks of rain visible in front of the bridge opening.
Covered Bridges in Florida? I got curious about covered bridges in our state and did some web research. www.dalejtravis.com has a huge amount of info on covered bridges (and round barns too) including state by state listings. His page for Florida lists many covered bridges. Unfortunately, the structures here in Florida are decorative and / or modern – there aren’t any “authentic” / historical covered bridges listed in our state. You’ll just have to travel elsewhere if you want to see some. Pennsylvania and Indiana would be good places to start!
Kevin M. invited me to go out photographing with him last weekend, but I begged off since Lynn and I had just returned from Pennsylvania and I was tired. Instead we went out on Friday to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Kevin K. was in town and he tagged along too. It’s been over six months since the three of us have been on a photo excursion together. Much too long!
We met way too early and car-pooled over, stopping at Titusville Marina Park for sunrise. Riding together is great for catching up with friends!
Dawn on the Indian River
Dawn was subdued until the sun actually rose, when the color finally popped. Photoshop and the Topaz Clarity plug-in might’ve helped nature out a little too.
We saw several other photographers (and non-photographers) also out too early.
We didn’t spot any unusual birds on Friday, but we did enjoy photographing a few of the common ones. This “Swamp Chicken” was posing with its reflection in good light;
Common Gallinule
And so was this Tri-colored Heron:
Tri-colored Heron
… and this Green Heron too (although it wasn’t kind enough to include a reflection):
Green Heron
We’ve been having torrential rains nearly every afternoon. and the water is very high around Black Point. The St. Johns river is also high – the area around where it crosses SR 46 is flooded although it doesn’t come all the way up to the road. I hope we don’t get a hurricane any time soon – adding even more water could be dangerous.
And the rain has created a great environment for mosquitos – expect to get bit unless you wear some repellent.
One more (small, kind of sad) story. We saw two pigs at Black Point. The second was along the canal near the exit. I snapped a few photos of it and when I got home and looked at them the poor thing was obviously deformed. I don’t want to post my images, but if you’re curious, look at Kevin K’s photo. It doesn’t look like a recent injury – this little pig is a tough survivor. I wonder if it’s a birth defect or from an encounter with an alligator or other predator?
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
Some mornings, sunrise isn’t very special. Maybe nature’s tired and saves up energy for one of those truly spectacular dawns we get occasionally. What do I do when that happens? Just go ahead and make photos anyway – rehearsing is a good thing too.
Sunrise at the old bridge
This park is on the river side of 17-92, just past I-4, heading toward Debary. They’ve left part of the old bridge there and I thought there might be interesting compositions to work with at sunrise. I was hoping for clouds and color too, but it wasn’t meant to be. This is one frame I like, but I don’t love the sky.
Oh well – next time. Photography Philosophy: Practice and persistence will prevail!
Sunrise in B&W is a bit unusual, but I like the geometry in this one and to me it conveys some of what I was feeling. It’s very isolated under the bridge in the dark.
By the bridge at daybreak, alone, in black and white
This spot is on the south-east side of the A. Max Brewer Causeway that leads into MINWR. It’s a two frame panorama, made with the Olympus E-M1 MII in high res mode, stitched together in Photoshop and converted to B&W with the Macphun Tonality plug-in. Base exposure was four seconds at f/5.6, ISO 200, 12mm eq. focal length (2 frames).
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
It’s been a while since I’ve discussed any photo techniques, so I thought I’d share two hints that you might not have tried recently. I also wanted to let you know what’s going on at Gatorland now that breeding season is in full swing.
Photo Hints:
#1 – Focus stacking: I’ve written about this before. You can read the posts here:
Both of those were macro-photography related. But the technique can also be used for other situations such as landscapes.
Beneath the bridge, by the rocks – Parish Park in Titusville, about a half hour before sunrise
I was at Parish Park in Titusville one morning, looking for a new view point and discovered this area where I could place these rocks in the scene as a foreground for the bridge and far shore. My problem was that without a tilt-shift lens, using the Scheimpflug principle, it’s hard to get the entire composition in focus.
I decided to make three exposures, changing the focus point in each. In the first, I focused on the rocks in the foreground, in the second on the nearest portion of the bridge, and the last was on the far shore. At home, I did some initial processing (the same for all three) and brought them into Photoshop on separate layers. Then I aligned the layers and manually blended them together using masks. I could have used Photoshop’s focus stacking capability, but doing this myself with layers gave me more control. The resulting depth of field is just how I wanted it. What do you think?
#2 – Fill flash: I often carry my flash and use it to add fill light or catch lights in eyes. It helps and doesn’t seem to bother the animals. I’ve also used fill flash for sunrise or sunset portraits of people. It can do a good job of balancing the exposure of your subject against a bright background.
When I saw this Tri-colored Heron posing in the bush, I made a few photos. But then I thought about adding flash. When I got home, the photos with the flash looked much better. The bright, ambient sunrise was balanced with the fill flash on the nearby bird. There’s a better detail in the bird when I used the flash.
Early bird – Tri-colored Heron at dawn (ISO 800, f/5.0, 1/320 sec, on camera flash in auto slow sync mode, -1 stop flash exposure compensation).
If you try this, you’ll need to practice a bit before you use it in a pressure situation. Make sure you know how to adjust exposure compensation (on both the flash and the camera), shutter speed, and aperture to get the best results. And if your camera has it, try enabling high-speed sync. This lets you shoot with flash at higher shutter speeds without getting any black bands on your photos (at the expense of a lower light output).
Gatorland Update:
I went by Gatorland again last week. The Great Egrets continue to breed and their hatched chicks are growing fast. There are Snowy Egrets and Cormorants on eggs now and I saw Tri-colored Herons, Anhingas, and Wood Storks gathering nesting material although I didn’t spot their nest or eggs yet. A few cattle egrets have also arrived and are courting. And the gators are getting more active too.
Just before I left, I spotted this large turtle there – I’ve never seen one before. It looks quite intimidating and I wouldn’t want to be too close to it in the water.
Old Bridge (July 2022)
The old bridge over the St. John’s River (October 2013)
A quiet morning on the St. Johns river. Looking South East toward Lake Monroe
Beneath the bridge, by the rocks – Parish Park in Titusville, about a half hour before sunrise
