Tag: sundog | Central Florida Photo Ops

We spent a few days last week at Lake Louisa State Park. We stayed in one of their very nice 2 bedroom cabins with our friends Nancy and Howard T. The cabins are up high with a fabulous views of Dixie Lake, one of the three main lakes in the park. The photos in this blog post are all of this lake.

We were eating dinner on Tuesday evening when this started to develop. I quickly grabbed my camera, excused myself, and rushed to photograph this superb sunset.

View from the shore of Dixie Lake at dusk

We also enjoyed riding our bicycles – the hills are a change from the flatlands where we live. Returning from a ride on Monday, Howard noticed this Sundog – one of the most colorful I’ve seen.

Sundog

The cabins are just a short walk from the lake shore. The reflections and reeds made a pretty scene even in the middle of the day.

View from the shore of Dixie Lake

Across the lake from the cabins, the park has kayaks for rent. Wednesday morning we started there and paddled all the way ’round. It was windy and got stronger as we went, but we planned well and travelled clockwise which helped a bunch. The eastern shore sheltered us from the strongest winds and on the last bit along the western shore, the wind moved us along at a good clip. I like the many interesting trees and stumps we saw on the way.

Cypress stump

Wildlife was scarce on this visit. We did see a gopher tortoise on the way in and a few birds including (what I think was) a Common Nighthawk, a hawk or two, ducks going after fish and some others. I didn’t spot any deer, turkey, or even alligators but I’m sure they’re there.

Lake Louisa is close to Orlando and a wonderful place to relax and get away from it all. I highly recommend going if you get the chance! You can see other posts I’ve written about it here on the blog. And I’ve collected an album of Lake Louisa photos here on Flickr.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

One of the great things about photography is that it gets you up and out there. You may not see anything if you go – but if you don’t go you definitely won’t ever see anything. Here are a few photos of what I saw around Central Florida this week.

I made this first one about a half hour before dawn along Gator Creek Road in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. The low tide had uncovered these rocks, so I used my ultra wide-angle, rectilinear lens and lowered my tripod to emphasize them. This is a single exposure, processed in Lightroom and Photoshop. I also tried out the new Topaz Clarity filter. It seems to do a good job enhancing contrast without introducing halos.

Quiet morning

The word “parhelion” comes from the Greek for “beside the sun”. They’re also called sundogs and are always 22 degrees away from and at the same elevation as the sun. They’re most visible when the sun is low and the sky is darker – dawn or dusk. I like to watch for them and I thought it was nice of this kayaker to pose with one for me. I was lucky that I’d already shifted to my long lens to make bird photos. I needed the reach for this composition.

Early start – Kayak fisherman paddling underneath a sundog.

There were several dolphins also fishing in this area. I could see the fish jumping and the dolphins seemed to catch a lot of them.

Fishing Dolphin

I stopped by Orlando Wetlands Park briefly and it was very scenic despite the cloud cover. I liked the pathways the birds made through the vegetation in this scene.

Morning marsh – A cloudy morning in Orlando Wetlands, just after dawn

This time of year, there’s not as much bird activity as in the spring. Orlando Wetlands was pretty quiet and so was MINWR. But there are still some regulars around and it’s nice to watch their antics.

Killdeer nest on the ground. When a predator gets close, they pretend to have a broken wing and try to draw the predator away from the nest. I watched this one perform and when it finished it turned around to peek back at me and check if it was working. It did – I didn’t bother its nest.

Killdeer checks me out

I don’t know how many times I’ve driven by the remains of this dock on the right side of the causeway leading into MINWR – but I never noticed it before. When I was leaving the other day, I finally saw it. It was a quick thing, almost subconscious. I actually drove on by before I processed what I saw and turned around. I’m very glad I stopped – it doesn’t look like it will last much longer. By the time I made this photo, the light was pretty bright. I used a neutral density filter to slow down my shutter speed and tried several focal lengths / compositions. I like this one the best. A B&W conversion using Nik Silver Effects seemed to fit the scene. In the future, I need to be more observant. What else is out there I’ve missed?

Old dock

You can click on these photos to see larger versions on Flickr. And you can see more from Merritt Island in this set on Flickr, and from Orlando Wetlands in this set.

Central Florida Photo Ops

What and where they are and how to photograph them.

Tag Archives: sundog

Around Dixie Lake

Central Florida Summer Sights