The two famous banyan trees on Beach Drive in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 9-exposure HDR on tripod with cable releaseThere are banyan trees throughout the downtown St. Petersburg area and nearby surrounding areas, but no banyans are as famous or more photographed than the two trees above located right on Beach Drive NE.  As large as they are, they always seem to appear all of a sudden to passersby who often audibly gasp upon seeing them.

I first photographed banyan trees in the St. Petersburg downtown area back in August 2011 when walking back to my car after a meeting I passed by this pair.  

Photographing the famous Beach Drive NE banyan trees is rather challenging.  Their large branches and wide trunks create deep shadows and on one side of them is always a row of parked cars not making for the greatest background.  The angle of composition I chose was the only one I could find that included almost no man-made objects in the shot.  I used my Induro CT214 tripod with all the legs collapsed, shooting from just about a foot of the ground.  I chose to make a 9-exposure HDR image in order to get detail from within the trunk shadows as well as in the bright sky above.

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St. Petersburg Florida waterfront at Twilight, this image available for fine art print & commercial license - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 10 sec tripod mounted with cable releaseThe waterfront of St. Petersburg, Florida is home to the third largest continuous waterfront park in North America (behind Vancouver and Chicago).  This is why at the very edge where the city meets Tampa Bay as viewed from the water the first thing you will see are trees.  This long park system is my favorite part of the entire city.  

I made this photograph from a secret-ish spot on The Pier allowing for a low near water-level viewpoint of the St. Petersburg skyline.  The ten second exposure allowed for some motion blur on the surface of the water and for pulling out the last remaining light in the twilight sky. 

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Sykes Building downtown Tampa Florida black & white - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR on tripod with cable releaseAfter shoots for specific client requests I often find I can create a subsequent set of images from the remaining shots.  Such is the case with these black & white photographs featuring downtown Tampa and surrounding areas and landmarks.  The client wanted landscape orientated shots for a use in an existing website template.  Still, while out making those images I did rotate my DSLR to produce a few portrait orientated ones just in case the client might have a need for them and also just because I thought they would make cool shots and did not want to leave any unmade photographs that I saw the potential for.

Tampa Theater marquee in black & white - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/11 ISO 200 1/25th single exposure tripod mounted with cable releaseThe client actually chose the above image of Tampa Theatre, which did not standout to me personally in my initial culling, but after editing and convesion to black & white I kind of liked it because of the below eye level composition.  I closed my tripod's legs to use only about half of its full height shooting from just around my own waist level.

The new Tampa Museum of Art with krew on Hillsborough River - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/250th single exposure tripod mounted with cable releaseThe new Tampa Museum of Art building is very modern looking in person.  However, I thought in the photograph above its rectangular architecture made it look more like buildings from the 1950s, especially in black & white.  I saw the crew rowing team and waited for them to come into the shot to make the composition I wanted.

Tampa First Baptist Church with traffic in black & white - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable releaseI had no idea the above building was the Tampa First Baptist Church.  I saw people coming and going from it while I was in the area over the course of the afternoon and thought it was a courthouse or some other type of government building.  Even while editing it I never even noticed the largest FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH engraved on top of the columns.  I had to look up which building it was in Google to surprisingly find out it was a church.  

Tampa Downtown Skyscraper Skyline View in black & white - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable releaseThis last photograph is of a much more familiar and oft-photographed subject matter, the downtown Tampa skyline featuring the unique skyscraper in the center, the cylindrical Sykes Building.  The moon can be seen rising in the upper left of the image.  

I encourage everyone to go through past shoots and see if you can find a whole different photo story than the intended purpose of the shoot from the remaining images.  Be sure and post a link to it in the comments below.

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Jason standing next to his 16 foot wide and 5 foot tall panorama print in The Hangar Restaurant St. Petersburg 

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After seeing some of my downtown St. Petersburg panorama prints in ARC Printing, the owner of The Hangar, Steve Westphal, contacted me about getting a large print for wall display.  The final size came out to be 16'x5' made up of four 4'x5' panels.  This is the largest print of one of my photographs by square area made to date.  The image itself is a 6-shot panorama of the St. Petersburg downtown waterfront featuring The Pier, the new Dali Museum, Progress Energy Park and Albert Whitted Airport (where The Hangar is located).

The Hangar located at Albert Whitted Airport 540 1st St SE, St. Petersburg, FL 33701It is always great to see one's work in print, especially on such a large scale.  Have lunch at The Hangar and see the print up close!

Thanks again to Mike of ARC Printing for his help in producing a very tricky print.  I highly recommend other photographers use ARC Printing for their large scale prints as they produce a high quality product and Mike has the best customer service I have ever experienced.  Visit the official ARC website for location and ask for Mike and tell them that Jason sent you!

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Tampa Theatre glowing marquee & sign at night - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1 sec tripod mounted with cable releaseContinuing a recent trend of photographing Tampa Bay area landmarks, in particular ones I had never really photographed before, I was glad to finally have the opportunity to make these shots of the historic Tampa Theatre located right in the middle of downtown Tampa.  There is no better place I know of to go and have an old time movie experience.  As cool as the theater looks on the outside, it is 10x cooler on the inside.  It is easy to create images with atmosphere when photographing such a place.  

Tampa Theatre marquee in daylight - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable releaseI have not actually seen a movie at Tampa Theatre since the 90s, when I used to go semi-regularly.  I was living abroad for most of the 00s and since returning to Florida and moving across the bay from the theater, have not made the journey at night to see the more independent movies the theater features.  

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