Fine Art

First Sunrise of 2013 Snell Isle Smacks Bayou St. Petersburg Florida New Years

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The first glimpse of the first sunrise in 2013 over Smacks Bayou in St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/60th tripod mounted with cable releaseI once again woke up early to photograph the first sunrise of the new year, which is somehow already 2013.  Last year was a little more spectacular as I made the big effort to drive out to Ft. Desoto and use the Sunshine Skyway Bridge as a background.  This year I just took a few steps off my back patio to make these images of the sun rising over Smacks Bayou in the Snell Isle area of St. Petersburg, Florida.

The first sunrise of 2013 reflecting on Smacks Bayou Snell Isle Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/200th tripod mounted with cable releaseThough there was a ripple across Smacks Bayou this morning, a decent reflection from the rising sun could still be seen.  There were only a few low clouds in the sky, so in this case I found the water to be more interesting and made the foreground dominant in the framing of this shot.

A quiet and beautiful first morning of 2013 in Snell Isle Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/200th tripod mounted with cable releaseIt is always worth it to wake up early and photograph the sunrise.  Did you get up and see the first sunrise of 2013?  Did you have your camera with you (I hope!!)?  Share your first sunrise photos in the comments below.

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St. Petersburg Florida Silhouette Dusk Twilight Fine Art Landscape Cityscape Waterfront

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The downtown St. Petersburg Florida waterfront in Silhouette at vivd dusk - Nikon D300 Nikkor 50mm @ f/4 ISO 200 1/200th handheld

This was an image I made quickly while taking Kiki for an extended walk around the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront on a recent Saturday evening.  I was traveling light, just my Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens on my Nikon D300, but even with that lens on was still looking for a possible landscape shot.  With Kiki always in constant motion and having no tripod, I knew my best bet of getting a usable shot was to go for a silhouette of the skyline, which is done by using a fast shutter speed I could easily handhold, even with Kiki always trying to sniff something just out of reach.  The fast shutter speed exposed the bright sky well, but put the foreground buildings and boat into silhouette.  

Brown Pelican White Background Florida Fine Art Nature Photography

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Brown Pelican photographed in St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 200 1/800th white background enhanced in Photoshop

Living in St. Petersburg there is ample opportunity to photograph brown pelicans about as close up as you dare.  For the most part, the pelicans themselves are not that bothered about a long lens being pointed at them and seem to tolerate it, though I would not go so far as to say they like it.  I wanted to make some fine art pelican images with white backgrounds by purposefully over exposing the shots when I made them in the field, or in this case the St. Petersburg Pier.  I cleaned up the white backgrounds digitally in Photoshop as needed.

Brown Pelican awash in daylight - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 200 1/400thShooting in bright light makes it easy to overexpose the images on purpose by using a large aperture along with a relatively slow shutter speed and shooting into the sun.  

Closeup of a brown pelican - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 200 1/1250thSince I was shooting at a focal length of 200mm with a brown pelican standing right next to me, I saw it as an opportunity to photograph details of a pelican, rather than the entire bird, as seen in the above shot focused on the pelican's eye and upper beak texture.  

Autumn Leaves Red & Yellow in Japan 50mm bokeh fine art photography

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Autumn leaves from my Japan archives made in 2008 - Nikon D80 Nikkor 50mm @ f/2 ISO 400 1/250th

Since it is now October 8th and the temperature is still 86F and rising here in Florida, I had to go into my Japan photography archives to find an autumn colors image.  Not that we ever get such color changing in leaves here, but still.  This autumn leaves image is also early in my photography learning, as if you read the exif data and have ever taken one of my photography lessons, I would never use those settings now, especially not ISO 400 when there was still so much shutter speed to play with!

St. Petersburg Florida waterfront scenes fine art photography

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Waterfront view from North Straub Park in downtown St. Petersburg - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 3-exposure HDR

According to the Tampa Bay Times, St. Petersburg, Florida has the third largest continuous waterfront park system in all of North America (behind Chicago & Vancouver).  I believe it is the best thing about St. Petersburg, by far.  It is totally unique to the Tampa Bay area, and really anywhere else on the west coast of Florida.  

A small rainbow over the St. Petersburg Pier - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/200th tripod mounted

You can walk along water for pretty much as far as your legs will want to carry you starting on Coffee Pot Blvd following going all the way down North Shore Blvd.  I have walked its entirety, but only in pieces.  Of course the most notable landmark one will see along the way is The St. Petersburg Pier (above).

Downtown St. Petersburg bathed in a pastel sunset - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 7-exposure HDRIf you can time your waterfront walk so that it ends at dusk at the top of The Pier itself, well then you may just be treated to a spectacular sunset view like the one above.  In the right weather, there is no more pleasant way to spend a few hours in Florida than walking through St. Petersburg's downtown waterfront parks.

St. Petersburg Florida downtown harbor panorama fine art photograph

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Click for 1200px version - St. Petersburg downtown harbor panorama fine art photograph - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/400th 4-shot panorama 

If you have Photoshop CS5 or CS6 it is amazingly easy to make a panorama image.  The above panorama of the downtown St. Petersburg, Florida harbor is composed of four shots that I made handheld using only the gridlines in my viewfinder to line up.  Then I loaded those four shots into Photoshop's Photomerge action, led the CPU do a lot of processing, and voila, out came a panorama that I then proceeded to do my usual editing workflow on.  

I am often with my camera near this small harbor as I use this location when teaching my 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons.  It is a very good spot to practice making panorama images, composing with leading lines, S-curves and sometimes even wildlife.

Stunning Vivid Dusk Sky over St. Petersburg Florida from The Pier

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Downtown St. Petersburg vivid dusk south view from The Pier - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 11 sec tripod mounted with cable release

And to think, making this photograph will not even be possible in a year's time because the location I shot this from, the roof of The Pier, will be demolished.  I certainly hope the structure that replaces it will offer similar or better views of the downtown St. Petersburg, Florida waterfront, otherwise there will be no more photos showing its beauty at dusk, twilight and sunset.

Cotton candy coated downtown St. Petersburg vivid pink dusk - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 6 sec tripod mounted with cable releaseI had the opportunity to make these photos only because I was teaching a DSLR Photography Lesson focusing on tripod usage.  Otherwise, I would have been home and never witnessed this amazing view.  In fact, both my student and I had just earlier remarked how gray the sky was and how we would not be able to get any keepers this lesson, but at least I was able to teach him the technical aspects of using a tripod for long exposure photography.  I told him since there is so little color that I would shoot thinking to convert the images to black & white!

Orange dusk breaks over downtown St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/2 sec tripod mounted with cable releaseThen all of a sudden a hint of orange light appeared reflected off the low clouds, as the sun had already actually set.  We took immediate notice and thought, at least we got to see a touch of color.  Then as the sun slipped further to the other side of the Earth, the dusk sky started to explode in color and as we adjusted the length of the shutter speed on our DSLRs, we were able to pull more and more color back over the horizon and into our lenses.  The photographs above are actually posted in reverse chronological order, with the above orange image the first I took.  Each was made almost exactly five minutes after the other.  That is the power of putting your DSLR on a tripod and using shutter speed to create an amazing long exposure image finding light and color the naked eye cannot see.