Photo Story

Street Photography - what comes from the dark

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Nikon D300 Nikkor AF 50mm f/1.8D @ f/2 ISO 200 1/80th - B&W processing in Silver Efex ProLast month I began watching the original Twilight Zone series from the first episode.  It is a black & white world where the ordinary always leads to the extraordinary.  It is unfortunate that I am not able to continue my street photography career here in St. Petersburg as I was able to do with ease while living in Tokyo.  One has to really look for shots here as there are very few people walking the streets of downtown.  

What drew me to this scene first was the lighting and then my curiosity to what the woman in the booth thinks about.  How often is her mind on something outside the booth?  Does she still try to stare into the darkness before her searching for anything?  Did she ever?

For someone passing by it appears as a small booth, but I am sure she has her own world in there.  Like the ending to many Twilight Zone episodes, what really lies in her mind, or in the dark beyond, will remain a mystery.  

Cessna Sailboat Helicopter St. Petersburg Tampa Bay

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Cessna taking off from Albert Whitted Airport St. Petersburg Florida - f/8 ISO 200 1/800th using shutter priorityEven though it is not entirely correct or perhaps in anyway connected, the inspiration for this post was, "One if by sea, two if by land."  The only real connection between all four of these photographs is that they were taken from The Pier while I was otherwise engaged teaching a DSLR photography lesson.  The photo of the Cessna plane above was taken with a student in practice for photographing eagles in Alaska.  Tracking a small moving object can be tricky and is definitely a skill that needs to be repeatedly practiced and refined.  This plane had just taken off from Albert Whitted Airport in downtown St. Petersburg.

Setting sail for Tampa Bay - f/7.1 ISO 200 1/800th using shutter priorityThis sailboat represents the whales the above student will photograph in Alaska.  It is kind of funny how The Pier with a little imagination can be a single practice point for photographing the wide ranging wildlife of Alaska!  For me, my goal with the sailboat shot was to get everything framed tightly and neatly regarding the boat's position in the frame, the location of the horizon and the predominantly cloud background.

Helicopter frozen in midair over Tampa Bay - f/4 ISO 200 1/4000th using aperture priorityA few months earlier, again with the same photo student, we were also on the roof of The Pier photographing anything that flew by.  What does it take to freeze a helicopter's blades in motion?  It would seem 1/4000th of a second does the job nicely.  Helicopters always make me think of Magnum P.I.  

Police ride jet skis in Florida - f/4 ISO 200 1/2500th using aperture priorityA few minutes later we were back to looking for waterborne subjects to photograph again and I saw for the first time a police jet ski!  Personally, I am against jet skis and other similar watercraft they just seem to be "too much."  They are incredibly noisy and it just seems so uncivilized for one person to be able to disrupt the Sea so much.  To me it just looks disrespectful.  

If not "one if by sea, two if by land" that what other connecting theme may you suggest for these four photos?  

Dramatic Stormy Sky Over Tampa Bay From The Pier

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Dramatic Sky over Tampa Bay - 5-bracket HDR f/8 ISO 200 tripod mounted with cable releaseI have been starting to miss mountains the past few weeks.  I watched every stage of the 2011 Tour de France as the riders first went over the Pyrenees and then the Alps.  The helicopter views of the French countryside were often as stunning as the cycling action.  With the option to make landscapes of mountains and architecture shots of old castles, I was thinking, "Florida really has nothing in comparison."

Well, Florida has almost nothing.  Here we do have near daily dramatic sunsets and stormy skies.  Each twilight brings a slightly different cloud pattern, sky color and reflection over Tampa Bay (if looking east from The Pier as in the above photo).

Still, once one lives around mountains, it is hard to forget them.  I imagine it is the same for living by the Sea.  Perhaps the combination of mountains and sea are why so many songs are written about California.  

This Tampa Bay landscape is available for commercial license and fine art print, inquire today!

Tampa Bay with Clouds 6000px Panorama

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Click to view 6000px version -- 10-frame panorama of Tampa Bay with morning cloud coverLast year a friend requested some photographs of clouds.  I never felt I got the exact shot she imagined so in the back of my mind to this day resides that cloud photograph request.  Well this morning out to the east over Tampa Bay was a whole front of large puffy clouds.  I steadied myself on the upper railing on the roof of The Pier in downtown St. Petersburg and using the gridlines (I would never buy a DSLR that does not have this feature) in my Nikon D300 I lined by hand a 10-frame panorama.  Of course it would have been best to use a tripod, but I did not have one with me and since I could clearly see the horizon and thus line it up with the lower-third gridline in my viewfinder, I do not think I could have done much better.

I put the 10 photographs into a folder on my desktop, called up the automated PhotoMerge function in Photoshop CS5 and let the app and my Core i7 cpu do the rest.  Once stitched together I did a little further editing and then resized it to a more manageable version.  The original file is over 14,000 pixels wide!

This Tampa Bay panorama is available for commercial license and fine art print, inquire today!

Twilight Moonrise over The Pier St. Petersburg Florida landscape

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Moonrise over The Pier St. Petersburg Florida - SETUP: f/5.6 ISO 200 1/40th handheld 

"Sometimes I can't believe in, I'm moving past the feeling again." -- Arcade Fire

As society moves further and further into illusion, the order of the natural world ever gets pushed more and more into the background.  This is one of my main motivating forces as a photographer.  I want to preserve the natural world while it is still visible for me to see.  This is the only way I currently know how to stop time.  As I have said before, I make photographs first and foremost for myself to look at.  If others dig them, so be it.

Every sunset to me seems the death of the world.  The sky closes its eyes.  Darkness falls.  Yet, in due time the world brightens again and, lo, there is another day.  

Yet I remain drawn to every sunset I see.  There has to be some escape through it.  

Bowman's Beach Rainbow Sunset Sanibel Island Panorama & HDR

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Click image for 3000px version -- Bowman's Beach Sanibel Island Double Rainbow Panorama - 5-shot panorama image

Bowman's Beach is a dog friendly (on-leash) beach on Sanibel Island, and one of its best beaches of any kind.  I took a timeout from swimming and running with Kiki to photograph a complete rainbow that had formed to the east.  We had to drive through a powerful thunderstorm and wait out the remnants of it while eating onion rings undercover before it was even safe, never mind dry, enough to head out onto the beach.  Storms always seem to leave good things behind, like this rainbow.  I did not even notice it was a double rainbow with my naked eye.  Only once I brought out some detail in Aperture 3 did I see the upper bow.

Sunset over Bowman's Beach Sanibel Island - 3-bracket HDRThe just passed storm also meant the beach was nearly deserted, which was fine by me and Kiki.  We ran far up the shoreline (see photo above) into the sunset, then swam and jogged our way back.  It was one of the most pleasant experiences in recent memory.

Pelican vs. Great Blue Heron Sunset on Snell Isle Battle

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brown pelican vs great blue heron - f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1000th

Two of the largest birds in Florida are the brown pelican and the great blue heron.  They are a common site around Snell Isle.  I have seen both and photographed both many times in the past, but I never caught them in semi-battle with each other.  This particular great blue heron often likes to stand on the edge of a small dock nearby.  I see him/her on my evening walks with Kiki.  This brown pelican too likes to frequent the water around here dive bombing in for a late dinner.

Well, this time the pelican was diving too close to the great blue heron and she/he got cranky and the showdown pictured above took place.  The pelican was determined to eat, the great blue heron was determined to hold her/his ground.  In the end, the pelican moved on and the great blue heron returned to his/her usual stoic stance.   

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