Readying the Big Guns

Sunday my photo group had another meetup to attend the reenactment of the Battle of Ballast Point at Ft Desoto in Tierra Verde, FL.

While I shot the entire series in color, I was thinking that they didn't have color film during the Civil War, so it would probably be best to reproduce the series in sepia tone. I am posting both the color version and the sepia version for comparison.

That's the beauty of shooting in RAW mode and using Lightroom for post-processing. I have the ability to change things on the fly while keeping the original untouched.

Here is the color version; which do you prefer?

The Battle of Ballast Point was not one of the "popular" battles to study, so here is a little background information on the battle.

"The Battle of Ballast Point took place in Tampa, Florida on October 18, 1863. A Union raiding party, landed at the current intersection of Gandy Boulevard and Bayshore Boulevard, under the protracted diversionary bombardment of the city of Tampa and Fort Brooke by two ships, one the Tahoma" and the other, to be named. The Union divisions marched up the Hillsborough River to what is now Lowry Park and burned two notorious blockade running ships, the Scottish Chieftain, and the Kate Dale, owned by the future mayor of Tampa, James McKay. Escaping capture by mere minutes, with members of his crew in tow, James McKay sped to the city of Tampa and warned all of the landing party and the fate of his ships.

After burning the ships, the Confederate forces were alerted to the raiding party's location, and commenced pursuit. A confederate cavalry unit (Oklawaha Rangers) caught up with the Union raiders, finally and a full engagement ensued. The union soldiers came under direct fire as they boarded their dinghies, in a tactical retreat.

Lives were lost. Prisoners captured on both sides."

- from Wikepedia

"Seminole Indian"

Yesterday yet another Meetup took me to Ft Foster in Thonotosassa, FL for a reenactment of a skirmish between the Seminole Indians and the Army, of which was mostly volunteers during that time.

This man was dressed as a Seminole Indian and I really liked his profile.

If anything could go wrong yesterday for getting to the reenactment, it did. I had to work in the morning, and the skirmish started at 1:00 pm, but for some reason, there were a lot of new babies born for me to photograph. Usually, I can leave by 10:30 or 11:00 on Saturdays, but that wasn't about to happen. Finally, I left at 12:50 pm and with a 1 hour drive, I thought at least I'd get there for the second half of the skirmish. As luck would have it, there was something going on in Ybor City and the traffic was backed up from downtown Tampa all the way to Ybor.

I finally got through that, and arrived in Thonotosassa at 2:30 with only a 1/2 hour to shoot the reenactment. As I was entering Ft Foster, I was told by a volunteer that I had to wait at the end of the road for the ambulance and the Fire Department vehicles to pass. After waiting for about 10 minutes, I decided to park the car there and walk in, not knowing how long the walk would take. I got there just after the skirmish ended. It was a long walk with my equipment on my back.

I settled for taking a few photos of the reenactors and the encampment site and left about 45 minutes later. I was lucky to get the photos I got.