Pickerelweed

When I first moved to Florida in 1988, this was one of the first aquatic flowers that I photographed. When I saw this one in John Chestnut Park in Palm Harbor, it reminded me of the time many years ago when I first saw these pretty flowers.

I was standing by the edge of a pond photographing it, when movement at my feet caught my eye. Just as I took the camera away from my face, I saw an Alligator come up slowly right between my legs. It scared the daylights out of me. It was the first Alligator I'd ever seen in the wild. I didn't know it then, but it was a pretty young one, because it was so small. I doubt it was more than a year old.

When I look back on it that incident now, it gives me a chuckle. When I saw him, I wasn't sure what to do so I slowly walked backward and got out of that park as soon as I could. I think I'd still do the same thing today.

Since the subject of this blog is Pickerelweed, I should probably get back to that instead of reminiscing about the past. Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata) is an aquatic plant that grows in shallow, still water. It gets its name from the Pickerel fish that shares the same habitat. Pickerelweed blooms from June through November in freshwater marshes, lakes, streams and at the edge of ponds.

I like to finish my blog with a little nature lesson for those who would like to learn as much as I've learned about nature ever since I started taking photos of nature. It has taught me so much.

Playing Around With HDR

This scene was made at John Chestnut Park in Palm Harbor. If you've been following my blog for any length of time, you know I love to photograph bridges and I love this one.

The scene was kind of bleak, so I decided to play around with it in Photomatix. It was a 3-shot combination at eV +1, 0 and -1. I combined the RAW files in Photomatix, then brought it back into Lightroom to tweak it a bit more.

While I'm not a fan of artsy HDR, I do like natural-looking HDR and this was the effect I was going for here. I've posted this before, but not on this blog. I would like a good critique from some of you other photographers out there. I'm particularly interested in what your initial impression of the shot is and any suggestions you can think of that would be helpful.

Thank you all in advance. I'm looking forward to your response.

Tweaked Landscape of Tarpon Lake

I saw this tutorial today on how to fake HDR using Lightroom only. I tried it and it looked awful. So, I decided to play around a little by tweaking the colors a bit.

This was taken a little later than the other landscape from Tarpon Lake that I posted a couple days ago. The first one was first thing in the morning while there was still a little bit of mist in the air. When I shot this one, the clouds had come up a little better.

I remembered what Jim's comment about the sky being 1-2 stops lighter than the reflections in the water, so i was careful to let this one look about the same to save the reality "look". To get these colors, I added saturation and exposure to the sky and the water, and added saturation to the boardwalk. The trees were left untouched. I'm pretty happy with the results. What do you all think?

Settings used for this image before post processing were at ISO 200 in aperture priority mode, I shot this at 1/15th at F11. I chose F11 to increase the depth of field. The image was shot with my 18-55mm lens at 21mm.

Great Blue Herons

During our walk the other morning at John Chestnut, Jr Park, we noticed several Great Blue Herons nesting in the pines across an inlet on Lake Tarpon.

There was quite a lot of activity with this pair. As we watched, we saw the male (I presume) flying back and forth gathering nesting material and bringing it back to the female so she could build the nest. This is just one of the many hand offs. At one point, he joined her in the nest and they were both weaving the twigs into this huge nest. We watched them with interest for quite a while.

Unlike most of these long-legged waders, Great Blue Herons do not roost with other birds. They are usually solitary. It seems it must be different during nesting season, because there were several pairs in these trees. As a matter of fact, at one point, we saw 2 Herons on the nest, while one watched from the position of the one pictured in this photo.

I only had my trusty 55-250mm lens, so this is a crop from the original. I thought it important to the photo to include the nest in the scene. This image was shot at ISO 400, in aperture priority mode with partial metering off the birds. It was exposed at F5.6 at 1/250 to get a high enough shutter speed to stop action to prevent blurring, since it was pretty dark up in the trees.

Tarpon Lake Scenic

We had a "girls" morning out on Friday morning, bright and early. Four of us went to John Chestnut, Jr Park in Palm Harbor for 7:00 am to try our luck at catching a few Deer.

We saw plenty of Deer all morning, but in low light, they're pretty hard to shoot through the fog and darkness. I did get a couple shots that I'm fairly happy with, but I had to increase my ISO to 800. That high of an ISO nearly always degrades the shot. So, I'm wondering if it's worth it. Maybe if it's a once in a lifetime shot, it's worth the trouble to clean up the shot; other than for that reason, it's just not worth it to me.

Personally, I'm happier with the scenics I shot that early in the morning. I'm more into waterscapes than I am into landscapes. It could be that I just don't "see" the landscapes we have in Florida. I'm a native New Englander, and used to landscapes with mountains, rolling hills, etc.

This one is one of my favorite that I shot this morning. I like the way the clouds and sky are reflected in the water, yet cannot be seen in the sky. That's pretty weird, isn't it? I'll probably be posting my Deer shots at a later time once I get all the editing done.

Settings used in this image taken in the early morning just as the fog/mist was lifting: ISO 400, 1/800 at F4.0, normally I don't make landscapes at F4.0, but I wasn't really trying to keep the background sharp, just the water and reeds, -2/3 exposure compensation to keep the sky from washing out completely, with partial metering on the reeds at 55mm with my 55-250mm trusty walk-around lens.

Tricolored Heron

This Tricolored Heron was sitting at the edge of this pond the same morning I was out with my friends looking for Deer. Although my trip was primarily to hunt and capture Deer photos, I'm not one to pass up a bird shot.

This fellow was very accommodating. He was so busy gazing out over the water, I don't think he noticed me, because I was able to fire off several shots from several angles before I made him nervous enough to fly to the other side of the water.

The trick to bird photography is pretty much the same as for all wild life. Don't run up on them, instead move slowly toward them. Take a few shots from far away so he sees what you're doing isn't hurting them. Crouch down, as low as possible, so you appear less threatening. As you move closer, go even slower. Try not to appear to be stalking them as a hunter or a predator would. If the bird looks at you, look away and pretend you're not watching them. They'll think you're probably stalking something else. Practice your panning technique before your big hunting day, so you'll capture him in flight should he fly off. Be patient and you'll get the shots you want.

Settings used for this image were: Aperture Priority mode with partial metering on the Heron at 400 ISO for speed in case he flew off, and continuous shooting mode. Shutter set at 1/40th at F7.1, the sweet spot on my lens and 0 exposure compensation at 250mm with my 55-250mm IS lens.

Doe

This is a little bit more unusual for me. A friend of mine has been going to John Chestnut Park in the very early mornings and seeing many Deer. So, we decided to make it ladies day out and six of us met at 7:00 am to see if we could find some Deer.

We sure did see Deer--everywhere! The Deer were right in the field in front of the parking lot; I'd say about 20 of them in all. At first they were OK with us making pictures as long as we didn't get too close. We stayed with them as they slowly moved on toward the picnic shelters and kept right on shooting. It's strange, we were all thinking that the thrill wasn't just the fact that we found and were capturing Deer with our cameras, but the hunt was just as thrilling.

I still haven't had time with working diligently on the Safety Harbor project to edit most of the photos I've been taking recently. This is only one from this shoot.

Settings for this image were: ISO 800, because it was still pretty dark, 1/40th at F5.6, +1/3 expsure compensation to allow more light. Partial metering off the Deer, and 250mm with my stablized 55-250mm lens.