This was another shoot with the Riverview Digital Photography Meetup Group. We went to the Alafia River State Park on County Road 39 in southeastern Hillsborough County. The park doesn't open until 8 a.m. so some of the best light is lost waiting outside the gate.
The park is known for its biking trails. I hoped to get some action shots along with the usual nature shots you'd expect to see in a park. Patches of high sunlight made capturing shots of the riders more difficult. Many bikers treaded carefully down the hills. That limited our ability to get shots where they appear frozen against a blurry backdrop.
The park was converted from abandoned phosphate pits. That accounts for the hilly terrain not often found in this part of Florida. The former pits now hold standing water. So we had mosquitoes that are often found in this part of Florida. I am so glad that I thought to bring bug spray. It is an absolute must if you're going out into any woods in Florida.
Oh, you've noticed that it's taking a while to get to the pictures, have you? I wish I could promise that they'd be worth the wait but I have to confess: They were a disappointing lot.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Tarpon Springs Photos
These are from a trip to Tarpon Springs I took with my father and brother. We were there in the heat of the afternoon, hardly the ideal sun for photography. But shooting in poor light is better than not shooting at all. A couple of these shots came from a 90-minute boat trip we took. The bearded guy in the mirror shot is not my father. But the guy in the background of that shot is my brother.
Sunken Gardens Video Tour
You ask, not without justification, what is a video doing on a photography blog? The answer is that the video camera was the one I had with me when I shot at this venue. It was also a chance to experiment working with a green screen for the parts (too many, I grant you) in which I appear on camera.
Because of the compression necessary to get the video to play over the web, you won't get the high-definition experience, but you'll get some sense, I hope, of what is there to shoot.
Because of the compression necessary to get the video to play over the web, you won't get the high-definition experience, but you'll get some sense, I hope, of what is there to shoot.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Previous PhotoWalk + Lowry Zoo Pictures
These are photos from last year's Scott Kelby Worldwide PhotoWalk in Safety Harbor. August 24, 2008, to be precise. I post them here for the benefit of members of the Riverview Digital Photography Meetup Group as we look for places to shoot.
I drove through intermittent rain to get to the town then walked several blocks down Main Street through a steady downpour to the meeting place. But I made it. Luckily for the 50 or so people gathered under the gazebo at John Wilson Park the rain stopped before we set off to document Safety Harbor.
I had an idea in my head that there would be some guidance involved but the only instructions we got were to meet at Crispers restaurant at 7 p.m., that whining was not allowed and to take care not to get hit by a car.
The restaurant is a good place to meet afterward. It is large enough to accommodate a group and people could fire up their laptops and share their results if they wanted.
A few months earlier I joined several thousand other price-conscious people when I visited Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa on a $5 admission day. Below are some of the results.
I drove through intermittent rain to get to the town then walked several blocks down Main Street through a steady downpour to the meeting place. But I made it. Luckily for the 50 or so people gathered under the gazebo at John Wilson Park the rain stopped before we set off to document Safety Harbor.
I had an idea in my head that there would be some guidance involved but the only instructions we got were to meet at Crispers restaurant at 7 p.m., that whining was not allowed and to take care not to get hit by a car.
The restaurant is a good place to meet afterward. It is large enough to accommodate a group and people could fire up their laptops and share their results if they wanted.
A few months earlier I joined several thousand other price-conscious people when I visited Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa on a $5 admission day. Below are some of the results.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Another Ybor City Photowalk
Ybor, yet again! I signed up for an event called the Worldwide Photowalk. Scott Kelby, a photographer who writes digital photography and Photoshop books, hatched the idea as a book promotion. A bunch of photographers would meet someplace, roam around snapping shots of it for a couple of hours and meet at a restaurant afterward for either lunch or dinner, depending on whether it was a morning or afternoon walk.
It now includes 24,000 camera toters in events around the world.
I had gone to one last year in Safety Harbor. We got rained on but the overcast skies made the light ideal. This year I chose Ybor simply because it was the one closest to my home. As the day approached I wondered if I'd want to shoot there again, especially in a Florida July mid afternoon.
Usually I've started shooting at Centro Ybor, the hub of Tampa's party town, and branched east or west from there. So today I started at what is normally the easternmost spot, the venerable Columbia restaurant at 7th Ave. and 21st St., then ventured south then east from there.
Here are a few of the vertically oriented shots.
The shots of the walkway framed on the right with brick arches was a place I had stopped to get a bottle of Gatorade because I had forgotten to pack a cooler with drinks. That sun will sap your energy fast if you don't stay hydrated. I walked outside, looked to my left and said, "Wow!"
Good photos are often right in front of you, if you're willing to notice them. My apparent fixation with railroad tracks continues. And, like last time, a shot of a padlock made the best-of batch. What would Freud say?
Now some of the landscape oriented photos:
I don't know if some of the painting on the wall is graffiti or used to be intentional decoration or is some combination of the two with some mold added for panache.
The green shot is the underside of an umbrella in Centro Ybor where I sat as I drained the rest of my Gatorade. There's a lot of color in Ybor City. Some weirdness too. Like the guy lining up those giant pipes on the counter of a hookah bar. I'm not sure what they smoke in those things in a public bar, if they're indeed smoked on the premises.
See more photos at photoquist.com.
It now includes 24,000 camera toters in events around the world.
I had gone to one last year in Safety Harbor. We got rained on but the overcast skies made the light ideal. This year I chose Ybor simply because it was the one closest to my home. As the day approached I wondered if I'd want to shoot there again, especially in a Florida July mid afternoon.
Usually I've started shooting at Centro Ybor, the hub of Tampa's party town, and branched east or west from there. So today I started at what is normally the easternmost spot, the venerable Columbia restaurant at 7th Ave. and 21st St., then ventured south then east from there.
Here are a few of the vertically oriented shots.
The shots of the walkway framed on the right with brick arches was a place I had stopped to get a bottle of Gatorade because I had forgotten to pack a cooler with drinks. That sun will sap your energy fast if you don't stay hydrated. I walked outside, looked to my left and said, "Wow!"
Good photos are often right in front of you, if you're willing to notice them. My apparent fixation with railroad tracks continues. And, like last time, a shot of a padlock made the best-of batch. What would Freud say?
Now some of the landscape oriented photos:
I don't know if some of the painting on the wall is graffiti or used to be intentional decoration or is some combination of the two with some mold added for panache.
The green shot is the underside of an umbrella in Centro Ybor where I sat as I drained the rest of my Gatorade. There's a lot of color in Ybor City. Some weirdness too. Like the guy lining up those giant pipes on the counter of a hookah bar. I'm not sure what they smoke in those things in a public bar, if they're indeed smoked on the premises.
See more photos at photoquist.com.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Ybor City Photo Walk
This was another photo walk with fellow members of the Riverview Photography Meetup Group. I've shot in Ybor City numerous times, with models and without, so it gets more challenging to find things I haven't seen and shot before.
When you get there early in the morning, the only people you're likely to meet are either photographers or people sleeping off the night before. I felt a little uneasy shooting the bums on the benches.
When you get there early in the morning, the only people you're likely to meet are either photographers or people sleeping off the night before. I felt a little uneasy shooting the bums on the benches.
Friday, July 3, 2009
The $150 Photograph
Not working a 9-to-5 job means you can spend some daytime hours doing other things.
I got to do some volunteer work for the WUSF Radio Reading Service yesterday. The service broadcasts readings of newspapers, magazines and other literature to blind and disabled people who have special radios to receive the signal.
With a background in broadcasting, it's a great outlet. Plus it's the perfect thing for someone who likes the sound of his own voice. So I'm always glad to do it.
I was less glad when I took a wrong turn on the way there, drove over a sidewalk and got a $151 citation from the USF campus police. $151 I could have spent on something I wanted.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Afterward I went to the USF Botanical Garden. I had brought my camera thinking I'd try to snap some shots in the butterfly garden. Of course, by the time I got finished with the police and did my reading, it was nearly 4:30 p.m.
So the picture below of the largest insect I have ever seen cost me $151 to take. I don't even know what it is. I just noticed a funny looking yellow color on a flower and went to investigate.
It could have been worse. I got rained on and rushed back to my car. As I sat waiting to see if the rain would pass, I noticed two people coming out of the botanical gardens' gift shop and head to the the only two other cars in the lot.
That's when I realized the place was closing. Had the rain not sent me fleeing to my car I'd have been locked inside the gardens until 9 a.m. today.
I got to do some volunteer work for the WUSF Radio Reading Service yesterday. The service broadcasts readings of newspapers, magazines and other literature to blind and disabled people who have special radios to receive the signal.
With a background in broadcasting, it's a great outlet. Plus it's the perfect thing for someone who likes the sound of his own voice. So I'm always glad to do it.
I was less glad when I took a wrong turn on the way there, drove over a sidewalk and got a $151 citation from the USF campus police. $151 I could have spent on something I wanted.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Afterward I went to the USF Botanical Garden. I had brought my camera thinking I'd try to snap some shots in the butterfly garden. Of course, by the time I got finished with the police and did my reading, it was nearly 4:30 p.m.
So the picture below of the largest insect I have ever seen cost me $151 to take. I don't even know what it is. I just noticed a funny looking yellow color on a flower and went to investigate.
 |
It could have been worse. I got rained on and rushed back to my car. As I sat waiting to see if the rain would pass, I noticed two people coming out of the botanical gardens' gift shop and head to the the only two other cars in the lot.
That's when I realized the place was closing. Had the rain not sent me fleeing to my car I'd have been locked inside the gardens until 9 a.m. today.
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