While we didn’t specifically look for wildlife during our time in Florida, we did come across some examples of the local fauna. Here are a few of my non-wildlife-photographer results. I don’t think I ever saw an armadillo in the wild before. If I did I don’t remember it. I have seen plenty of the others, however.
I did a postcard from Lake Placid a few weeks ago but wanted to share a few more of the photos. I know 25 seems like more than a few, but there are a lot of murals!
Small towns these days have to work hard to attract tourism, and these murals are a testament to the pride of the community and the hard work required to see the project to completion on such a grand scale. It was an enjoyable day, we had a good lunch and enjoyed a few hours walking around this pleasant town. Thanks to our friends Bill & Cathy for sharing it with us! 🙂
I have a number of “non-mural” photos too, and will save them to illustrate some future post.
One of the spots we visited on our recent visit to Florida was the Florida Air Museum, located at the Lakeland-Linder International Airport in Lakeland. Airplane buffs will recognize ‘LAL’ as the home of the annual Sun-N-Fun Aerospace Expo.
I was a little disappointed in the museum given the status of Sun-N-Fun in the aviation world, but to be fair they are in the process of a major facilities upgrade which should provide a lot more exhibit space and room for more aircraft. Plus, we have visited some awesome aviation museums over the last few years, in particular the Evergreen Aviation Museum in Oregon. How can you compare seeing photographs of Howard Hughes to actually standing inside the Spruce Goose? 😉
It was a nice day and a good place to spend a little time. And there are definitely a few one-of-a-kind aircraft housed here, including the Lockheed XVF-1 which was designed to be a vertical takeoff and landing vehicle long before Space-X figured out how to re-land rockets. I can only imagine trying to set that thing down on its tail!
Another roadside find in rural Florida.
Over the last year or so, Kathy & I have come to understand the impact of food choice on nutrition and overall health. One of the arguments I hear a lot as to why people make poor choices regarding food is that not everyone has access to quality food. My opinion is that people don’t know how to make good choices regarding food, because they don’t know what good food is, let alone what it tastes like. Why? Because the marketing messages we receive aren’t pushing healthy foods. They’re too often promoting foods which are actually bad for us but are sold to an unsuspecting public as being good for us. As I like to say, there is little profit in selling (for example) broccoli.
One of the food blogs I follow is Marion Nestle’s “Food Politics.” A recent post titled “Feed The Truth: Draining The Swamp” outlines a study and paper by an organization called Feed The Truth titled “Draining The Big Food Swamp.” This paper outlines the influence that “Big Food” has on national politics, which in turn affects the information people receive to make decisions about food. I highly recommend reading Nestle’s post and then following the link to at least the Executive Summary of the report.
This is important stuff. And this report only covers part of the problem, as it does not address the influence of pharmaceutical companies on the health care profession. Drug companies don’t make money off of healthy people any more than food companies make money selling healthy foods. We could solve a lot of the country’s health problems with a focus on quality food as an alternative to drugs and miracle cures.
Whenever we’re traveling, especially by car, I often look for photographic opportunities on the way. Sometimes I’ve pre-identified a place like a train station, other times I’m looking for something serendipitous along the side of the road. If my camera is buried in the bag somewhere in the back of the car I have a hard time stopping. But if the camera is out and ready, I’m a lot more likely to find a place to pull off or turn around in order to get that first shot. I find that once I have stopped and taken a few photographs, it is easy to stop the next time something comes up.
For me, putting the camera bag on the back seat or on the floor behind my seat is a start. That makes it easy to get to when I need it. But the best approach has been to actually get the camera out and hang it over the headrest of the back seat. I’ve driven hundreds and perhaps thousands of miles that way, and it works. We had a 2-door car for a while and that made my method a bit more challenging, but we’ve gone back to 4 doors now and probably won’t change back.
If we’re staying in a town and walking around, I’ll carry my camera with me, lens cap off, ready to shoot. I’m kind of a one lens guy anyway, so I have the camera around my neck or on my shoulder and a spare battery in my pocket. I learned quickly with the EVF cameras to always have a spare! I often chuckle at the people walking around with their brand new CaNikonUjiOny camera bag on their shoulder, securely zippered shut with the camera inside, probably with the lens off the camera. Hardly a way to get a photograph! 😉
On our way into St. Augustine a few days ago, we exited I-95 at an interchange that contains what I like to call “Floridiana.” It’s the oversize signs advertising all kinds of goodies to take back home and rot in the cupboard – Tropical Fruit Wine? Probably not. Gator Jerky? Don’t think so. Boiled peanuts? Tried ’em – pass. Also lots of things to tempt the kids and make them sick 20 miles up the road. I thought I would like to know what “Honey Toasted Chocolate Covered Praline Pecans” taste like until Kathy assured me that it is three different kinds and not just one. Oh, well.
The story is that we didn’t stop there on the way in to town, and as often happens I kicked myself for not taking the time (it was late, we were tired and thirsty, etc.). So today we went into town to the fort to get a stamp on Kathy’s National Park Passport, and on the way back took the scenic route by way of this exit. Pretty interesting signage, although it didn’t tempt us enough to go inside.
Oh, and in case you wondered about all those oranges and grapefruits out roasting in the sun? They’re little concrete spheres. Wouldn’t make very good juice. 😉
The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic. – Peter Drucker
The last few days I’ve been working on compiling some of my blog posts from early in the pandemic into book form. As I read over some of the things I wrote in March and April last year, I’m struck by how little we knew at that time and what our (my) attitudes were. I’m not sure we’ve really learned a lot in the last year, but what we know now seems a lot different from what we knew then.
These are a few more of the photos from our visit to Murray’s Mill. I’ve been experimenting with some in-camera JPEG ‘recipes’ and these are photos made with one called “Dramatic Monochrome” from Fuji X Weekly.
I spotted this old relic during our walk a few days ago. It might make for an interesting photo study, except for the fact that it sits at the very end of the 1.5-mile trail!
I keep thinking that this would make a decent black & white image, but I haven’t come up with a version I’m happy with. When I take the color out the tones are all the same and the image looks like a flat, jumbled mess. I’ll keep working with it to see what I can do, but in the meantime I like the color version just fine!
I had to wait until this morning to have my first sunrise opportunity of the year. The weather the last few days has basically been crap, but the forecast for this morning held promise. Rather than set an alarm I told myself that if I woke up in time I would head out to see what I might find. Usually when I try that approach I either wake up too early or too late, but this morning I woke up at 5:50 which was just about perfect.
I arrived at the boat launch area right at 6:30 and was treated to some amber city-lit clouds low to the horizon and a clear sky with clouds above. Pretty sweet! No fog this time, but that was good for better reflections. I got a few shots of that then aimed my camera at the causeway to catch some light trails. There is a lot more traffic on a Monday morning than there was on the Sunday morning when I last visited!
The parking lot was completely deserted when I arrived, but the first boater showed about about 6:45. He was well organized and put in quickly, but it was too dark to get anything usable. The second boater arrived about 7:15, took his time futzing around with this gear and finally left the dock just as the sun was coming up. That made for some good light on the boat as it putted through the No Wake zone.
The bonus though was that, all of a sudden, I heard birds, lots of them. Then overhead came a huge cloud of some kind of small black birds, probably starlings, grackles or similar black birds – hundreds of them! And that cloud was followed by another, then another. I have no idea how many of them there were, but there were a bunch. Fortunately I had my camera set up for a wide angle shot of the water and sky, so I was able to catch a few frames with the birds, even though they were a bit blurry. They were moving fast!
So in addition to a pretty sunrise I got an impromptu air show! All in all it was a worthwhile visit and I got a few shots to start off the new year. The weather looks like might deteriorate again the next few days but I’ll keep a lookout for another opportunity!
