Neighbor's Banana Tree

Nikon D90, DX Nikkor 10-24mm lens @ 10mm, f/22, 1/125sec, ISO 200

Our neighbor, across our back fence, planted a banana tree.

It has gotten tall enough to reach over and see what's happening in our yard.

Testing out my used, but new to me, Nikon 10-24mm lens I bought on ebay.

Time Exposure 1

Yesterday evening, Sunday, Lovely Wife and I went over to the "beachside" (barrier island) to watch the sun set.

Too many clouds blocked the best part of the show, but then I began to take some time exposures after it had gotten pretty dark.  It was nice to sit and feel the cool breeze after a really hot day.

Rykman Park pier in the Indian River Lagoon, Melbourne Beach, Florida.

Nikon D90, Nikon 10-24mm lens at 10mm, f/22, 38 second exposure, ISO 200.

Kloiber's Cobbler Eatery

The orange door there is the entrance to Kloiber's Cobbler Eatery.  (say THAT ten times fast)

This was taken in Titusville, Florida.

I'm sorry to say that I didn't see the word "cobbler" as we drove by and I took this photo, otherwise I would have yelled stop for a cobbler break.

I love me some cobbler, and little hole-in-the-wall places like this are usually outstanding places to eat.

So now I'm left plotting a trip back to Titusville, a town I don't go to very often.

Plus, this older part of Titusville has a great mix of old and new buildings and re-purposed buildings like this one.  Lots of great colors mixed with the old brick building styles.

Pritchard House, Titusville, Ga.

This is the house and yard on the other side of the weedy fence in my previous post's black and white photo.

Just to show how completely ignorant I am of achitectural styles, I though this was a Victorian home.

Well, it ain't.  It's "an outstanding example of the Queen Anne architecture, a distinctly American form that was popular from approximately 1876-1910."

Whatever, it's still a beautiful place and seemed strange to see such a stately old home in Florida.  (i.e. it's not cinder block and it's not painted in Key West pastel blue, green, or yellow colors.)

Note the beautiful landscaping and compare to the other side of the surrounding fence from my previous post.

The Pritchard House was built in 1891.

added later, (Technical note:  I've been learning to correct distortion in photos, and adjusted this one to correct that building-leaning-backwards look from having used a wide angle lens pointed upward.  Now I need to learn to leave a little more space around my main subjects when photographing them to allow for the bit of cropping needed after a perspective correction like this.)

Original leaning-over-backwards look.

Black and White #38

This was taken at a beautiful old historic home in Titusville, Florida.

The yard on the other side of this fence was manicured and beautiful.

But on the street side of this obviously high-quality and expensive fence it was Weed City.  As someone who grew up cutting lawns for people, I can't imagine a worker with any self respect not taking ten extra minutes with a weed-eater to trim outside this fence. 

But I'm not them I guess.

I've been trying some different techniques in Photoshop Elements 9 to get nice, contrasty black and white images.

This is not a great photo, but I was able to get a range of tones here that I do like.

Crane Creek Promenade on a Saturday Morning

Not much to say here.

This walkway along Crane Creek in Melbourne, Florida, and the Melbourne Harbor Marina in the distance, is close to home and a great place to walk, photograph, and otherwise enjoy the beauty of Florida.

My second try at jumping on the HDR bandwagon.

Gone Fishin'

I was impressed that these teens were out net fishing just after dawn on a Saturday morning.

Sometimes when I'm out wandering and photographing things, I take a photo that doesn't impact me at the moment of pressing the shutter, but when I get home and see it on computer, I really, really like it.

This is one of those photos for me.

About three weeks ago, I had a sleepless night with my back and about dawn I decided to get my camera and go take some photos in the morning sun.

Lovely wife is an early riser and woke up before I left, so we went down to Melbourne Harbor Marina, one of my favorite local photographic haunts.

We parked in a park next to the marina, the Crane Creek Promenade, a nice walk along the banks of Crane Creek. (Which is a great local place to see and watch manatees. Sadly, no manatee sightings on this morning)

The marina is located at the mouth of Crane Creek where it meets the Indian River Lagoon.

I used to get up at the butt-crack-of-dawn when I was a teenager and go fishing for bass in the local bayous in Monroe, Louisiana with my friends way back when, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see these fellas doing it.