First And Last

Last summer, soon after buying my D70s, I went wandering for photographs.

These were the first and last photos I took on that particular afternoon.

The first one is of a real estate office out on the barrier island which is called "beachside" locally. This office is in Melbourne Beach, Florida.

The second photo was after the sun had set, and I was exploring the joys of having adjustable ISO on a camera. This was taken at ISO 800, and I was so excited that although I can see the noise somewhat in the enlarged version, it's still pretty good. Especially compared to how grainy slide film gets at higher ISO ratings. The photo is looking north along A1A in the northern section of Indian River County, about 25 miles (40km) south of where I live.

Palm Bay

Top Photo: What's left of a palm frond among the sand and shells on the shore of Palm Bay, in Palm Bay, Florida. I just liked the symmetry of it, and the gritty ground.

Bottom Photo: I mentioned this yesterday; Palm Bay. It's a body of water in the Indian River Lagoon, our section of the Intracostal Waterway. People live in the city of Palm Bay for years and never realize there is an actual body of water called Palm Bay.

Both photos were taken at one of Palm Bay's city parks, Castaways Point Park on one side of the bay.

Signs #1

I like signs. Unique, funny, whatever. If it's unusual, it catches my eye.

The first photograph was taken in a big pond behind the Brevard County Public Library in Melbourne, Florida.

The second photo was taken on the banks of Crane Creek in Melbourne, Florida. Statute or no statute, you don't have to worry about ol' John enticing any alligators.

Caution! Storks Ahead

Aren't these things hideous looking? I'm sure glad I was too young to remember the stork dropping me off at my parents' house when I was a baby.

Now that I think about it, maybe that's why I'm so twisted, I might have been terrorized by the stork that delivered me and I repressed it...

Gotta get into therapy.

Out Front

The first photo is one of Lovely Wife's new flower pots for 2007. She gets the urge every year to plant flowers. Hits all the local nursery sections of the stores, and boom, lots of new flowers. I'm not complaining, I love flowers, and we can have them pretty much year 'round here. This new setup in the photo, sits just outside our screened in front porch to greet visitors, and us when we get home.

The second photo is of the thorns where we've cut off dead palm fronds from some little palm trees, also just outside the front porch. I like palm trees a lot, and there are a dizzying number of different kinds, but some of them have huge thorns near the base of the palm fronds, like here. These in the picture are about 2 inches (5cm) long each. Every few months, more fronds grow out of the top, and the lower ones yellow and die and droop down. To keep the trees looking nice, we cut off the dead ones and leave only the green. Trimming them isn't fun, and we look like an attack dog has chewed up our arms when we've trimmed them all and have dragged the old fronds away. It's pretty much impossible to trim a bunch of these without ending up bloody, the blood running down your arms. It doesn't hurt very bad, but it's annoying.

We used to have huge bougainvilleas all over the yard, but that was over the top with thorns, and we got rid of them despite the beauty.

Our Canary Island Date Palm (at least I think that's what it is) has thorns about 4 or 5 inches (10-12cm) long. Those thorns have stuck in me so deep I felt them hit the bones in my forearms. That DID hurt, and it creeps me out to feel them hit bone like that.

Green Stuff

Photos taken in Sebastian Inlet State Park, Florida.

The little birds would let the small waves wash over them, shake it off, and resume hunting little critters. I'd never seen birds do that before, let a wave hit them. Though admittedly, they weren't big waves, but still.

The second photo was some of the stuff growing in the water. I have no idea what to call it, I'm woefully ignorant of plant's names and even birds names, but it's fun to see and photograph.

Plus, I didn't have to learn to scuba dive to see it either.

Did You Know That Birds Stretch?

All three photos:
Nikon D70s; 1/500sec; f5.6; Nikon 55-200mm lens at 200mm.

Great Blue Heron. He was hunting, and stopped to stretch.

Photos taken at Castaways Point Park, Palm Bay, Florida. On the mainland bank of the Indian River Lagoon.

A Great Place To Watch Sunsets

Living on the east coast of Florida, we can see some amazing sunrises.

Only problem is, I'm not much for getting up before dawn. Sunsets are more my speed.

To see good ones, Lovely Wife and I head across the Melbourne Causeway to Melbourne Beach, Florida. The two pictures above were taken at Rykman Park in Melbourne Beach. From this location we can watch the sunset over the Indian River Lagoon, our section of the intracostal waterway.

These two shots were taken late June 2006, the day after I bought my Nikon D70s. Wanted to break it in on a nice sunset. God supplied a really nice one.

The two photos were taken about 50 yards apart, each standing on one side or the other of the pier. That's the same pier in both photos. The first one was while the sun was still up, and I tried to approximate the Orton process in Photoshop Elements, and the second one is just a straight shot of the pastel colors after the sun had gone down. Someone was kind enough to mosey by in a sailboat for that second photo.

Why?

I am by no means a great photographer. I have never pretended to be. I see photos on the internet each day that make me want to hang my camera up and stop, but those of you with the photography bug know that this is impossible to do. It's a compulsion. Like breathing.

I've been thinking about starting another blog, one that pretty much just lets me show a photo (or a few photos) each day.

My other blog, Least Significant Bits, has literally hundreds of my photos that I've posted in a little over a year.

But that blog is where I write about my life, old memories, political rants and stuff like that, and I have been wanting a simpler one on which to showcase photos I've taken over the years. That's what this blog will be. Just a photo or two, and maybe some explanation as to where and when the photo(s) was taken, as well as possibly explaining why I took it or why I like it.

Between the two blogs, there will definitely be overlap. Many people like to visit "a photo a day" type blogs, check out the photo, leave a comment, and leave. They don't want to sit and read about someone's life. I will post photos here that were also posted there within the text of that blog's post.

Some folks might end up checking out both blogs, but I'm sure some will look at one or the other. This one is "the other."

So, here it is, the humble beginning of my photography blog. Not sure what path I'll be taking, randomness, themes, or the like. I guess I'll figure that out as I go.

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I live in Palm Bay, Florida. It's on the Atlantic coast, about half way between Jacksonville and Miami. About a one hour drive southeast of Orlando. Here's a Google Earth satellite photo of the area.

You can see that Palm Bay is on the mainland, and just south of the better-known city of Melbourne, Florida. Though Palm Bay is now much larger than Melbourne in population.

One advantage of our location is that we are about fifteen minutes from the Atlantic Ocean and some pretty nice beaches. From where I work, I can drive to the beach, eat my lunch, drive back to work, all within my 45 minutes allowed for lunch.

And finally, after all that blather, here are my first two photos. Lovely Wife came and picked me up from work for lunch a couple of weeks ago, and we went to the beach to eat. I had my camera and here's a couple of photos I took that day.