Once again we pause to reflect and thank all those that serve or have served our country and helped keep us free.  Please know that we appreciate your service and can never thank you enough.

The Flag of the United States of America, flying at the Fort Matanzas National Monument, near St. Augustine, Florida.

Many in our family have served in the military.

Lynn’s Grandfather, Harold Christensen was a Navy pilot in the second World War.   As an electrical engineer I enjoyed hearing him talk about working on the top secret team that developed radar for use on aircraft. Lynn’s father, Doug was also in the Navy.  He was stationed in Pensacola after WW II.  Both Lynn’s Grandfather and father been gone for some time.  We miss them.

My Mother’s brother, uncle Jack was in the Air Force during the Vietnam War.  He never said much about his time in the service and passed away a year or two ago.  We miss him too.

My Dad and his brother were both young men during World War II and both were in the Army.  My Dad started high school just as WW II broke out and he enlisted as soon as he could.  After basic training in Florida and some additional training as an intelligence recon scout, he shipped out to Europe.  By that time, the war had ended and he was stationed in Furth, Germany – just outside Nuremberg as part of the occupation.  He was there during the time of the Nuremberg trials.   Dad had several stories he used to tell about his time in the Army.  Most were quite fun, although I never heard him talk about the trials.  I’m not sure if all his experience was happy, but those were the only ones he shared with us.  He passed away quite a while ago, and of course we’ll always remember him.

I didn’t know much about my uncle’s service until we visited him just after Christmas last year and I asked about it.  Msgr. Edward V. Rosack (we called him Fr. Ed) also joined the Army Signal Corps after he graduated from high school during WW II.  He was older than my father and served in the Pacific Theater of Operations for about two years. His tour of duty took him to the Hawaiian Islands, Marshall Islands, (Einewetok, Kwajalein, the Palau Island (Angaur), Mariana Island (Saipan),  Ryukyu Island (Okinawa), Korea (In chon) and Yokohama, Japan. As a member of the 3922nd Signal Service Company of the 3117th Signal Service Battalion, his outfit was awarded the Asiatic-Pacific Theater Ribbon with one bronze star (Angaur, Palau Islands). Watching Ken Burns “Pacific” mini-series recently brought home what a great sacrifice and profound experience it must have been for him and everyone else in those battles. I can only imagine the hardships and horror that he and others endured.  I wonder if that is at least partly what drove him to become a man of peace for the rest of his life.  Sadly, Fr. Ed passed away in March of this year, not long after we visited him. We’ll always remember him too.

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

I’m going to depart from my usual practice of one subject per post and include three different ones in today’s entry.

1. Photos and information on a visit to Gatorland, yesterday.
2. An update on this blog after three years of publication
3. A political comment

Feel free to read the portion you’re interested in, or indulge me and look at all three.

1. Gatorland May Day Update

If you haven’t yet visited Gatorland this year, now is still a great time.  Yesterday morning, I decided to drive down there to see how the rookery is progressing through nesting season.  We’ve  had a cold winter in Florida and as a result, the birds are about a month behind the normal schedule. The last time I visited (in March), it was mostly the great egrets building nests, courting, and sitting on eggs. Yesterday the Great Egrets were still very active (many with large chicks), but there are also Cattle Egrets, Tri-Colored Herons, Anhingas, and Cormorants all very actively fulfilling the purpose of life.

By the way, have you looked lately at the Gatorland blog that Mike Godwin writes ?  He’s posted a report on the current nesting activity, with a lot of detail and photos.  There’s also an active Gatorland Flickr group and looking at the photos posted there on any given day can give you a real good idea of what’s going on.

Here’s some of what I saw yesterday:

Pair of Great Egret chicks in nest: You can get an idea of how far along the Great Egrets are by the size of this cute pair.

Cattle Egret: This one was hiding in the brush, but still posing.  The Cattle Egrets seem to be just getting started with a lot of nest building going on.

Mother Cormorant with just hatched chicks:  Not a great photo, but you can see the chicks beside the very protective mother.  Their eyes were not yet open and there was another un-hatched egg in the nest, so they had to be only hours old.

Common Moorhen Chick: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a moorhen chick before, but I have to admit I haven’t been paying that much attention to this species.  They’re very common in the area.

Wood Storks and chicks on nests: Mike Godwin is a great host at Gatorland.  He made sure we knew where these nests were so we could photograph them.  There were two right next to each other and they were very crowded and active.

You can click on any of the photos above to view them on Flickr.  You can also take a look at my Gatorland set on Flickr for some other photos from yesterday (the last nine in the set) as well as from previous visits.

2. Happy Birthday, Blog!

My first post was on the 4th of May, 2007, so it will be three years old on Tuesday.  Not a long time in absolute terms, but more than a lifetime for some in “internet years”.

The blog has morphed a little bit since then.  Originally it was just a place to share my photos, photo experiences, and talk about photo related ideas. I still do that, but I’ve added a theme around all of this:  I try to find interesting places around here to make photographs and then post blog entries including links to information about the places as well as some hints on what’s there and how to photograph it.  My hope is that this will be interesting to photo enthusiasts visiting the area as well as people who live here.  I know I’ve looked for similar blogs when I travel.

With this one, there are a total of 89 posts so far which is an average of about two per month, although lately I’ve been doing pretty well keeping up with my goal of one post each week.  Of these, 45 are tagged “CFL Photo ops”, about photo opportunities in the area.

As near as I can tell from my server logs (and disregarding spam and robots), I seem to modestly successful – at least some people are reading what I write. If I’m interpreting the CyStats log correctly, I have over 100 RSS subscribers, and about 10 – 30 visitors on average each day. They are from multiple countries, which is really nice.  The most visitors I’ve had in a single day was close to 200 early this year after Jim Goldstein posted his “best photos of 2009″ entry on his blog.  Thanks, Jim!  The most viewed page is the main page, with the My Favorite Photos of 2009 post coming in second.

The most used browser, by a slim margin is Internet Explorer (~51%), followed by Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, etc.  Many people still use IE version 6.0.  If that’s you – update!  Modern browsers are much more capable and secure.

Recent, frequent external search terms include things like: “focus bracketing”, “gatorland photographers”, “central florida photos”, “orlando bird photography”, “alligator farm orlando”, “orlando photo ops”, “photographing birds in central flordia”, “good area to photograph fl”, “central florida places to photo”, “wildflower photography in florida”, “photographing birds in central florida”, “photographing wildlife in central florida”, and “ed rosack”.  I’m pleased that people are finding my blog with those search terms.

Of course, I’m my most loyal reader. I’ve enjoy writing it, but I also really enjoy going back and reading it and looking at the photos. I guess it really is a blog in the sense of a personal journal.

And what’s up with all the weird spam comments?  Do they really think I’ll let those through?  Would anybody?  Why do they keep sending them?

I don’t really have any plans to change the blog going forward.  However, I’d really like to figure out how to encourage more genuine comment and interaction.  And, I’m always open to your ideas and suggestions.  Especially for places around here to visit!

3. Warning – Politics Ahead

Caution – I apologize, but this paragraph is political.  It does relate to photography and nature in general.  Read at your own risk.

As I wrote down the words in topic one above about witnessing nature in all its glory, I couldn’t help but think a great deal about the gulf coast shoreline and what is beginning to happen there to countless birds, their chicks, and other wildlife from the Deepwater Horizon disaster.  The impact on people who are continuing to recover from hurricane Katrina will be an additional nightmare still to come.  And the news this morning reports that it will eventually reach the east coast of Florida too as the Gulf Stream current spreads the spill.

The scope of this disaster is unprecedented – and it was a remote possibility.  We can’t jump to conclusions yet, but complacency and the bottom line during the design of this oil drilling rig sure do seem to be causing great damage.  I wonder how many of the decisions that were made in the design were probably financial in nature and not based on the worst case outcome, which by the way is occurring?  The platform was either not designed or not built to preclude or handle it.

I also wonder if there are engineering memos or PowerPoint slides somewhere warning of this type of consequence if the design went forward as planned?  I wonder how many fail safes in the well shut off valve didn’t fail safe and instead just failed due to shoddy workmanship or poor design?  I wonder how the engineers that designed, built, and tested the equipment on that well feel today?  I wonder how their management can sleep at night?  I wonder how long British Petroleum will take to bring the well leak under control?  And I wonder how they will ever undo the damage they’ve done.

So far there are no answers, only questions.  And thousands of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico every hour of every day.

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

High above against the blue spring sky, mighty trees carry out their life purpose.

A photographer should notice and share.

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

On this day I would like to thank all of our active duty military and and all veterans who have served in our Armed Forces.

You chose to answer the call.  Your commitment to freedom and your courage and sacrifices have brought the blessings of liberty to the people of the United States of America.  Most of the world will never know liberty and freedom like we know it.

It may not be possible for our gratitude to match the enormity of your gifts to us.  We are grateful that you stand between us and those who would do us harm.  We appreciate you giving our children a hopeful future.  And we pay tribute to those who offered their lives in defense of our freedom.

A view of San Francisco National Cemetery located in the Presidio, on Christmas Day, 2005 in the rain.  Minolta Dimage 7Hi @ ISO 100, 28mm eq., f/4.5, 1/45 sec.

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

I was out this morning with a couple of people from the Photography Interest Group.  We planned to explore a part of Orlando Wetlands Park that we’d never been to.  If you look on a Google map of the park, you can see a finger of land that sticks out into the lake on the east side.

On the map, you can also see two paths that lead there.  Our plan was to work our way over and along the finger into the lake to make some photographs from the new location.  Here’s a photo I made from the fork in the path at the beginning of our explorations.

You can’t tell where a path ends from the beginning – Nikon D700, ISO 200, Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 @ 24mm, f/8.0, five exposures: 1/15 sec – 1/250 sec, Photomatix. Edited with the Topaz Adjust filter to bring out more detail in the clouds and to make the foreground slightly brighter.

We walked down this open and inviting path for a while until we were suddenly blocked by a solid mass of bushes and underbrush.  I really wonder why this is here if it leads nowhere.  Maybe it has been open in the past.

We trudged back out the way we came, and went up our normal route a little farther to the next path leading east.  This time, we managed to follow it for quite a ways – before it suddenly went under water.  So, we then backtracked again and circled around the lake clockwise for while, but we just couldn’t find anything interesting to photograph.  At this point, we were hot, tired and getting frustrated at our inability to get to where we wanted to go and the lack of photographic targets.  We started heading back to the car.  And that’s when we began to notice interesting things.  Here’s a photo of a butterfly hiding in the damp grass:

Butterfly, flowers, dew – Nikon D90 @ ISO 200, Nikon 70 – 300 @ 300mm, f/5.6, 1/320 sec. Processed in Photoshop and Lightroom.

And here’s a photo I made of a hunting Little Blue Heron.

A Little Blue Heron catches a worm. (Is that an alligator to the left?) – Nikon D90, ISO 200, Nikon 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 @ 300mm, f/8.0, 1/250.

So, even though our explorations this morning didn’t succeed, we did end up getting some nice photos.  And we didn’t get them until we forgot about exploring and headed back toward the car.  The moral of this story is the title of the post.

Have you had a similar experience?  Post a comment about it.

These and a few more photos from this outing are on my Flickr page here.  As a special treat to my loyal readers (especially you, Mary!), I’ve uploaded this photo set as full resolution jpeg files and changed the license to an “Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license“. Click on any of the photos, then click on the “all sizes” icon and choose a size to download.

Oh, and Happy Halloween.

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

We interrupt our regular programming for a statement from the owner with regard to the Federal Trade Commission’s pending new guidelines concerning bloggers, endorsements, advertisements, and acceptance of compensation for opinions posted on blogs.

I would like to make the following public disclosure of my policies concerning this blog:

1. The opinions, beliefs, findings, or experience stated on this blog are my own, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
2. I accept no compensation of any kind in exchange for any of my work on this blog.
3. I do not advertise or accept advertising of any kind.  If you see advertising in association with this blog, it was placed without my permission.
4. Products, places, and services that I mention or review on this blog have been paid for by me at my own expense and not provided for review by anyone else.
5. I do not identify myself before I review a product place or service – reviews are anonymous.
6. I do not convey that my experiences are representative of what you will experience, only that they are what I experienced – your mileage may vary.
7. I’m sorry that it is even necessary to say this.

We now return you to our (somewhat) regulary scheduled programming.

OK, gentle reader, our first TAS was HAC – Have a clue . So, once you have a clue, what’s next?

What’s the next thing you need to do to be successful in life and also in photography?  TAS #2 is GAS.  We’ll use the family friendly version here, which is GAH or "Give a Hoot". In other words, care about your photography, be passionate, be motivated, take all the knowledge you’ve acquired and apply it.  Get out there and make some photographs!

Are you a "serious" photographer? I don’t mean serious as in don’t have any fun with it (quite the opposite).  I mean do you care about your photography? I suspect if you’re reading this blog you do.  That’s really all GAH is about.  It won’t make you a success all by itself, but it is necessary.  And it’s the motivation you need – and combined with the knowledge you acquire with HAC, you’ll be much more likely to be successful.

OK, so TAS #1 (HAC) is all about acquiring knowledge and TAS #2 (GAH) is all about applying it.  The more you apply your knowledge the more it becomes something you do instead of something you just know.  Practice builds the skills you need to get the shot when you don’t have the luxury to think things through.  This happens quite a lot in photography – the light or the situation changes quickly and you have to change quickly to capture it.  Big secret here:  I think most honest photographers would tell you that they have screwed up a photograph many times in the heat of battle.  You will too.  You need to try to minimize this.

GAH:

• Carry a camera – use it. Always look for scenes / subjects that would make a good photo.  Make the shot.
• Think about photography as much as possible.  Mental exercises – how would I shoot that: framing, composition, lenses, ISO, etc.  When you look at your finished photos, think about what you should have done different.  When you’re getting ready to take photos, think through how you’re going to do it. Look at other people’s photographs and try to understand how they made them.
• Try a new photographic technique as often as possible
• Show your work to people.  Accept feedback and use it constructively

There are the two photos that go with this post.  I used the second one in a prior post , but this is the first time I’ve posted the other one.  I think the pair together is a good illustration of TAS #2: GAH.  I was very motivated and passionate about this particular photograph and went to a good deal of effort to make the image, edit it, and print it.  It looks pretty good up on my wall.

This is the raw capture straight out of the camera:

And this is the processed image ready to print.  It took a lot of knowledge (HAC) and a lot of passion (GAH) for the final print to come out like this.

As your homework for this session, you can point out things that are different between the two images and how you think they got that way.  As before, I’ll grade your answers before I post TAS #3.  Oh, by the way, I’ve added a comment to TAS #1 explaining what I meant about the photo in that post.

Be passionate about your photography .  To help you with TAS #2 – Give a Hoot, and to help you stay motivated, here’s a few inspirational photo related links I’ve come across recently.  Please take the time to explore these.  They moved me, and if you’re at all interested in photography, I’m betting they will move you too.

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Well, gentle reader, here’s the grand challenge in front of us…

Can I come up with a series of three letter acronyms for key ideas on how to be generally successful in life, apply them to photography, explain them in a way to make them interesting, and illustrate each with a photograph?  If I do this, will you visit this blog and read about it?

I guess we’ll find out the answer together. This series of posts will be somewhat sporadic and I’ll be using them as a filler when I don’t have a photo expedition type of blog entry to post.

Here’s the image that goes with this post - it’s a Christmas cactus bloom:

OK, so let’s get started with TAS # 1.  HAC stands for "Have A Clue".  To be successful in life and in photography too, you need to have a clue about what you’re doing.  Oh, sure, you can buy a point and shoot camera and take some good pictures, but can you do that under all conditions?  Can you do that when you need to, every time?  When one of your photos doesn’t come out, will you be able to figure out why and then do better the next time? When you’re in a football stadium or a concert will you be one of the people trying to take pictures with your point and shoot flash going off?

How do you get a clue?  How do you know what you don’t know?  Take a course or workshop, read books or magazines, talk to someone knowledgeable, join a photography club and ask questions, do research on line, read photo blogs.  Try things and see how they come out and then try variations when they don’t work.  Learn about the basics of exposure, composition, depth of field.  Keep trying and keep learning and don’t give up and don’t expect to get all the answers given to you in 5 minutes.

Once you have a clue, you still need to keep getting more and revising the ones you have, because things change.  If you thought you knew photography 5 or 10 years ago, guess what … it’s a lot different now.  You have to keep learning.  All of your clues are a good foundation for continued learning, but learn you must.  For example, if you grew up with film your brain might be conditioned to think of exposure as aperture and shutter speed – film speed was fixed for the whole role of film.  Well guess what, now days it’s aperture, shutter speed, and ISO – we can vary the ISO sensitivity for each exposure.  You have to keep learning or you might not think about things like changing the ISO.

OK, is that enough words on this?  The point is, to be successful you have to have a basic knowledge of what you’re doing and then you have to keep building on that knowledge.

Now, back to the related image at the top of the post.  See if you have a clue about what’s going on with depth of field in this image.  If you think you know the answer, post a comment.  I’ll grade your answers after the TAS #2 blog entry goes up.

To help you get started gathering your clues, here are some photo blogs where you can learn about photography:

©2009, Ed Rosack.  All rights reserved.