1. I updated the blog’s table of contents again. If you haven’t looked at it, please do. In the TOC, I list the places I’ve blogged about along with links to the blog entry and the image gallery. It also has a collection of  links to other resources on the web where you can find photo op info. If you’re doing research on photogenic locations in Central Florida (and some other places too) this is a good start.

2. The Lake Jessup wildflower season is almost here. This photo op is seasonal and usually starts in late September and is over by early October.   If you want to photograph it, get ready.  You can find info in two of my blog posts:
Here:  http://ed.rosack.com/wordpress/2007/10/07/storm-and-flowers/

and here: http://ed.rosack.com/wordpress/2009/10/10/lake-jessup-conservation-area-wildflowers/

Lake Jessup Wildflowers at sunrise: September 30, 2007

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Crypts at dawn (click to view on Flickr)

I’ve been by this particular place several times.  Each time I see it, I just know that there must be one or more great photographs lurking about.  All I have to do is find them and push the shutter.

At many places it works out that way for me.  I’m able to capture amazing images and come back with something special.  Sometimes it doesn’t work.  For some reason I can’t “find the photo”.  I’m calling this “Location Block”.  The location above has bothered me since I first saw it.  I’ve tried several times and so far, I haven’t ever been really happy with any of the photos I’ve made there (including this one).  Have you ever felt this way?

I’m still searching for a solution.  Is it the time of day? Lighting? Clouds? Lens? Filters? Position? Random Luck? Am I mistaken in the first place and there really is no truly great photo there?  I don’t know yet, but one of the very interesting things about photography is that there are rules of thumb and guide lines – but there’s no surefire formula.  Sometimes you have to keep exploring.  Each time you try something different you learn.  And if you have to try a large number of things over a long time to get a great photo, it’s fun.  You’ll learn a lot and when you finally do get the photo, the satisfaction will be immense.

At least that’s what I’m hoping.

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

But you shouldn’t visit St. Augustine just to watch the birds – it has many other photogenic settings.  In this post, I’ll show you a few that you should consider seeing.  Make sure you click the links that I’ve inserted into the captions below for more information.  You can also visit my St. Augustine set on Flickr to see these and other photos I’ve made there.

Interior of the Lightner Museum, St. Augustine, Florida

Mission of Nombre De Dios:  This cross marks the spot of the first mass offered in the new world’s first settlement.

Chapel and candles:  The interior of the Our Lady of La Leche Shrine, at the Mission of Nombre De Dios

Quiet bay near the Mission de Nombre de Dios

A view of the Fort Matanzas southern rampart.  Also, see my previous post for a view of the Castillo de San Marcos.

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Swampy sunrise

We didn’t see many birds at first and the water level was down a little bit.   I’m not sure why since I think we’ve had a good amount of rain lately. Perhaps it was due to tides.

We were more than half way around the loop when we came up on two pools on the left hand side with quite a lot of bird activity. It turns out there were large numbers of small minnows in the pools and a variety of herons, ibis and egrets were flying back and forth between the pools feeding on the fish. Situations like this provide a wonderful  opportunity for photographers. Just as in the nest building scenario I wrote about a few weeks ago, the birds act in a somewhat predictable, repeatable way. You can study them and position yourself for good light and to show the birds’ activity in their environment. I was looking for something a little different and spotted this break in the reeds with the sun coming over my shoulder. I only had to wait a little while for an obliging Little Egret to pose between the reeds for me.  Now, if it had only raised its crest!

Remember when you’re making photos of very white birds like this to check your histogram. Make sure your exposure isn’t blowing out the white highlights so that detail is preserved in the white feathers.  If you do have pixels up against the right side of the histogram, use a little negative exposure compensation to move them back toward the left.

Once again patience and persistence paid off for us and everyone in the group had a chance at some very good photos.  I’ve also written here before about not putting your camera away until you’re back in the car.  Yesterday was another example of this very important rule!

Click on either of the photos above to go to Flickr, where you can view them larger.  You can also see other photos I’ve made at Blackpoint in this set on Flickr.

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

I used a 750mm effective focal length lens to shoot this sunrise photo. I like the transparent look of the trees in front of the sun.

A 4 shot panorama.

Kevin McKinney (who has the knack for spotting things) let us know there were kingfishers in the area.  I saw this one (my first ever) and made a very quick photo hand held out the window at 750mm (eq).  Thank goodness for optical stabilization!  It was terribly back lit, but the best I could do. It flew off as soon as we opened the door, living up to their reputation for being very skittish.

Belted Kingfisher

Like the previous time I was there, we saw many spoonbills.  This one posed for us for a while.  It wasn’t until I got home that I noticed the fishing line wrapped around its bill.  Please, please think twice before you throw anything in the water.

3/22/10 update:  Good news!  Kevin Krause reports that the fishing line was gone a little later on.

A beautiful bird. I hope it can get the fishing line untangled from its upper bill.

And finally, here’s another gator eye photo. In this one you can see both Keith and Ed in the upper right.

2 photographers, 4 meters away, 8 foot wild alligator.

These and other photos are also posted in my Blackpoint set on Flickr, where you can view a larger version of them.  For more information on Blackpoint, you can visit the official site, or search my blog for previous posts I’ve done.  Thanks for visiting!

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Second, this year your devoted author has decided to join the growing tradition where photo blogs post a collection of their favorite photos from the year.

To accomplish this, I’ve gone through the photos I made in 2009 and used Lightroom to rate them from 0 through 5 stars. The rating system I’ve adopted is as follows:

• 1 star – The photo is interesting
• 2 stars – The photo is worth showing to others
• 3 stars – The photo is the best of (or one of the best of ) a given shoot
• 4 stars – My favorite photo of a year
• 5 stars – My favorite photo (ever)

Photos without stars are seconds or not so good versions of other photos. I’ll keep them, but they probably won’t get any more attention.  Since adopting this rating system, I’ve tried to use it consistently.  Before this I would rate images, but the meaning of the ratings would vary.  As far as what they mean now, it’s all subjective and my opinion only.  Feel free to disagree, but I hope you’ll enjoy looking at the ones I’ve chosen.

I was really blessed in 2009 with a huge number of photo opportunities.  On my hard drive in my 2009 folder, I have about 16,000 images, taking up 164GB of space (I shoot mostly in RAW).  Of these:

• 3804 of the images have been cataloged in Lightroom.  Many of the remainder are source images for multi-shot panoramas or HDRs, or high rate bursts that I selected from.
• 1084 are rated 1 star or higher
• 692 are 2 star or higher
• 75 are 3 star or higher
• 1 is 4 star, and
• None are 5 star (I’m not done taking photos yet!)

Of the 692 that are 2 star or higher, I’ve selected 44 (mostly 3 star) images to include in a gallery of my favorite 2009 photos.  You’ve seen many of these photos in this blog, already.  But where it made sense, I re-processed them to try and improve them.  Here are the top ten. You can click on each of these to go to Flickr, where you can see a larger version.

My #10 favorite photo is:  Great Blue Heron in flight.  This heron didn’t like me aiming my camera at it.  It’s making a lot of noise as it leaves the area.  I was able to pan with its motion to get a sharp shot.

My #9 favorite photo is: Ketchikan harbor.  The trawler Isis, a house in the background, and the parked float plane are very representative of Alaska.

My #8 favorite photo is: Black Point Sunrise. This reminds me of a boundary of a set of points in a complex plane (i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set)

My #7 favorite photo is: Glacier Bay Sunrise, A dawn panorama heading in to Glacier Bay National Park.

My #6 favorite photo is: Black-bellied Whistling-Duck in flight.  We saw this unusual and photogenic duck at Orlando Wetlands Park.

My #5 favorite photo is: Lake Lily Park tree and bird at dawn.  Sometimes you go out specifically to photograph.  Other times you go out just  carrying your camera.  It’s exciting to me when I find a photo like this one while I’m just out carrying my camera.  The light on this Cyprus tree caught my eye as we walked around the Lily Lake  one Saturday morning looking at their flea market.  The bird in the middle distance was a bonus.

My #4 favorite photo is: Blackpoint Wildlife Drive: Wide angle, winter dawn. On this particular morning, it was hard coming up with any good photo inspiration for the sunrise.  There were no clouds, not much color in the sky, not a lot of interesting landscape detail, no cooperating wildlife, the wind was blowing pretty hard, etc.  This palm tree had an interesting vine growing in it that was pointing back toward the road, so I  made it the subject of the picture and violated all the composition rules by putting it way off too one side.  To me, the road leading past the tree could represent the last part of the long journey of exploration and learning that led to being able to make this photo in this place at this time. The road is empty because each person’s journey is unique. Oh, and BPWD just happens to be a one way road – toward the photographer. The somewhat surreal colors come from a program called “Photomatix” that will “tone map” multiple, bracketed exposures.  Anyway, I liked it too.

My #3 favorite photo is: Gorilla watching people, Pangani Forest Exploration Trail, Disney’s Wild Kingdom.

My #2 favorite photo is: Breaching humpback, off shore from Juneau, Alaska.  In the full res version, the two white dots in tree to the upper left behind the whale are bald eagles.

And … my #1 favorite photo of the year is: Ship, water, glacier, rock.  A multiple shot panorama showing Johns Hopkins Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park from the cruise ship MS Westerdam.  The full res version of this photo is 7747 x 4716 pixels = 36.5 megapixels.

I’ve posted a gallery of all 44 images on my website at www.ed.rosack.com/BO09.  I’ve also uploaded them to this Flickr set, and you can click this link to watch a slide show at Flickr.  When you watch the show, you might want to click the “show info” link.

Thanks for looking.

All content ©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

We also had a chance to visit some Denver area photo attractions:  Buffalo Bill’s grave and museum at Lookout Mountain in Golden, The city of Denver’s bison herd, Garden of the Gods, and Pikes Peak.  We also got in a few minutes of browsing at the antique store along I-70.

Here are some of the photos from our visit – I’ve only posted a few of them here on my blog.  Click on any of them to go to Flickr, where you can look at a higher res version. You can also see the rest of this set on Flickr at this link.

We drove up to Lookout Mountain last Monday to visit the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave site, which is only about an hour from my Mom’s place.  The museum is nice, with a lot of information about Buffalo Bill and the wild west.  We especially liked the dress up area, where you can don chaps and a cowboy hat, climb up on the legless horse and rope a plastic calf. There’s also some very scenic overlooks from the parking area.

A little further up the road (I-70, exit 254), the city and county of Denver has a herd of bison that you can stop and see.

On Thanksgiving morning, Lynn and I got up very early and drove down to the Garden of the Gods before sunrise.  You might remember my earlier post about this place.  Let me just say that it’s even more beautiful at sunrise and well worth the early trip.

Saturday, we drove down to Pikes Peak and rode the cog railway to the top and back.  The visibility was much better this time than it was the only previous time we did this.  That time we had heavy fog and weren’t able to see much of the landscape.  This time, in spite of clouds – it looked like we could see forever.

It was a wonderful trip, we really enjoyed ourselves, and we’ll cherish the time we spent visiting these places with our family forever.

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.

I’ve posted once before about wildflowers on the north west shore of Lake Jessup.  They bloom this time of year and I’ve been photographing them since 2006, mostly from the side of the road.

October 10, 2006: Lake Jessup Flowers and Sunrise. 4 shot panorama, assembled in Photoshop; Nikon Coolpix P1, ISO 50, 126mm eq. focal length, f/5.2 at 1/30 sec.

In 2008, the area was completely under water and there were no blooms.

August 31, 2008: Lake Jessup flood waters from tropical storm Fay; Nikon D80, ISO 100, Nikon 18-70 lens at 18mm, f/16, three exposures combined with Photomatix

All year, I really hoped that the flooding hadn’t killed the flowers permanently. Once the water receded, I did a little exploring and found a park and a path out into the blooms through the Lake Jessup Conservation Area.  About two weeks ago, I revisited the park and made these photos.  As you can see, the blooms came back from the flooding.  If anything, there are more than ever.  If you are into flower photography, you have to ask yourself why you’ve never explored this wonderful place in late September.  Get ready for next year!

September 28, 2009:  Lake Jessup flowers and moon; Nikon D700, ISO 200, Nikon 24-70 lens at 62mm, f/16 at 1/50 sec

Here’s a close in photo of one of the blooms.  There are so many different types of wildflowers, that Identifying them isn’t easy (for me anyway).  These are in the Aster family and resemble Black Eyed Susans, but are taller than the 14 – 36 inches my book says Black Eyed Susans should be.  If you recognize them and can supply a positive ID, please let me know in the comments.

1/24/2010 update – These are most likely Narrowleaf Sunflowers, also called “Swamp Sunflowers”.

September 28, 2009: Lake Jessup flower closeup; Nikon D700, ISO 200, Nikon 24-70 lens at 70mm, f/4 at 1/500 sec

Photo Hints

This web page has directions on how to get to the Marl Bed Flats portion of the conservation area, where I made these photos.  It’s a short hike over flat ground from the parking area to where the flowers are.

The plants are fairly tall and the blooms range from a few feet off the ground to as high as 6 feet.  A tall tripod will be helpful to get your camera above the vegetation. Bring a wide angle lens to take in the incredible vista of  so many flowers in one place.  You might want to carry your macro lens too.

Get there early for calm winds. I was a little leery of walking out there in the dark, so I passed on sunrise shots this year.

If you plan to do this, you should scout the area and the time-line before hand.  The blooms last a couple of weeks, but they are definitely better in the middle of the period than at either end.

Summary

You can click on the photos in this post to go to Flickr, where you can look at a larger version. I’ve also posted several additional photos in my Lake Jessup Wildflower set.

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

I’ve finally gotten through the rest of the photos that I made.  The only ones left to process are the “people pics”.  When I finish these, the final part of my post processing will be to go through everything and then selecting a “best of all set” to try making into a photo book.

Before we get started, please note that the photos in this post are linked to my Flickr account and you can click on them to go to Flickr where you can see a higer res version.

First of all, here’s my favorite photo of me from the trip.  It’s a picture of Lynn and I that Sully made.  We spent a lot of time sightseeing from our balcony, and looking at this really brings back memories.

Ed on vacation with three cameras. Lynn on vacation with two glasses of wine.; Canon PowerShot A700,11.546 mm,1/80 sec at f / 3.5,, Dimensions are 2816 x 2112, Photo by Marin Sullivan

There were quite a few impressive sunrise and sunset opportunities.  I often shot in “panorama mode”.  Most of these I took hand held and they seem to have worked out quite well.  I was careful to line up the horizon or another feature in the terrain with one of the marks in the viewfinder, and this really helps when you stitch.  I’ve also found that running Nikon images through CaptureNX before I stitch them in Photoshop really improves the final image quality.  The key is to use the CaptureNX function that corrects lens distortion.  Here’s a sunrise from our final morning on the ship.  It’s composed of 4 images stitched together vertically.  In the full res version, you can see the planet Mars (if my astronomy software is correct) underneath the moon!

Seattle sunrise panorama with moon and Mars(?); NIKON D700,48 mm,1/50 sec at f / 2.8,ISO 800, Dimensions are 4312 x 7619

Here’s another one I really like. I took this in Juneau, when Lynn and I went gold panning. I had just my Canon G9 with me (in a pocket most of the time – it was raining), and I used a flat rock in the creek as a tripod.  By the way, Lynn and I both found flakes of gold in this creek!

Juneau, Alaska – gold panning creek; Canon PowerShot G9,7.4 mm,1.0 sec at f / 8.0,ISO 80, Dimensions are 4000 x 3000

And here’s one last photo for the blog of some trees at the Lake Washington Ship Canal.  I’m not sure what this tree was and whether it was turning already for fall, but I really liked the color contrasts.

Trees; NIKON D90,19 mm,1/50 sec at f / 3.8,ISO 100, Dimensions are 2848 x 4288

As before, I’ve posted the rest of the photos for this blog entry in two ways.  I added a set of “other” photos here to my photo galleries.   You can also look at our Alaska photos together in a single time ordered set of 72 photographs here on Flickr.  Clicking on one of the photos above will also take you to Flickr, where if you click on the “all sizes” button, you can see the photo in a higher res version.

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.