Artisan's Bonsai Workshop with Bonsai Master Felipe Dallorto
Long Overdue
I guess a new year is as good a time as any to try new things. While I am long overdue for posting, I can’t believe how long it has been since I last posted, but it has also been long overdue since I have done the type of photography I have always wanted to do, and that is making long exposure photographs. Sure, I have used slower shutter speeds to capture waterfalls in Iceland and elsewhere, but I have always loved photos where the exposure time is 30 seconds or longer and show water in an ethereal state.
Not only did I have a chance to see the first sunrise of 2024, but my first shots were long exposures, and it really felt good. Although it will take a bit of practice to get comfortable shooting this way.
Now, I don’t want to copy other’s work, but I have always loved the photography of Michael Kenna and MICHAEL LEVIN, and I admit it is where I draw my inspiration. I do prefer this type of photography in black and white, but I felt there was enough color in the sky to present them in this way.
I was able to take a long exposure in Iceland that I really liked, so it was certainly on my mind. I hope to do more as the year progresses.
Hvítserkur is a marvelous sea stack shaped like a three-legged creature in the North of Iceland. Also known as the Rhino Rock or Iceland’s troll rock, the rock formation is located off the Vatnsnes Peninsula.
Lunar Eclipse Timelapse
I actually got outside on Sunday night to photograph the Lunar Eclipse, much like many others did. I was a bit lazy about it however as I went out every 15-20 minutes and took a few shots, handheld. I started at 10:45pm on Sunday night May 15th and concluded at 2:21am on Monday May 16th. I wish I had gotten a shot prior to 10:45 as I think it would have may a better starting image for the timelapse (below).
Where Does Time Go
I can’t believe the first quarter of 2022 is already gone. While I have been out about a half a dozen times to shoot this year, nothing has really been very productive. As I was going through the photos from this past weekend, I continue to realize that my process has been basically the same for a long time (longer than I realize considering how fast time is going by).
I just feel like I go out, take photos, and then pick the best of each series of shots I took, work on them, and then move on to the next time out. I think I need some type of change, but not sure what and don’t want change for change sake.
Now, I enjoy going out to shoot, and many times get lost in capturing everything I see, and feel like I am gathering material to come back home to work on, which I also really enjoy doing. I mean way back when I took photos and had to get them developed, what I got was what I got other than maybe picking a larger size. Now I get to process the photos the way I want and at times it’s almost like seeing the print coming up in the darkroom (which was really cool), but much like then, it usually just feels like another photo.
So for now, I’m happy with two out of three, I just want to me more excited with the finished product.
It was a foggy morning and I really liked taking these.
This little guy was fun to shoot as he would take off and fly maybe ten yards in arcing loops occasionally capturing some breakfast.
Had to add the last one to have an even number.
Lunch
I guess like everyone else, I have started taking photos of what’s on the plate.
Bone got stuck.
Fall Color
I had to run to South Carolina and while I had very little time, I did take a few photos of the fall color.
41st Annual Swan Roundup
So yesterday I had the opportunity to attend my first Swan Roundup at Lake Morton, in Lakeland. It was set to begin at 7:00am and so I left around 5:45am and arrived just before 6:30. They arrived and began putting the boats into the water promptly at 7:00 and the roundup lasted until just after 9:00am.
I have been to Lake Morton numerous times over the last few years but I had not had the opportunity to attend this annual event. But for my memories sake, I will provide a bit of history.
Lakeland, whose lakes had been home to a varying number of graceful birds since at least 1923, saw its last swan fall victim to an alligator in 1954. Mrs. Robert Pickhardt, a Lakeland native living in England at the time, was familiar with the royal flock of swans on the Thames – birds descended from the original pair given to Richard, he of the lion heart. She inquired about purchasing a pair for Lakeland. Queen Elizabeth, known to be a little tight with a farthing, agreed to send a pair of swans to Lakeland if the city would pay the cost of capture, crating, and shipping, estimated at $300.
Eventually the money was raised and a pair of White Mute Swans from England were released on Lake Morton on February 9, 1957. Descendants of that pair continue to grace the city’s many lakes; today there are more than 200 birds, including White Mutes, Australian Black Swans, White Coscorba Swans from the Falkland Islands, Black Neck Swans from South America, white pelicans, ducks, geese, and other species.
Lakeland has learned its lesson and is very protective of its swans now. There is an annual swan round-up, at which time the graceful birds are inoculated against disease, and the city provides feeding stations and breeding pens along Lake Morton’s perimeter. The swan is now the city’s official logo.
A good place to view the swans of Lake Morton is at the corner of Lake Morton Drive and East Palmetto Avenue, near the Lakeland Library. If you are driving, be careful, the swans have the right of way.
Reprinted from the book – Florida Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff by David Grimes & Tom Becnel
41st Annual Lake Morton Swan Roundup Takes Place October 19th
LAKELAND, FL (October 8, 2021) | The City of Lakeland Parks Division will be on Lake Morton at 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday, October 19th for the 41st Annual Swan Roundup. Parks & Recreation employees will be carefully gathering the swans to get them ready for their annual veterinary check-up. The swans will be confined in large holding pens on the south side of the lake for their annual wellness examinations with My Pet’s Animal Hospital that will start the morning of October 20th at 8:00 a.m. The Annual Swan Round-Up allows the City’s Parks and Recreation Department to closely monitor the health and vitality of Lakeland’s swan population.
The original swans on Lake Morton were donated by Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom in 1957. As Lakeland’s swan flock grew, it became paramount to give the regal birds an annual health check so the Swan Roundup began in 1980 and has continued every year since then. The swans were first cared for by veterinarian (emeritus) and original "Swanvet" W.G. Gardner, Dr. Patricia Mattson oversaw the birds for several years and now My Pet’s Animal Hospital contributes their expertise to care for Lakeland’s swan flock.
Bob Donahay, Director of Parks & Recreation said, “The Lake Morton swans are a community icon and families have been interacting with the birds for decades. It is very important to us to make sure our Lakeland flock is doing well so we schedule the Swan Roundup each year with the primary purpose to check on the health of our birds.” He added, “We really appreciate the team at My Pet’s Animal Hospital donating their time and equipment to help care for our flock. We could not do it without their generous support.”
So I found what I thought would be a good spot and watched as the roundup began.
Don’t worry, they are going for the ones with the long necks.
Good thing I can fly.
So definitely worth going to watch and take photographs. I will try to make sure it is on my calendar for next year.
Getting Back to Old Places
Headed back to Ft. De Soto to see what we could find. After driving past the smell of the Red Tide, we made our way to the beach just around sunrise. The last time we were here, there really was not a bird to be found, but this morning was the complete opposite.
Getting Back Out There
It’s been a while but I have finally been able to get back out shooting. The photo trips this year have been tough as I have had quite a bit of knee pain all year. I was finally able to have my knee operated on and received a partial knee replacement on August 10th. I was able to get out with short trips with my first of five to Circle B on August 28th. It was a very short trip as the knee was not quite ready. It was also short because, while we had received quite a bit of rain, the resurrection ferns on the oaks were still brown.
I went out again on September 4th and was able to make it to the pier, but really did not take many photos.
But we kept pushing and went out again on September 6th.
We went back on the 12th but it was a bit disappointing. Some of the trails are still closed, but I was able to take a few water reflection shots.
But the next trip on the 18th would be a lucky day. While many times we have seen the osprey dive into the water in the hopes of grabbing a fish, they are typically quite a distance away. But on this day, we had a couple of opportunities to capture them much closer.
Looking forward to additional outings.
Very Close to Home
Have not gotten out much to photograph recently, but you can still shoot very close to home. So close in fact that for these, I was actually in the home and these were shot through windows or the glass panes in the doors.
While having dinner and watching television, it’s a good time to see the birds in their evening rituals of dinner and a bath.
Nice People
Went out Wednesday night to two locations, one is a colony of all kinds of birds but the easiest to see are wood storks, egrets and anhinga’s, and the other is where we see the great horned owl.
The Colony never disappoints and is always fun to stop by even for just a few minutes.
For my next dive….
So after a bit we headed over to search for the Screech Owl. The Great Horned Owls have moved on, but there is supposed to be a screech owl. He took a while to find and was resting ahead of what I imagine could be a busy night.
After about 45 minutes or so, we were about to wrap up, when a gentleman who had been sitting in his car the entire time, got out, came over, and said he could not let us leave without the shot. He had been watching a small hole in the side of a tree and after all this time, a little one had moved to the entrance to take a peak outside.
It was so cool, and he was kind to point it out. Always good to get out and enjoy the outdoors.
Shooting without Expectations
So Monday, pulled another quick trip to Circle B with the hopes of another shot at the spiders and their webs with morning dew. Well, turns out no dew, no spiders or webs, at least not that could be seen in the morning light. So what to shoot?
Well… anything, without any expectations of what I may see or what may appear interesting, just enjoy the beautiful morning (although the humidity is really starting to creep up for 7:00 am.)
So, much like my last visit, here is what I saw that gave me pause to at least take a few photos and I am showing them in the order that they were captured.
Getting Out
I have not really been interested in writing or posting photos despite the fact that I have gotten out quite a bit this spring and taken too many photos, but this past Friday I had an opportunity to go out again and shoot a little bit. It is always nice to get out, although for most of this year so far, it has been painful to hike and so many of the outings have been to places where limited walking is needed. But Friday was a trip out to Circle B which I knew meant we would cover at least a few miles.
As is our usual, we met at Panera for breakfast at 6:00 am and then hit the road. We drove separately, as Mike had a very small window before he had to go into work. We arrived around 7:15 and headed out.
I took my first photograph at 7:31 and the last one at 8:52.
So what, I shot for about and hour and a half, walked a few miles in pain, nothing spectacular in that and there was nothing that unusual on the hike. But when I got home and went through everything I had taken, I think I realized the importance of getting out.
First, it’s really not about the shots, it’s about the experience. Just being outside and enjoying the world around us, and it could have been anywhere. This was a Reserve we have been to many times before, it could have been to a downtown for street photography or it could have been somewhere exotic, it doesn’t really matter, we got out for the experience and on this day, it did not really take all that long.
Second, after reviewing all of the photos and selecting many of them, I could not believe everything I had seen in such a short time, from dew on spider webs in the morning light, to ospreys enjoying possibly their first meal of the day, to woodpeckers under the bright blue sky. It was amazing everything that was out there, the natural world going on as it does every day and on this one, I had the opportunity to be a witness to it.
The following are 25 photos, presented in the order taken in the hour and a half hike.
It was a great morning and I am glad I got out.
Self Imposed Deadlines
In reading through my last entry “Enough Already” I think I realized that some of the stress I am feeling is certainly (definitely) self imposed. For some reason I have in my head that after I go out and shoot, I need to come home, review the photos, make selections, and post them within some made up deadline and if too much time passes, then the photos are old and somehow not worthy on being worked on and posting. It’s like, I shot those over a month ago and have since gone out a half of dozen times, so I need to move on and those photos are old so not worth my time. I also have this feeling that I need to work on and post them in the order that they we shot.
Who knows why I think this way, but the self imposed deadlines are showing themselves in self imposed stress. I mean, does it matter if I took these last weekend, last month, or last year? I have to stop worrying that someone may say “yes.” These are my adventures and my photos are the results of what I enjoy doing.
So I am going to step out of the order and while this is about owls, it is not about the Burrowing Owls I shot on Saturday, but an outing a few weeks back with the Great Horned Owls.
Although, it was Easter Weekend and here is a Burrowing Owl from Saturday that I feels lends itself to the Easter season.
I have been going with friends to photograph the young Great Horned Owls since February 22nd shortly after finding out that there were young owls and have made five visits through March 28th. They have their nest in the nook of a very large Oak tree, and because the nest sits well down in the center, I am not sure anyone knows the exact date they came into the world.
Adult Great Horned Owl with three young offspring on February 22, 2021
Three young Great Horned Owls on February 25, 2021
Someone got caught testing out their wings on March 18, 2021
So that brings us to March 28th when we observed that the owls had been branch hopping and what appeared to be eating food that was hidden by the parents.
No wonder these little ones have grown so much in such a short period of time with meals like this.
The parents, which are the pair shown at the top (usually in the early evening), take off to nearby trees which is what happened on this evening. They were in two trees keeping and eye on their three and checking in with each other.
Maybe my self imposed deadlines really are very insignificant when you think about the deadline these two owls probably have to raise, feed, protect, and teach their little ones so that they can very quickly grow and leave the nest, most likely for their own safety.
Enough Already
I really cannot believe how fast time seems to pass. It’s been almost two months and while I have been out shooting a lot, in many locations, the time it has taken me to get through the photos from a trip, I have been on another trip. Sometimes I feel like I am simply processing a handful of photos and not taking the time on each one that I would like. It’s like a joke I made about the Osprey above, “Enough already, quit pointing those long lenses at me, have you never seen one of us eat a fish?”
As the photos continue to pile up, my mind racing around projects I would like to do, I am struggling to focus on some ideas I have, and like many things I do, they all seem to get started, but the finished pile never seems to keep up.
So as I am reviewing today’s photos and sharing a few, it’s on the road at 6am in the morning to go see what the burrowing owls are up to.
While I thoroughly enjoy taking photos of the Osprey, there are just so many other things that distract me and in this case took a few minutes to watch these two perform their aerial dance.
But I find it very difficult to ignore these guys. They do love their fish.
Easily distracted!
New Residents
A few years back, we put up a bird box in the yard hoping to attract whistling ducks (we had a family pass through the yard one time). Well our first residents were a pair of blue birds and after they moved out, the following year, a pair of wrens decided to move into the neighborhood. Their family quickly grew by three young ones and we guessed that they decided they needed a larger place to stay and moved out fairly quickly.
This year has been quiet, but recently a blue bird has returned several times to possibly consider moving in, stopping by several times to see if we have made any upgrades to the place.
Well, now we are not sure his decision will be based on the house itself but rather the neighborhood. Just yesterday, neighborhood watch made it’s rounds and now we are thinking that the blue birds may not feel welcome.
Next community meeting we may need to discuss that our neighborhood watch may be a bit intimidating.
I Tried Patience
Last week was a great week to go out and shoot. I shot at five different locations and on two of the outings, I saw things I have never seen before. Generally when I go out to shoot, as I wander around a location, different things catch my eye, I don’t normally go with a single shot or wish list. But Sunday, going to the beach late in the afternoon, upon arrival around 4pm, there was on Osprey in a nest, within a hundred yards of the parking lot.
I grabbed a few shots and she flew off so I wandered around to the west side of the tree as from this location, the osprey would be facing into the setting sun and if lucky enough, she would land and take off in the same direction due to the wind. Of course this is where patience comes in, which I normally lack. But for some reason, I decided that everything was as I would want it, I just needed to wait for something to happen.
Within a few minutes (4:17pm) she returned to the tree.
Then (4:26pm) she decided to move from the end of the branch into the nest.
So far, this was nice for me as I had actually put myself in a good place to take these shots but I have had this opportunity in the past, so my first reaction was, I got what I set up for, so should I move onto the beach and see what I might find there or stay. But I wanted to stay committed to getting something I had not yet captured.
Well, just a few minutes later (4:30pm), her suitor shows up with a small gift.
After accepting the small gift, she leaves rather quickly.
I guess not wanting to be left alone, he too departs.
Well not sure why, but seeing that he left, she actually just made a large loop and returned to her original branch with gift in hand.
Well her mate returns (4:35pm) and for the first time ever, I was able to capture two osprey mating.
The following slideshow contains just over 100 images, each one cycling at one second).
This was truly an experience to observe this in the wild. And really, like many of the photos that I capture, this occurred within about 100 yards of the parking lot and there was no one taking notice.
I am glad that I captured it (although with the number of photos taken, video may have been easier) as it was after reviewing on the larger screen at home, that I noticed two things I did not see at the time: It was interesting how he curled his talons and rested on his legs and the other items was through all of this, she did not drop her gift.
Now in this particular case, my patience paid off. When going out to shoot, you never know what you may find and if you do find something, how long do you wait until you decide to move on. I always feel that the best thing is going to happen as soon as I leave. Well I was able to capture the above in a total of about 30 minutes. But then I continued to stay for an additional hour when Mike and Michele returned from the beach shooting to find me in the same spot from two hours prior. As luck would have it for them, within a few minutes (5:47pm), the suitor returned for another short visit when the lighting was somewhat more romantic.
Great time and location, thank you Mike for continuing to push us to go out and shoot.
I Love Fog!
Woke up this morning to beautiful dense fog. I had no intention of going out to photograph, but when I saw the weather, I decided it would be worth the walk. If nothing else, I was hoping to loosen up the knees and joints. The park I went to is very close and I have shot there before, I enjoy this place as many of the pine trees grow with beautiful curves.
I decided as well to put some constraints on my outing. I only took one camera and one lens, it’s the first time I have not carried my entire backpack in years. The other constraint, was I wanted to try to capture what I saw in a square format.
What follow are the shots I made. They are straight out of camera and the only editing I have done is to crop them in a square format.
These are a few I just could not bring myself to confine to the square format.
It was great to get out on a beautiful morning. I learned several things from this exercise that I hope I take with me on my next outing.
A New Direction, Possibly
While I have been having a great time photographing the birds, flowers, trees, and other items that pique my interest, I think what I have always loved photographing are reflections. During two of my recent trips out at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, I tried to spend a little more time looking at reflections on the water. It may be just the light, it may be of plants or animals, I don’t know yet. I am also not sure how I want to present the work and so just putting different options together to see where it may go. So while the new direction is more a focus on subject matter, I am not sure where it will go and how it will turn out in the end. Seems to mirror other decisions I have recently made with my career….
So the first set of photographs, I was intrigued by the reflections on the water and how they add to the photograph of the Anhinga.
But then, I was simply interested in capturing the reflections on the water.
But now what do I want these to be? Not sure if color or black and white. The color will be interesting in that I may capture a wide range of colors depending on the time of day, weather conditions, and whatever may be casting the reflection. The black and white on it’s own is interesting but matched with the anhinga, it could possibly look as though it is swimming in an oil spill. I am also not sure if I like the bolder more contrasty look or softer more airy feel., It will take some time I think to take in what I have captured and see what direction we will travel.
Now on the second trip, I decided to focus a bit more on the grasses and plants at the edge of the lake and the reflections they were making.
But as with the first trip, I am not yet sure if I like the color or black and white and how I feel about how they should be presented.
Well, a possible new direction in the new year and we will see where the journey leads.
The Never Ending Series
Could not resist posting another series of photographs. These were shot this past Saturday at Ft. de Soto Park in southern Pinellas county.
This fellow decided to come in and see what his friend may have captured on his last dive into the water.
