Category: Travels and Adventures

Everglades Coalition Conference 2017 and JN Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge

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I had the opportunity to attend my 4th Everglades Coalition Conference this year to continue learning about how I can help preserve and promote the natural resources that I enjoy capturing through the lens of my camera (see prior conference posts here and here). This year the conference was held just across the bridge from Sanibel/Captiva island and a short drive to the JN Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge. I arrived at the conference a day early to give me an opportunity to visit JN Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge with my camera and see if I could capture some good images of their famous birds.

Last year my job kept me very busy traveling and did not leave much time for me to engage in any photography. Therefore, one of my goals for 2017 is to make some time to engage in the hobbies I love such as photography and fishing. To kick start this goal I spent a few hours in Ding Darling before the conference started. I managed to capture a few good images of some of the native birds and even captured a very vibrant sunrise.

One of the main things I learned about Ding Darling was that the tides have a larger influence on the birding than does the time of day. In most places the best time for seeing the largest variety and number of birds is to arrive early in the morning and to a lesser extent late in the afternoon. For Ding Darling this is only true if this time of day also corresponds with the occurrence of a low tide. On my trip low tide occurred just after noon. Therefore, when I arrived in the morning there were very few birds. I spent some time exploring the refuge and identifying some good future photography locations. I almost gave up thinking that I was a little to early in the season to see large number of birds, but decided to come back after lunch.

When I returned to the park after lunch the tide was nearing low tide and the birds were congregated in large numbers wading across the shallow flats looking for food. The good news was that I was able to spend some time watching the birds wading and eating, the bad news was the harsh midday lighting made quality photography difficult. To combat this I tried to photography birds that were located in sheltered areas or were sitting with good side lighting versus overhead or back-lit. I still managed to capture some good images but I they still exhibit strong contrast of highlights and shadows.

In the late afternoon I noticed we had some great high thin clouds that I thought would make a great reflector of color after the sunset. Therefore, I decided to stick around in anticipation of a good sunset. I was not disappointed, about 15 minutes after the sunset the sky lit up a vibrant yellow, orange, pink and purple. The thin clouds absorbed this color and reflected it back down on to the shallow calm waters to amplify the colorful show. Unfortunately, I did not have any great com-positional options to compliment the great colors. I like to use foreground subjects to anchor my photos and give my photography depth. The best I could come up with at this location was using the fast tidal flow from a nearby culvert to create a moving leading line to distant birds and ultimately the vibrant sky. It works but only because the sunset was so colorful.

While I was there exploring I also came across one large and one small otter walking down the main road and swimming in one of the tidal pools. Of course I did not have my camera in my hands when I saw them and by the time I came back with it they had moved on. I saw both of them around culvert 6 at different times making me think there is likely a family residing somewhere nearby.

I recommend stopping by Ding Darling if you are in the area. It is a nicely maintained refuge and I enjoyed my time there. However, for birding I believe there are equal or better locations in the southern everglades. Therefore, I don’t know that I would recommend traveling to Ding Darling specifically for birding if you did not live nearby or if you were not already in the area. Additionally, the birds were typically fairly far away requiring a long focal length (greater than 400mm) to generate quality closeups. Also, I was there on a Wednesday and Thursday and there were still large crowds all day long. This has a tendency to take away from the general nature experience.

All bird images in the below gallery were taken using my 70-200 mark ii with 2x iii teleconverter. Most images were also cropped to give the appearance a longer focal length was used.

New York, New York Sunrise and Sunsets

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My wife surprised me for our anniversary with a trip to New York City. I have never been to New York primarily because I never really had any real desire to go there. From my choice of Photography subjects you can probably tell that for fun I prefer to get away from crowds and big cities not visit them. However, after returning from my trip I can say that I had a good time and enjoyed my first visit. The history and architecture of New York were very interesting to me. I will likely plan a return trip when I can plan to specifically focus on capturing some creative city-scape images.

This past trip my wife had packed with things to do and see and the weather was less than ideal so my photography opportunities were limited. I still managed to capture a couple of good images of the city, Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty.

I used my dedicated compact travel lens during this trip which is the Tamron 28-300. Image quality is good for what I use it for plus, if I did not own it I would likely leave my camera at home on most non-dedicated photography trips as it is inconvenient to carry a bunch of lenses with you for pleasure vacations.

Fort Myers Beach Sunsets

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My whole family decided to take a family vacation this year to Fort Myers Beach. We all had a great time and Jackson had a blast hanging out with his cousins. I also used this opportunity to add to my collection of beach sunsets. We had some great clouds and great sunsets almost every night we were there. For one of the sunsets I had to have someone hold an umbrella over my camera because there was a light rain falling. This resulted in an almost uniform orange glow across the sky as the sun set. It made for a unique and very colorful photo.

Cityscapes

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While traveling on business to Jacksonville and Tallahassee I snuck in some photography time and captured some Cityscapes just at or after sunset. I tried to use the moving car lights to create some interest and give the image an active feel. I like the results of both images. One is downtown Jacksonville and the other is the Florida Capital in downtown Tallahassee.

Myakka State Park

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I had a conference to attend in the Tampa area and decided to bring my camera with me and stop by Myakka River State Park on my way back south to Miami. I first visited Myakka years ago when I was only 10 or so but remember being impressed with its numerous and large alligators. I returned about 4 years ago for the first time since I was 10 and spent a day exploring and hiking some of the trails. This time I did not have much time to spend in the park but still enjoyed what little time I did have there.

I managed to capture some interesting landscape shots and even tracked a few deer that where skittish but curious about my presence. All in all it was a good trip. One of these days I would like to return to spend some time kayaking the river and/or camp in the campground.

Sand Key Beach Sunset

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While visiting family in Largo, Florida I took my camera to Sand Key Beach to see if I could capture a sunset. I grew up in Largo and have not been back to Sand Key Beach since I left for college many, many years ago. It looked just liked I remembered it. I captured one sunset image I really liked with the curved moon low on the horizon just above the setting sun. I used a long shutter speed to smooth out the water and saturate the colors. I was hoping for a little bit more movement feel in the water near the rocks but still like the final result.

Palm Island Cape Haze, Florida

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This year my family and I took a much needed vacation to Palm Island Resort in Cape Haze, Florida. Palm Island is a beautiful and quiet destination with miles of undisturbed beaches and plenty of sea shells. I brought my camera with the hope of capturing some vivid west coast sunsets. The first 3 days or so did not cooperate with cloudy and raining skies. However, the last few days made up for the first few days with some great sunsets.

The only problem I had was trying to compose the shots with something interesting in the foreground so that the image would be more dynamic. I had to get creative as nothing jumped out at me. To make it harder I was also trying to keep an eye on my one year old while trying to set up my shot. All in all I am happy with the results.

On this trip I also had an opportunity to use my Outex cover some more. I really like this cover as it gave me the opportunity to create some unique photos that would have been impossible without it. I am still figuring it out but I am making progress.

KC-135 Stratotanker Mid Air Refueling of F-16’s

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I had the opportunity to fly in a KC-135 out of Homestead Air Reserve Base this past week on a training mission to refuel F-16’s over the Gulf of Mexico. The F-16 MAKOS from 482nd Fighter Wing out of HARB were participating in simulated dog fights and training exercises as well as mid air refueling.

The KC-135 only has 4 small windows in the side of the plane. Two on the front doors on either side of the wing and two toward the tail of the plane. This made it difficult to frame my shots as there were not many viewing options in addition to not much room to work with without getting the edge of the window in the viewing frame. Also, like most airplanes the windows are made from a thick acrylic that has various scratches across its surface. I was afraid this would have an effect on the image quality but except for a few images, the final product was not really affected.

In the belly at the back of the plane is a space for the Boom Operator. The Boom Operator is responsible for lining up the approaching aircraft and successfully mating the boom (fuel hose) with the fuel receptacle on the airplane. To accomplish this their is a medium sized window at the rear of the plane just below the boom for the operator to look out of and gauge the distance to the plane to be refueled. Their is space on either side of the operator for other workers, or in this case observers, to watch the refueling process. This is also the only space available to try and capture a photo of the approaching F-16’s. Once the F-16’s are connected to the boom they are so close that their nose cone is located below the window and therefore out of sight of the camera’s lens. During the fueling process the plane was less than 30 feet from the back of the KC-135.

Each F-16 only took 2-3 minutes to fill up their tanks before disengaging and moving out of the way for the next F-16 to arrive. Prior to refueling, the F-16’s would stack up on the left side of the plane and then one by one drop down to refuel. After refueling, the pilot would then move to the right wing and stack up waiting for the other planes. All of this was taking place at around 34,000 feet and nearly 500 knots.

One thing I noticed was that each time a plane successfully attached to the boom the entire plane would sink and lose altitude for a few seconds before leveling back off.

For the refueling, I chose to use my Canon 16-35 f/2.8 II lens to ensure that I could capture the entire plane and some of the surrounding landscape. This required me to reach all the way up to the window to ensure that I did not get any glare from the window and also did not capture the inside of the airplane. For the side window shots over the wing I used my Canon 70-200 f/2.8 II to allow me to get tighter crops on the planes than I could capture with my wide angle lens. I shot in aperture priority to ensure my depth of field was sufficient to capture the entire plane and boom in focus. It was a very sunny day, especially at 34,000 feet so I had plenty of light to work with.

On the way back from the training exercise I was able to sit in the cockpit on approach and while landing. It was a very unique experience both educationally and photographically.

Highland Hammock

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I stopped by Highland Hammock after a friends wedding this past weekend. They had recommended this as a great place for photography so I wanted to drive through and check it out. I did not have time to do much exploring as I had my family with me, but we did get to walk a few of the boardwalks and drive some the trails. It was a very unique place that I will definitely return to when I can spend a day or so catching the right lighting conditions. We also saw some wildlife including deer and some gopher tortoises.

Corkscrew Swamp Sancutary

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I tagged along with fellow photographer Robert Chaplin to the west coast of Florida for a quick scouting trip of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. Corkscrew Swamp has been on my list of places to check out for sometime. Unfortunately, it was toward the end of the peak season and it was a little hot and the birds had already started to head back north. However, I did enjoy the walk through the boardwalk and will plan to return again when I have better conditions.