This past weekend was my wife and I’s 5th Wedding Anniversary and we decided to celebrate by getting out of town for the weekend. We opted to stay on Palm Island on the West Coast of Florida. Palm Island is a secluded island only accessible by ferry and once there all transportation is by golf cart instead of automobile. As a result, the trip was very peaceful and fairly private, only encountering a handful of people each day on the beach.
I of course brought my camera with me and envisioned grand sunsets. Unfortunately for sunset photography, but fortunately for enjoying the outdoors, a cold front came through on Friday and sinking air made for a cloudless sky. With no clouds the photos seemed flat and uninteresting. After the sunset, my wife and I took a walk down the beach to enjoy the cool weather. By the time we had started making our way back the sky had turned completely dark and to my surprise the milky way was faintly visible out over the gulf. Prior to this weekend the only time I had been able to see the milky way was when I was out in the middle of the Everglades.
I grabbed my camera and went back out to capture what I hoped were some unique shots of the milky way over the beach. I managed to capture a few images I liked.
On the beach chair photo I did not get the focus right and the beach chair is sharp and in focus but the stars and milky way are a little blurry. For the majority of the images, I tried to use the boardwalk and the pathway as a leading line taking the viewer into the scene and then connecting with the vertical milky way. For one boardwalk image I chose not to center the boardwalk to give the image more depth. I am not sure which boardwalk version I like better.
