I MUST down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea’s face, and a gray dawn breaking.
Today’s post is all about lines. Straight lines, curved lines, jagged lines, criss-crossed lines, you name it. This morning I saw a ladder, and it got me to thinking about lines, and after that everywhere I looked, I followed the lines, and I encourage you to do the same. By recognizing the lines in a scene, you can take advantage of the opportunity to take a simple snapshot and make it into a great image.
Lines can be interesting or boring, and when they are plain horizontal or vertical, they can fatigue the viewer. When angled and especially when asymmetrical, they can really add depth and perspective to a photo. Consider the way the offset lines draw you right into these images:
Sometimes the lines can be curvy or wavy, but the effect remains – grab your attention and pull it into the scene:
Within nature, we find the same organic trend towards perspective and symmetry.
But, by breaking the symmetry, we impart greater tension, interest and impact with our images:
Take note of the lines in your photographs. Strive to break the symmetry, shoot to add perspective and draw the viewer in. Give it a try!
With all the rain we’ve been having lately here in Saint Petersburg, things were looking pretty bleak for the fireworks display downtown, and by 8:00pm on the 4th, we still didn’t think we were going to have a show. But, wouldn’t you know, the tail end of the storms blew by, the skies cleared (somewhat) and we did have a show after all (we were much more fortunate than our inland neighbors in Tampa and points east, who were rained out completely).
Carol & I bundled up Ava, our granddaughter, and headed downtown towards the bay. We didn’t have time to find an optimum spot, so we settled for what we could get. Therefore, many of my photos have palm trees featured in prominent silhouette. Let’s just say, these are “Florida Style” fireworks photos, and pretend that it was planned!
I’m embedding a slideshow from Flickr, which is a first for me, so be gentle if I didn’t get it right on the first try 
Continuing my theme this week, I offer a few more images from our Florida summertime stormy weather:
One evening, after huddling indoors from the rain, Carol called me to the front yard to see the sky. The sun wasn’t shining, at least near us, but the clouds were illuminated with many colors, shapes and textures. It was eerie and awe-inspiring!
And, here’s another view of the Saint Petersburg pier, with the afternoon storms rolling in across the bay from Tampa in the east. This photo was taken while the sun was shining brightly at my back:
For the past week of so, I’ve had it in my mind to photograph a few local landmarks at the golden hour in the evening. Or perhaps even first thing in the morning. However, it seems every time I have a few minutes to break away, our Florida summer storms are right there to interfere with my light!
Oh well, when you have lemons, make lemonade – and when you have storms, make storm photos! Here are a few shots I’ve taken in the past week, taking advantage of the rainy weather here in Saint Petersburg.
In “real life” I work with a team that is geographically diverse. We are spread over the US and other parts of the world as well, so forming a team spirit is a challenge. Enter team-building as the solution!
My team meets on (approximately) a quarterly basis, for 3 days of intense strategy discussions, and “Death by PowerPoint.” But, the part of the week that really brings us together as a team are the extra curricular activities. Over the years, we have tried everything from golf to bowling, to dinners, to paintball melees. But last week, we were fortunate to have a really, really great team-building event: White-water rafting.
We were in the Boise, Idaho area, and last Thursday afternoon, trekked off into the surrounding mountains to visit the Cascade Raft & Kayak center on the Payette River, just outside of Boise.
We were torn between anticipation and trepidation, but 13 of us decided to go for it, and we were rewarded for our efforts!
Over the past few days, I’ve noticed some rather extreme photographic technologies brought to light. Will we ever see these in our own camera bags? Probably not (except maybe in the last example), but it’s fun to dream:
Highly porous carbon nanotube batteries that store five times as much energy as capacitors, and deliver their power up to 10 times as rapidly as lithium ion batteries. I’d love to have some of these for my SpeedLites! (via Slashdot)
Canon 5200mm (yes, 5200!) F14 EF Prime lens. From a Canon Flyer:
"This is the only ultra-telephoto lens in the world capable of taking photographs of objects 18 to 32 miles away (30km to 52kms away). Having a focal length of 5200mm, Canon Mirror Lens 5200mm can obtain one hundred times as large an object image as that of a 50mm lens."
Canon patent application for in-camera HDR. Done right, this could open a whole new door in photographic capture, saving a whole lot of time in “merge to HDR.” Some cameras boast in-camera HDR, but if this ever becomes a reality, that’s one camera I’d love to have!
Now, if they could bundle all that technology into my smartphone, I’d be good to go!
I’ve been wanting to get back to Tarpon Springs for quite some time now… it has been several years since my last visit. It isn’t all that far away, but with traffic it amounts to a good hour’s drive. Finally, last weekend, Carol & I decided to make the run up there. We would have dinner, and walk the Sponge Docks, allowing my to take lots of pictures in the golden hour before sunset!
Nature didn’t cooperate, however; as we drove north we could see the clouds rolling in, east to west, and before we got there the entire sky was a gloomy grey. Rain was threatening, and sure enough, just as we arrived, the drizzle began. But an hour’s drive is an investment, and we decided to go ahead and have dinner anyway, and see what we could find worth photographing.
Being indoors, in the scenic Greek restaurant (The Parthenon, 751 Dodecanese Blvd; excellent food!), gave me a chance to try some high ISO images with my new Canon 7D. At ISO 12800, the images came out a bit on the noisy side, but Photoshop CS5’s Camera Raw features made quick work of it.
But the best was yet to come…
Local Tampa photographer Michael White messaged me today, asking about where to find owls in Fort DeSoto Park here in Pinellas County. Now, I’ve been going to Fort DeSoto for years and haven’t seen an owl, so my interest was piqued. After poking around on Google, I ran across a local blog mentioning a Great Horned Owl with a fledgling in a nest, easily accessible by the North Beach. As I had some free time in the afternoon, I set out to see if I could find them!
I started at the north end of the North Beach, and walking through the pines near the water, I spotted some interesting shore birds, including this Black-Bellied Plover:
Onward I went, and after much searching, I finally located the Australian pine with the dozing mother owl. I was able to get relatively close and take quite a few pictures:
On Sunday, I had the great fortune to make a road trip down to southwest Florida to visit Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, along with two friends from NAPP, Michael White and Bob Arlen. The late spring is generally a good time in Florida for birding, and we hoped to get a chance to exercise our photographic muscles. Rather than head out the night before, we toughed it and left our respective homes prior to 4am (!) in order to make it to the sanctuary by opening time of 7am. The weather cooperated, as the powerful storms that were threatening Florida held off until later Sunday night.
The tone was set for excitement as we spotted an 8-point buck near the park entrance. Deer that size are rare in Florida! We proceeded into the sanctuary, cameras ready and with bated breath. Alas, two natural occurrences prevented the day form being everything it promised: due to the cold Florida winter, there had been no wood stork nesting activity in the Sanctuary this year, and due to the unusually wet winter, there was a lot of water everywhere – so instead of the birds congregating in the center of the swamp, there were very few wading birds in sight.
