Jan
30
Yesterday I took a short drive to Palm Point at Newnans Lake. It is about maybe 30 minutes from where I live, a nice and easy drive. I haven’t been there in a very long time and I was hoping to be able to catch the sunset.
Palm Point Nature Park is located on a peninsula on the western shores of Newnans Lake and is a magnet for some spectacular migratory and local birds. The lake’s deep water provides great bank fishing. Wildlife is abundant. Palm Point Park is known throughout Florida as a top bird-watching location, with cormorants, osprey, bald eagles, herons, egrets, and ibis commonly seen in this area.
As I was headed towards the shore I noticed that the water was very low. I have never actually seen Newnans Lake water level so low. It has been dry lately.
This allowed me to pretty much walk around beyond the cypress trees. While checking out a got spot for my sunset shots, one of the hundreds of birds resting for the evening decided to take a dump right above me. It got my hand, my jacket and partially my camera. Come to think about it, I am surprised it only happened once. There are A LOT of birds here at sunset. If you are a “birder” I guess this is heaven. Well, minus the bird poop I guess.
There were quite a few fisherman around my “sunset spot” which made it interesting trying to compose them in or out of the picture.
The sky was pretty clean, so unfortunately there were not too many candidates for reflection. But the sunset itself was pretty spectacular and fiery orange. And lot of purple and pink tones in the water at dawn.
I still had to fight composing with my 50mm lens. At some point I will need to decide which wide angle lens I am going to purchase to replace the broken 18-55mm Nikorr. I am hesitating between the 11-16 and 12-24mm Tokina. I may try renting them both and see which one I like the most. But until then, I still need to move way back when shooting landscapes. Of course, each image is probably more than 24 Mpx since I shot 4-5 verticals on average per composition and then put them back together using Autopano Giga. I have also discover that, if you shoot the sun at sunset in two halfs, it gets much richer in color and much better exposed.
In the end had some fun taking some pictures with the iPhone. Sometimes I am surprised how nice some of these pictures turn out.
Anyway, long story short, here are a few samples:
Post Processing: Lightroom, Photoshop
Jan
24
Today, on my way back from lunch, one of my colleagues pointed to this colorful thing and said “Hey, the wall thingy is back!”.
I had no idea what the wall thingy was supposed to be but, sure enough, “Plaza of the Americas” was suddenly very colorful. In more than one way.
The wall actually made it possible for me to ignore the horribly over sized “Whispering Close” sculpture.
So, what is this wall, one might wonder. Well, apparently it is known as “The Writing on the Wall Project” (I know, very inspired name). It is intended to raise awareness of oppression and judgement.
Or, according the their Facebook page, IRHA’s Writing on the Wall Project :
WOTW helps to construct a 40 ft by 8 ft cinderblock wall in the Plaza of the Americas during People Awareness Week. In the last week of January, you will have a week to paint bricks with words or phrases that have hurt, offended, or marginalized you. After the wall stands for a week, the community will come together to pull down this wall, symbolically tearing down the barriers between us.
Of course I didn’t have my camera with me, so I decided to put my iPhone to some good use. I took a few shots and stitched then back together later, when I got home.
You can see two versions below.
I actually like this “wall thingy” a lot. I even think it serves it’s intended purpose. So, Kudos! to whomever came up with this idea.
Post Processing: Lightroom, Photoshop, Picassa
Jan
07
Today I visited a place I haven’t been visiting for a while: Payne’s Prairie Preserve State Park
The time of the day and the conditions were not that great to begin with. I arrived there at around 11AM and it was very bright and sunny, as Florida can be in January. The light was, as I was expected, very harsh, which pretty much ruled out any shots at Lake Wauberg.
To add insult to injury, last week, my regular wide angle lens, a 18-55 Nikon VR decided to stop working. While taking some shots at Newnans Lake and changing lenses around, it suddenly stopped letting the light through; I suspect the aperture got stuck on f22 somehow. So here I am, armed with my new prime portrait lens I just got a few weeks ago (a AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D ) going for some landscapes.
I decided to head on the Jackson’s Gap trail, all the way to Chacala pond (which by the way, is pretty dry). Just as I entered the head trail, I noticed a bunch of fresh cut Autralian Pine logs, which look pretty cool and inviting. I was able to take a few shots and decided that two of them were worth keeping.
As I continued on Jackson’s Gap trail, I reached an old abandoned shed/house. I am not sure what it is, but, it looks pretty cool. The problem is that is quite difficult to position yourself in a way that will allow you to get a shot of the whole thing. So, I decided to take a set of vertical shots and stitch them later. Here is the result, after stitching about six shots, resulting in a 7000px x 4000px image.
View Photo Details
As I continued my trip, after about 1.2 miles I reach my “destination”. An Australian pine tree forest. It usually looks great in the morning; sometimes it is still foggy as the morning light peeks through. This was not one of those times. Once again, I took a few vertical shots to be stitched later; walking around without a wide angle is very uncomfortable. And this is when I realized that my Circular Polarizer filter is comfortably attached to my now broken wide angle lens, at home. But anyway, here is one of the shots.
View Photo Details
And now it’s time to get back. You know how they say that the way back always seems shorter? Wrong! Not for this guy. I thought quite a few times I may have lost the trail, this is how long they way back seemed to me. On my way back, without stopping, I took some randoms as I was power walking. Here is the one shot I liked.
View Photo Details
And, while driving back, I did stop to check Lake Wauberg. And yes, the light was impossibly harsh and the water level was surprisingly low.
Post Processing: Lightroom
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