Sunrise...

Sunrise, my favorite time of day, as the world around me starts to wake up. I head out early, in the dark. I arrive in the dark because the best sunrise photographs are taken before actual sunrise. I sit in the dark and listen to the night. Then it starts to happen. The first shots are on the tripod with a long exposure. The light is constantly changing. The shutter speeds get shorter and shorter, starting at minutes and ending with fractions of a second. Sometimes the clouds are low and nothing happens for awhile and then suddenly it is very light. Sometimes the clouds and the vantage point are just right and the sun comes up like a huge orange ball. Sometimes there are no clouds at all, just orange. But each one is different. Then when it is finally light I head out, either to take more photographs or home to grab a quick nap. The trip back is very different than the trip out. There are more cars on the road, the world is starting to move around. Pretty soon, it’s just a normal day but I feel slightly different, a little more connected to the universe, a little more serene.

The photographs above were all taken at the same place, at approximately the same time of year, but different years. If you look closely you can see the same tree line. The same, yet different.

Catching up - Everglades and Naples National

Well I’m quite a bit behind… Three shows in a row plus a trip to the Everglades will do that to me. So to catch up:

Wilma did quite a bit of damage to the Everglades National Park on the east side. The Anhinga trail is missing quite a few trees which means many of the birds seem to have moved elsewhere, although I was a couple weeks before prime time at the Anhinga Trail. I did see some great blue herons, a green heron, the resident egret, and the usual cormorants and anhingas. The woodstorks have moved to Paurotis Pond, on the other side so they are very hard to see. I also saw a couple pink dots so there are roseate spoonbills there as well. Eco Pond looks rather decimated. I'm not sure if that is drought or hurrican effects although there are a lot of down trees in the area. I saw and photographed some plovers but that was it. The old Flamingo hotel is boarded up and there are a lot of trees missing. There was an immense group of alligators at Anhinga Trail, probably a mother and offspring. The mangroves at West Lake look like they took a beating as well. But hurricanes are nature’s way and nature doesn’t answer to people.

There was a lot of activity at Shark Valley though. I even got to see and photograph a yellow crested night heron. It looks like a dull great blue heron. It’s going to take me a great deal of time to go through all the photographs, especially with another show in a week but keep an eye out over the next month or so and I’ll try to post here as I put them up on the website.

My sister and I took a side trip to the Alligator Farm and I finally got to see and photograph a Florida Panther. It was in a cage though. I’m still working on a couple leads I have to get some photographs of a Florida Panther in a rescue setting. Of course I’m also keeping a lookout in the wild but the changes of seeing one, with the right lighting and conditions is pretty slim. We also took a great airboat ride. I don't much like airboats for photography, the noise keeps the birds away, and it's probably not too environmentally sound but it was fast and fun and a great break.

After that it was on to Naples National. A much more pleasant show to do than St. Stephens but I was also able to stay at the vacant home of a relative and didn’t have a hotel to contend with. It was HOT. A welcome relief from the rain but I was lucky to have a booth location under some trees with a slight breeze. Other locations, I heard, were not nearly as pleasant. That evening I called my uncle, who is in Virginia, to see if he thought it was okay to get into their pool. They were expecting snow, he was not amused. The show was okay, so far my best show of the year, but definitely down for me. People were buying, but they were buying small. I sold a framed panoramic and everything else was matted pieces. I paid $3.41/ gallon for mid range gas….. I also managed to back into a tree and break a back window, not a mark on the tree. And my car was broken into while I was gone. All in all, I was glad to get home.

So this weekend I’m at Leesburg. The weather is absolutely beautiful and the people are pleasant. The hotel room (Days Inn) is nice. Actually, except for my aunt and uncle’s and of course home, the nicest (and cheapest) place I’ve stayed for the past three weeks. Sales are going fairly well and I think it’s going to be a good show. I’ll let you know in my next post.

Wet and Tired!

Everything was going great until the skies opened up Sunday. It was miserable. One of my print boxes leaked and I lost about 10 small prints. I forgot and left the box for my canvas prints out in the rain so I'm not sure how well they will fare being transported. I probably will not hang them at Naples anyway since "Water's Bend" was well received. It didn't sell yet but a lot of people liked it. Framed work seems more fitting for Naples anyway. From Sunday afternoon on having a corner booth was useless. The majority of the time the sides were down and the photographs on the side could not be seen. There are little brown leaves all over the tent. I had planned break down as a slow, patient thing since everything is wet but my location was in a spot where they needed to bring in other vehicles so I was requested to break down as quickly as possible. Thank God for the gentleman that offered to help as I think my sister was overwhelmed by the whole experience. Truth be told, so was I. I was glad to get out of Coconut Grove. No fault of St. Stephens. They were very nice and helpful. They even came by with incense to bless everyone's artwork. But I'm going to hold out for the Coconut Grove show in the future. St. Stephens was not enough profit for the stress level.

But we're in the Everglades now, or close by at least. We had a nice dinner and have decided to forgo sunrise tomorrow morning for some extra sleep. There's a place I want to try for sunset anyway. Hopefully I'll have some new photographs to post tomorrow.

Clyde Butcher and Loop Road

Last weekend I got the chance to meet Clyde Butcher. There were a lot of people there and he was quite busy so I didn’t get much time to talk to him. I’m afraid I came across as a blithering idiot. My mind went numb. So much for making a good impression, I’m afraid.

It might have been the fact that Clif and I had just finished traveling the Loop, a long and rather treacherous length of road that had turned out to be much longer that we had planned. The plan was that we would set out down the Tamiami trail, find a place to take some sunrise pictures, travel the Loop, and arrive at Clyde Butcher’s when the gallery and festivities opened at 9:00. As it was, we arrived around noon, sweaty and dirty I’m sure and quite exhausted. I did get some great pictures though.

To me, there are two sides of the Everglades. The eastern side with the National Park down by Homestead and the western side by Everglades City. This was my first extended visit to the western side and it has quite a different feel. The eastern side in the park is quiet and serene with a real feel for being out in the wilderness. The western side seems much more encroached upon by civilization even though there were places we went that seemed very far removed from it.

I read many glowing stories of the Loop before we set off for our trip but I missed this one:
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/12/Floridian/Back_on_the_Loop.shtml

That’s more like it. The wild, wild, west is alive and well on the Loop. There are houses on the Loop, some look brand new, some look like they’ve been lived in forever. A lot are painted, to avoid insulting the residents, rather bright colors. They are all exactly alike, almost as if the house plans were handed down through generations. As the article says, it’s not a place you want to lock your keys in the car. And if you were to lock your keys in the car, you might be more inclined to walk out the 26 miles than to knock on one of those doors to ask for help. These are people with a fierce need for privacy and I’d rather not find out why.

There is also nature on the Loop, beautiful nature. It’s worth the trip but gas up and don’t lock your keys in the car. Actually, don’t take the car, take the truck, at least in September. It’s bumpy and wet back there.

Everglades 1 - Picayune Strand State Forest

I got a chance this weekend to take a photograph that I have always wanted to take. A few years back I read “The Orchid Thief” by Susan Orlean. The book has a lot of Everglades history in it and the part that intrigued me was about the great Forida swamp land swindle. The book said that there was a place in the Everglades where the streets were laid out complete with street signs and all as preparation for one of the great swindles of all time. I wanted to get a photograph of those street signs!

I did some research for my latest Everglades trip and found that that land had mostly been bought up and turned into a state forest called Picayune Strand State Forest. I immediately put it on my list of places I wanted to see. I just hoped they hadn’t taken those street signs down. The only thing slightly daunting was a note on one of the websites to “be sure and put out bread crumbs, it’s very easy to get lost”. Well it wasn’t easy to get there either!

According to my maps there were two ways there. One is from Sabal Palms Road in Naples and one is from Janes Scenic Drive. Since Janes Scenic Drive was also on my list that was the plan. So after a morning of driving “The Loop” (more on that in a future blog), Clif and I set out down Janes Scenic Drive. A guy back at the hotel had told us that Janes Scenic Drive was totally impassable but one thing I love about Clif is that he loves a 4 wheel drive challenge. Actually rumors of impassibility were over exaggerated. I wouldn’t try it in a car and 4 wheel drive was nice although probably not required if you’re gutsy. After stopping a lot for photographs and bouncing our way through mud holes we arrived at Picayune Strand State Forest.

There is a very strange feeling about the place. Knowing the history of the place, the greed of man is palpable here. From the Picayune Strand restoration plan:

“This development dramatically changed the natural landscape. The
water table dropped by several feet, turning what was once a healthy,
cypress-dotted wetland into a distressed system that became a target of
invasive nuisance plants. These alterations to the natural system also
caused an increase in wildfires, both in frequency and intensity. Runoff
that once flowed in a broad, shallow sheet to the coastal estuary was
funneled into the Faka Union Canal system. Coastal areas that
historically received smaller freshwater discharges over a wide area
became too salty. At the same time, the concentrated fresh water
discharge from the canal reduced salinity in that area, damaging oyster
reef communities and altering the composition of fish and crabs species.
Drinking-water well fields near the estuary also became vulnerable to
saltwater intrusion.”

http://www.evergladesplan.org/docs/fs_sgge_061504_english.pdf

There were no street signs but there were stop signs. As we went further in we found that the street signs were actually painted on the roads. Remembering that people were sold these lots from the air it made sense.

The photograph says to me that we are at a crossroads. We need to stop and think about where we are going next. This restoration is a start but the damage that we have done to the Everglades is so vast and extensive that it may never completely recover.