reaching - april 21, 2005

"above all, i craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes."
   -- Henri Cartier-Bresson

light, curve and contrast - april 21, 2005

"... it's hard learning to live with vivid mental images of scenes i cared for and failed to photograph. it is the edgy existence within me of these unmade images that is the only assurance that the best photographs are yet to be made."
   --Sam Abell

 

low tide at wiggins pass, florida - april 17, 2005

this is a three-frame panorama, taken not long after slack tide - when the tide stands still and goes neither in or out.  shot from tiny cove that gives a view across this popular sandbar and out to the mouth  of wiggins pass, this blended panorama shows a spot where i often find wonderful ripple textures in the sand, backlit egrets and 'oceans of diamonds' compositions shot directly into the setting sun. low tide exposes a wide bar that is nearly covered with water during the highest tides of the full moon.

tides are created because the earth and the moon are attracted to each other, just like magnets - or humans - are attracted to each other. the moon tries to pull at anything on the earth to bring it closer. the earth is able to hold onto everything except water. since water is always moving, the earth cannot hold onto it, and the moon is able to influence it.

when the sun and moon are aligned, exceptionally strong gravitational forces are born, causing very high and very low tides which are called spring tides, though they have nothing to do with the season. when the sun and moon are not aligned, the gravitational forces cancel each other out, and the tides are not as dramatically high and low. these are called neap tides.

in parts of the bay of fundy in nova scotia, tides can range 38.4 feet (11.7 meters). the bay is funnel shaped -- its bottom slopes upward continuously from the ocean inlet. the result is an extreme "tidal bore," a wave-like phenomenon at the leading edge of the changing tide. bores in fundy can travel up feeder rivers at 8 mph (13 kph) and be more than 3 feet (1 meter) tall.

aussies call exceptionally high tides, "king tides". there are two areas in australia that experience particularly large king tides - far north queensland and north-west western australia. In queensland, these tides frequently invade coastal towns, and can flood the main streets of big cities like cairns. the king of all Australian tides occurs near the town of derby in king sound, in north-west australia, at the end of march and again at the end of april each year. derby's tides can reach up to 39 feet (12 meters), and are the second biggest tides in the world. the fast-moving currents create some weird, almost supernatural effects around the area, such as horizontal waterfalls and whirlpool clusters.

in broome, australia, a phenomenon known as "staircase to the moon" occurs. this natural phenomenon is caused by the rising of a full moon reflecting off the exposed mudflats at extremely low tides to create a beautiful optical illusion of a staircase reaching to the moon.

not all oceans have tides. the mediterranean sea is virtually without tides because the tidal waters do not get far past the strait of gibraltar before falling back out into the atlantic ocean.

in very simple environments, the prediction of tidal intervals is fairly easy. the atlantic ocean has two tides each day, as does the pacific. however, these two oceans differ in the tides are close to equal in the atlantic, and not in the pacific. the caribbean sea has little tides, while the gulf of mexico only has one high tide each day. the caribbean and gulf of mexico have a lot of islands to complicate things, so their tides aren’t as simple.

the sun's gravity also produces tides, but since the forces are smaller compared to those of the moon, the effects are greatly decreased.

april's full moon on april 24, 2005 will also be a prenumbral lunar eclipse. observers in eastern north america will experience moonset before the eclipse ends, but those further west will be able to witness the entire event.

a rose in my garden - april 16, 2005

it is my habit to make a journey around my yard and dock in the early morning. coffee cup in hand and cats trailing, i watch the flush of light bloom across the sky and wonder what the day will hold. spring has arrived in my world. a giant blood-red amaryllis is blooming under the shadow of the weeping ficus that borders the water garden; exotic purple orchids sway from their hangers under the grapefruit tree; brilliant white siberian irises painted with intricate lavender and yellow throats line the sidewalk to the front door; a tiny lotus petal, the first of 2005, has appeared next to the water lilies; the star jasmine in the garden by the dock gives warning of its blooms with a startlingly delicious fragrance, long before you see the tiny white flowers. and my roses, dormant over the colder winter months even in florida, are blooming with wild abandon.

for a photographer who yearns to capture explosions of light, color and beauty, it is a palette of paradise, full of promise and opportunity.

while each of the blooms are favored residents of my landscape, perhaps the roses and jasmine are the gardener's pets. i have long adored and cultivated roses, from the wild roses of alaska to my prized formal gardens in northern california. the yellow roses, my favorite color, are not blooming yet, but they will someday. once inhaled and held, roses never leave you.

with their far-reaching popularity, roses are the queens of all flowers. a rose has perhaps the most celebrated of all fragrances. the rose is thought to have originated in central asia, and is mentioned in ancient medical texts from china, india, persia, assyria, egypt, greece and rome. after buttercups, roses are the second oldest variety of flowers on the planet.  biologists can trace roses back some 200 million years!

throughout the world's human history, roses have been the symbol of love, purity, devotion, inspiration, beauty, elegance, compassion, spirituality and sensuality. to offer a dozen red roses to a significant other is a sign of true and enduring love. the language of love has been spoken with roses throughout time; a single red rose means " i love you".

the significance of roses is both religious and mythological.  although there are a huge number of meanings and symbols associated with roses, the most common is love, which originated in greek mythology. when aphrodite cried about the loss of her lover adonis, she had red "adonis roses" grown with his blood. thus, red roses are the symbol of never-ending love.

to early Christians, it was the flower of the virgin mary. to arabs in ancient times, it represented the highest spiritual achievement. roses were also a symbol of secrets held in confidence: it was an ancient practice to hang a rose over a council table, letting all who attended know they were sworn to secrecy.

sunset - april 13, 2005

i see a lot of sunsets, that's a fact. i have grown to love that hour or so before the sun falls into the Gulf, looking west, watching and waiting and wondering what the light will do. tonight, the skies cleared just in time for a nice glow against the last streaks of clouds left in the sky. the tide was falling quickly and left pretty fingers of contrast in the sand.

sunsets spawn traditions in some places. on many western florida beaches, it is customary to clap at the moment of last light. watching for the "green flash" is also tradition - and part sport. the green flash is fact - it is an atmospheric prismatic dispersion. for an instant - less than a second - as the sun dips below or rises above (at sunrise) the horizon, it displays a brilliant green color, which is best generalized as an astronomical refraction (the bending of light in the earth's atmosphere) of the spectrum of light that our human eyes are capable of perceiving, or a by-product of an astronomical mirage (versus the common terrestrial mirage we associate with seeing ghost-like images in the desert). "flashes" occur when the sun comes in contact with the horizon and can be quite varied - even violet or blue! they can also be photographed.

jules verne wrote of a bit of scottish folklore that supposedly says a person who actually sees the green flash is then forever gifted with the ability to see closely "into his own heart and the thoughts of others". not only a fallacy about the green flash, which is pure physics, but this cannot be substantiated anywhere in scottish folklore, where the color green was more accurately associated with evil spirits, death and misfortune. still, the green flash remains a phenomena whispered about often on the beach at sunset.

the rock - april 13, 2005

my last view of the end of my day is always this...trudging up the boardwalk and taking one last look back over my shoulder. it is my time to remember the good parts of the day and look forward to the one on the way. i have always loved the way the light at this time, when it fills the air with that luscious cyan/orange glow, reflects off the railing, providing a sweet leading line due west. I follow that line with my eyes sometimes, wondering what is beyond all that water. i never carry a tripod; they just don't seem to fit me. it often becomes a personal challenge - how low can I go?! tonight was a 1.3 second shutter speed, which just might be a personal best.

i see you - april 9, 2005

some days, it is amazingly difficult to photograph anything from a kayak. the gods of circumstance conspire against you: the wind blows hard across the bay; boats fly by in thirty second intervals, flinging tall wakes against the side of your kayak; planes towing shopping mall banner advertising fly overhead, scaring off the heron you have been approaching in patient, painstaking inches - or you round a corner in the middle of nowhere, only to come bow to bow with a waverunner towing a waterskier. weekends can be relentless in these ways. one of the few birds willing to sit still for me today was this little least tern (sterna antillarum), the smallest of all American terns. riding buoy number eight and straddling a line of color that nearly matched its own, we exchanged glances and then it was gone.

in flight, the least tern's wingbeats are often so rapid they cannot be counted. given endangered status in the interior US mainland by the US Fish & Wildlife Service, these tiny terns faced permanent extinction first in the early 1900's because they were coveted as adornments for ladies hats. while numbers rebounded after bird hats went out of style, they are now threatened by habitat loss and food source decline. least terns feed by scooping small fishes and crustaceans from the water in flight.   jet ski and power boat activity in shallow water creates increased turbidity and may be responsible for decreased foraging habitat, while increased human presence in coastal areas and dam construction on rivers in interior areas has caused loss of breeding habitat.

with an average lifespan of fifteen years - and known to live to twenty one years - least terns are most reknowned for their feisty defense against immediate threats while nesting. like fighter pilots, they dive bomb intruders and defecate on them. Perhaps if more widely known as such able guerilla fighters, they would not have been so beloved as hat ornaments.

colonies of roughly two-to-five hundred seasonally monogamous pairs breed in spring and early summer. while known to nest on broad, flat areas of gravel or sand, twenty pairs nested on the graveled roof of a city auditorium in Pensacola, Florida in 1957, and have continued to do so annually.

one hundred degrees of light- april 6, 2005

not quite wide enough to be a true one-eighty panorama, this three-frame view of tonight's sunset was my experiment with some new blending techniques. I have given a final and delicate darkroom burn to the outer periphery of the image. This was a signature of Ansel Adams, who believed that no image was complete without it.

end of day - april 6, 2005

i always try to time my walks so i'm on the return leg long after the sun sets. the beach is quiet then - i'm most often the only human on the beach. it is a time of special light, a time when the very air around me seems to have a coral afterglow. the wind has come from the south all day today, humid whispers betraying the secret of summer on its way. tonight, the dredging crew followed me up the beach, en route to retrieve the long snakes of pipe that have carried the day's sand from wiggins pass to a renourishment area a half mile north.  i was delighted by this trio of willets who seemed as mesmerized as i by such beauty at the end of this day.

sand sculptures - april 2, 2005

a late-season cold front blew through the area this morning, bringing high winds and thunderstorms. by sunset, though, only the high winds - gusting to over 30 mph - remained. the beach was nearly emptied of humans, a big change from the hordes of tourists that are typically on area beaches this week. the cold winds sculpted pockets of sand and vegetation, erasing all signs of anything but the art of nature. this photograph, though originally filled with colors warmed by the late day sun, begged for a black and white treatment. desaturation placed more focus on the curves of light and shadow .

pelicans, terns and black skimmers - march 12, 2005

a gorgeous day dawned and i was up early and in the kayak before the high-season power boat traffic began, paddling down the auger hole into estero bay, on my way to new pass. just south of new pass, a shoal lines the east side of the channel, and a large sandbar comes off the north end of shoal. this day, the sandbar was alive with hundreds of birds. the wind was blowing briskly, so i maneuvered around to keep it at my back. waves hitting the side of the kayak rock it too much for steady photography. i like this assortment of birds, most especially the black skimmer in the foreground, dipping its beak into the shallow water. if you look closely, the forefront pelican is peeking out from behind its wing.

beach trees decorated with shells - february 27, 2005

i am blessed in my life for having lived in some of this planet's most lovely places. this stretch of beach is part of my nearly-nightly walk at sunset. the southern tip of barefoot beach, at wiggins pass, has undergone serious erosion in the years that i have lived here; it is a part of nature's eternal change, with a dash of human intervention thrown in from dredging to allow boats with more draft in and out of the pass. the small trees in this photograph were once part of a larger sliver of forest that lined the beach. as the ocean swallows more of the beach with passing storms, the trees begin to disappear. Before they do, though, they are often filled with shell ornaments, placed there by beach walkers. such decorations make each day christmas! it seems beautiful and symbolic somehow - shells that once lived in the ocean join trees that once lived on land.