Travelin' 'flow, Part II. (Goes without saying, dial-up alert)

After we went to the Great Sand Dunes, we had to head back to Denver to catch a flight to Mississippi to pick up my car and return to Denver since my volunteer gig is over. The photos I took in Mississippi became my 9-month Katrina photo essay, so I won't bore you by repeating them here.

So we packed up and got ready to go home. But you know, one of my best friends from New England moved to Florida a few years ago, so I decided to swing by her place a for a few days. What, Florida's not on the way to Colorado from Mississippi? Maybe not, but comparatively speaking, she was next door. So it was off to visit mon ami on Amelia Island, a mere nine hours east of Biloxi. I arrived too late to catch a sunset on that first day, but we decided to get up for the sunrise the next morning. It was worth it.


The first thing I noticed when driving in the daylight was all the beautiful Spanish moss hanging from the live oaks. I tried to capture the magnificent way the light is filtered through the branches, but this was the best I came up with, and I had to Photoshop it to death to get this flat rendition of how I remembered it being. But the hanging moss and the lighting is what I always imagined the South to look like. I'm sure Amelia Island looks a lot like the Mississippi Coast must have looked like before Katrina.


We did touristy things all day that didn't particularly lend themselves to creative photography. But that night, we saw a lovely sunset.
I have no idea who owns this boat.

The following day, my friend had to go to work, so I struck out on my own. These are some random photos I took in a park before being harassed by police who must have mistaken this tourist with a camera for a terrorist with a camera. What can I say? I was in Jeb-Land, so took it in stride.


That night, when my friend returned from work, we watched another stunning sunset.

Beautiful, right? You only think so because you can't smell it. This paper plant imedately on my left as I took the shot emitted the most horrific, overwhelming chemical stench. Can't believe there were people standing on the dock fishing! Hope fish is not what's for dinner. :puke:


Of course I had to go birdwatching. This is the best place I found for birdwatching. I think it looks like Africa!


And did I see birds. Lots and lots and lots of birds, some very exotic.

I was delighted one of the osprey-with-fledgling shots came out so well. There were two or three more baby birds in the nest, but I didn't think it wise to hang around too long beneath a giant bird of prey with maternal instincts. The nest itself is also very cool. I like the decorative and functional Spanish moss incorporated into the design.


I turned around from my birding adventure when I came across this sign. :scared:


But probably my favorite part of my trip, next to seeing my friend, was seeing her dogs. This is Blaze, the Earth Mother of All Dogdom. She's getting on these days.


My friend also breeds min-pins. Personally, I am not much of a small dog person, although I do like my friends little dogs. I won't bother you all with the million photos I took of what look like, to me, rats gnawing on bones or wearing dresses. :eyes: But I do like this series I took of Blaze with one of the min-pins, Nitro. The min-pins curl up on the couch with Blaze to keep warm in the a/c.

When I started snapping photos, Nitro smirked for the camera. :rofl:


And this is just a variation variation on the theme.


OK, one photo of little dog in a dress. I can't help myself!


I had to leave after only a few days to pick usedtobsick up from the Atlanta airport before continuing on to the Smokey Mountains to visit some friends there. So it's time to put Part II to rest. Part III (The Final Journey) will be coming soon to a Photo Group near you! :hi:

Love the sunrise shot. It's really stunning.

Know just what you mean about the smell of a paper plant. When I lived in Savannah the stench from the Union Camp brown-bag factory miles out of town used to waft in the air constantly. Horrible, but one does get used to it after a while.

Looking foward to the next instalment.

:toast:

Having spent five years of my youth living in Pasadena, Texas, I'm intimately familiar with that lovely odor. :puke: Every time the wind would blow in from the north bringing cooler temperatures, we'd always get the stench of paper mills and petrochemical plants. I will never be able to get that smell out of my mind.

Your photos are gorgeous, as always. I'm very jealous of your bird pictures. I tried like hell to get bird shots while we were on our trip, but they were just too shy.

What about those awesome eagle shots you posted awhile back? :patriot:

I've found the only way to get good bird photos is to take them as the sun sets or rises. That's either mealtime or turn-in time. You should be able to get some awesome bird shots with that bad-ass distance lens you have.

needs an extender I think, because all the ducks and loons I took shots of on our trip look like little black and white blobs out in the middle of the pond.



My guess is these are some kind of merganser, but you sure can't tell it from the photo. :( The eagles are essentially tame down there in Homer since the eagle lady feeds them, so it was no big deal to take their pictures.

I have two things to say about that.

1) Shoot larger birds. :)

2) I magnify and then crop a lot of my bird photos. It makes my smaller, much less bad-ass distance lens seem better, but it also explains the often grainy, even blurry look of many of my bird photos. In this thread, for instance, I did that with the roseate spoonbill (pink bird) and the night heron (bird with the funky head crest).

But really, it's the size of the bird that matters most. Most of my exotic duck photos look just like your mergnser shot.

And then I get all jazzed up again from people like you here in the photography forum! :loveya:

Great shots, 'flow! :hi:

and it is always a treat to see the excellent photos from your "journeys". :yourock: :applause:

is that I had hardly traveled before about five years ago. I'd always wanted to travel, but then I had a child young and stayed in one place for his stability. When he went to college in our Massachusetts hometown, I went to grad school in Denver, and have been able to see a lot of the west because of that. Now I've got this southern thing going. But as I was saying, I think I take so many photos because I'm sure I'll never get back to that location again and I want to document what I've seen.

That top of the sunrise is beautiful. That can be a postcard or a framed photo on someone's wall. That person walking on the beach is what makes it for me.

Anytime a cop harasses me for taking photos, I immediately take their photo, then ask him or her to specify what law I am breaking. Most cops are ignorant about photo laws.

Once, when I was taking a photo from the Port of Miami bridge, I had Homeland Security drive up and start harassing me.

I took their photo and one of them freaked out, telling me to erase it because it's against the law to photograph federal officers. At first, I refused, but she started getting really angry, so I told her I would delete the photo.

But it is not against the law to photograph a federal officer. I needed to make that very clear.

So her partner tells me not to erase the photo, calls their supervisor, who ended up telling them to leave me alone. That I was not breaking any laws.