A Snowbird's Life Through the Lens
Life on my own, on the Nature Coast of of Florida, and beyond…
It was a pretty dismal looking day, but that didn’t stop us from sticking to our plan to explore a new, and nearby, place to walk in the woods. Turns out the light is great for photography on a day like today, it’s just not all sunny and bright.
I’ve had in mind to go to Dunedin for the sunset for a few days now. I can easily talk myself out of it though, it is a bit of a drive, but then I remembered that in a couple of weeks sunset will be an hour later and then it’ll really seem too late to be out. It turned out to be a nicer sunset than I expected, in spite of the old guy on a recumbent bike who stopped and just looked at me with my camera. Finally he informed that that there was nothing to take pictures of right then. Then he wanted to know what lens I was using and he poo-poo’d my 18-400, and then he had to hold out his arms to show me how big his was, lens that is. His parting shot was that I don’t look like I live here because I’m too white. Guess I was batting 1000 with that guy, which was fine since he wasn’t doing any better with me.
After watching two pelicans working in unison, taking off, turning and planning their dive, and then hitting the water in total synchronization, I finally started to take some pictures of them. I hadn’t ever seen this behavior before, but they repeated it at least a dozen times. Tough pictures in that light but it was fun to watch them.
I was walking to onto the pier hoping to get the flag in the sunset, then I saw that someone else had the same idea and liked that shot better. Nice night…
You may have noticed that I love to go to Hudson Beach for the sunset fairly often. And I frequently start my photo session with a shot of the houses across the inlet, because they usually are lit up by the setting sun’s rays when I arrive. Last night nothing was being lit up by the sun’s rays, the rays were barely able to shine through the thin spots in the overhead clouds. But I was grateful for at least that much color on this sunset trip. And with a less than spectacular sunset my lens ball attracted some attention from other sky watchers. Several people took pictures through the lens ball, and they were enthused with it once they figured out what the view actually was. Nice night, but I’ll have to return soon and hope for a nicer sky.
I’ve said it before, probably more than once, but sunset at Pine Island never disappoints. But not always for the reasons you may think. Like the feature photo. I had to circle back to take that picture, and after that I decided that even if the sunset wasn’t great I was glad I’d made the drive. I love happening across things like that.
I think they’ve redone some things since I’ve been here. The grill area looks great, and the playground has a pirate theme too.
I often come across a photo shoot at sunset here, but not always one like this one. They had a phone balanced on the nearby grill and reenacted this pose over and over the whole time I was there.
Of course I had to play with the Lensball while I’m trying to learn it’s potential. I was looking for little kid footprints in the sand but had to settle for the seagull prints.
This sailboat/sunfish (?) caught my eye.
After that I got carried away with sunset photos, with and without the Lensball. Which I happily discovered fits in my jacket pocket. One guy asked if he could borrow my jacket, it was cold! That boater must have been freezing!
And I did say they were still at it, the love birds I mean. Yes, Pine Island never disappoints!
“We never go out to play!”, that was my lament back before Charley and I ever retired. I wanted to go out and have fun, and so I daydreamed about all the fun we’d have when we moved to Florida and had all this time on our hands. I wanted to go biking together, and kayaking seemed like a lot of fun even though I’d never done it. There were state parks to visit, we’d go hiking, and the best thing of all is it would be free, or nearly so. These were my thoughts, but I’m not sure I ever spoke them out loud. We did ride the bikes around the block a few times, but that was about it for outdoor activities together.
And that playful moment may have passed because now when I see people having what looks like fun to me I quickly realize that as much fun as it may appear to be I couldn’t possibly manage to do that anymore. If I ever could.
And now it has hit me that if that was me hanging from these ropes then I couldn’t be taking pictures of my fellow playmates while they are doing the impossible, dare-devil, maneuvers. So maybe it’s okay that I can’t do the things I could once do. But maybe seeing other people having fun is even more fun for me as I watch, through the lens…
Suppose you were just not in the mood to go out early for the sunrise, or out to walk in the woods with friends even though you know you’d have fun. And suppose this little guy was available for a photo shoot. Now what would you do?
It’s called right place, right time. Sometimes you just get lucky.
