sunset – A Snowbird's Life Through the Lens

'scene' along the way, a second look, friends, fun, Just do it, nature, perseverance, photography, sunset

Sunset in Dunedin…

May 18, 2023May 17, 2023 naturecoastimagesblog

This doesn’t really qualify as a photo op coming to me, which I always say that I love when that happens. But when we were heading home from our fun dinner with the photo group the other night we saw this sunset happening as we drove through Dunedin and we had to stop, if only for a few minutes. Funny how the meeting is always at 6, but I’ve also been known to take iPhone photos out the car window as we are driving to the meeting. Either way, it’s always a nice surprise…

I worried as we drove that we wouldn’t get to the parking lot at the harbor in time.

But we made it. Such a nice ending to the day.

'scene' along the way, Florida landmarks, food, friends, fun, making memories, natural wonders, perseverance, photography, sunset

Picnic at Sunset Beach…

April 8, 2023April 7, 2023 naturecoastimagesblog

Thursday night is picnic night for my son and friends from his Elks Lodge. My DIL arrived at 3:30PM in order to snag a pavilion for them to set up the spread of delicious food that is always plentiful when they get together. It was a perfect night with a cool breeze after a toasty day. Plus a band to serenade everyone as the sun went down. And Mother Nature did her part by providing a great sunset for us. The band was still playing, and there were people just arriving as we left to go home. What a fun night..

It was peaceful on the side of the beach where we gathered.

I got nosy and walked over to see what was happening on the beach side.

I had no idea that such a crowd had gathered, but it did explain why I almost had to leave the area to find a parking spot. They came ready to enjoy themselves.

As the sun set we walked down the sidewalk to find breaks in the shrubbery for a view of the sunset.

Different spots to view it still provided much the same scene.

Once the sun starts to dip below the horizon it sets pretty quickly.

The feature photo is the last one I took last night. I suppose it was a spoiler for the rest of the photos. I hope we will be doing this again before too long.

'scene' along the way, a second look, attitude adjustments, birds, Florida landmarks, fun, life goes on, perseverance, photography, Pine Island, sunset, technology

Sunset songs…

January 28, 2023January 27, 2023 naturecoastimagesblog

I’m pretty sure that the Ruddy Turnstones in the feature photo aren’t really one legged. They are the cutest little shore birds and I don’t get to Pine Island to see them often enough. It was a pretty sunset on Tuesday night. And, as I always say, there always seems to be something extra going on there. On this night there were two women playing their guitars and singing old songs that I not only remember and love, but I knew all the words. I wanted to sing with them, if only I had a decent enough voice. But the sunset was also calling me.

Several people did sing and dance with them. And now I see the open guitar cases and maybe I should have made a donation.

This was my view as I walked from the parking lot onto the beach. I hadn’t noticed the music at this point, I was just concentrating of the clouds and hoping the sunset colors would come through.

The birds were flying over, quite a few people were enjoying the view and the music.

Birds kept flying past so I kept shooting.

I was taking a series of shots to turn them into HDRs, but it will take more practice with the camera settings to get that right. But that means I have to go back.

The sky never did light on fire as I’d hoped. But that didn’t spoil my evening a bit.

Florida landmarks, foggy sky, food, friends, fun, growing old, lest we forget, perseverance, photography, road trip, sunset

The week that was…

January 20, 2023January 19, 2023 naturecoastimagesblog

The second day of my ‘old’ friend’s visit, can’t tease her without admitting my own age also, brought us to Longboat Key to visit yet another old friend. Such a lovely spot to sit and talk about life after high school. Another high school friend commented that it must be fun to reminisce about our high school days, but that didn’t seem to be the main topic of conversation. We seemed to be concentrating on what came after high school, raising kids, and grandkids too. And where life has brought us now. How lucky we are to reconnect after such a long time.

It was a nice day to walk on the beach. Our friend said that people were commenting that there were no intact shells on the beach. Most had been pulverized by Hurricane Ian. But this area was spared from major damage.

We decided to head toward Anna Maria Island for dinner but traffic was quite backed up, and the sunset was early, so we stopped at The Beach House and this was our view while we enjoyed our dinner.

I ducked down in front of the sunset watchers to get a few photos. It hadn’t looked too promising to start with, but it just got better. Eventually we all took a few pictures.

Even after the sun had set the sky got more colorful.

The next morning dawned cold, with blustery winds. I headed down to the beach early, to try to capture the look of the surf. It was a bit foggy too, hence the feature photo. My friends chose to try some watercolor painting while I was out taking pictures. Then after a nice lunch it was time to say goodbye and head home again. But there was talk of another visit next year…

The sun had come out by the time we headed out for lunch. This time the traffic was better so we made it to Anna Maria Island. We got the valet to hold up traffic in order to take our picture. It was too soon to say goodbye…

'scene' along the way, a second look, Amazing artwork, attitude adjustments, birds, boats, facing facts, finding my way, friends, fun, making memories, perseverance, photography, sunset

Sunset and sailboats…

December 5, 2022December 5, 2022 naturecoastimagesblog

When we house hunted in Florida all those years ago the first place we looked was Dunedin. Such a charming town, but I had to face the fact that I couldn’t afford it then, and I can’t afford it now. The reason for this visit was to see the Dunedin Boat Parade, which we attended last year. But this time we wanted to stake out a prime spot to shoot our photos, and since we would be in the area for a morning with the photo group it seemed like a good idea to just head to Dunedin early. I’m not going to tell you what time it was when we snagged the last possible spot right on the seawall, you’d think we’d lost our minds. Not that other people we waiting already. Nope, they had just placed their blankets and chairs extra early. We didn’t have things we were comfortable leaving to save out spot so we stayed, but I will make a note for next time. In the meantime there were a few things to take pictures of as we waited.

This shipwreck caught our eye. I have no idea what the story is, and amazingly people walked on the rocks with their kids to see it up close, and looked like they were going to break their necks as they did it. Thankfully no one did. And by the time the sun set all the rocks were underwater and the boat looked like it was just at anchor out there.

This anhinga seemed happy to fan his feathers on the sail.

Boats came and went all afternoon, including this guy. When my kids were young we had a raft like this one, minus the electric motor, you had to row. My son and his friend used to take it out on the lake we lived on in MD, and they always came back soaking wet. They insisted that they didn’t know what happened, ‘it just tipped over’. So I stealthily set out with the dog on the leash to investigate one day, and saw them happily jumping out of the raft and climbing back in. I’m glad now that he got to do things like that growing up.

As it got darker the lighted boats started out of the harbor to take their place in the parade.

As you can see from the feature photo the sky did develop some color as the sun set. And the birds took to the sky to return to where ever it is that they rest for the night.

I’m quite happy with this photo taken with my new camera. But it’s the only picture that I got with it. Someone needs to read up on the settings in the camera because I fooled with them and it wouldn’t take a picture after that.

I pouted a bit, okay a lot, since I couldn’t take the pictures I’d expected to take, but I finally got out my phone and took a few more pictures.

There were a LOT of boats, and it was a very long day. But by the next time this event rolls around again I’m sure I’ll be ready to try, try, again. I’ll make sure I’ve conquered the camera by then.

'scene' along the way, a second look, adventure, brainstorms, bucket list, friends, fun, making memories, nature, old dogs new tricks, perseverance, photography, sunset, technology, weather

It’s that time again…

December 1, 2022November 30, 2022 naturecoastimagesblog

Well, almost that time again. The time when our drive to Clearwater for our Tuesday night photography club meeting coincides with the sunset. That means that as we make the long trip down Edgewater Drive I will be shooting photos out the car window with my iPhone. The last time I did that the sunset was fabulous, and I held the phone out the window a bit further and didn’t see myself in the side mirror, or I could crop myself out of the picture. This time we were a bit early for the really great color to have developed quite yet, and I was reluctant to hold my brand new iPhone 14 Pro Max far enough out the window to get myself out of the picture. Maybe I ought to sit in the back seat next time. Nice evening, fun meeting.