Sunrise

Today's photos of sunrises were taken as I walked alongside an orange orchard that is adjacent to Citrus Park. To avoid looking directly at the bright sun, I moved to place an object in front of it. I really like the red, orange and gold colours I see during a sunrise.

I have created a video of Florida Sunrises - 2009 using the music of Galalisa Star, whom I met at a recent Positive Thinkers Club Breakfast. I will upload a video to my Blog, She gave me permission to use her music with my photos - a good combination.

Kite Surfing 2

Kite surfing was fun to watch and photograph. Because of the lighting, I was shooting towards the sun for most of the photos and as a result, most people photos are silhouettes. Of course I was trying to capture the high jumps they made as they changed direction.

The first photo shows long shot of a two guys being pulled across the water by the "kites". The other photos show different guys in the process of their "jumps". The person in the second photo is hanging on to his board. I imagine it would be difficult to retrieve if he lost it.

The last photo shows a guy jumping as a boat passes by in the background. Note the reflections of sunlight on the ocean.

Kite Surfing

Kite surfing is a fast-moving sport where a person hooks on to a small parachute (kite) that drags him/her across the water at high speeds. When they make a turn, the parachute lifts them into the air, sometimes amazingly high. The person then tries to control his landing on the water.

The first photo shows long shot of a guy being pulled across the water by the "kite". The other photos show a guy in the process of one of his "jumps".

Brown Pelican

Because the brown pelicans were diving so close to the shore, I made several images of them as they dove towards and into the water. The photos this morning show a typical dive: the pelican is flying over the water, nearly stops in the air, looks downward and dives after a fish. It hits the water with wings still partially outstretched. I have to admit that even though they are great fliers, they do look a little awkward as they dive.

Beach

The strong winds coming off the gulf must have brought fish with them because brown pelicans were diving for food, often very close to people in the water. The fist photo shows a couple watching the pelicans dive just off the beach. The second shows people watching a pelican fly by very closely. The pelicans in the fourth photo are between the swimmers and the beach. They didn't seem too concerned about the presence of people.

Foggy Sunrise

One morning, it was so foggy that as the sun rose I couldn't photograph the sunrise. In fact, I didn't even see the sun until it rose fairly high in the sky and appeared through the fog. The first photo shows a bird on a wire. It was preening itself and I had waited a while for it to stop, but had to shoot before the sun got too bright or was obscured by the fog once again. I would have preferred to see the silhouette of its head and beak as well.

The other photos show a man walking his dog in the fog. ;) You can see the difference in the photos as they walked further into the distance.

I have more Florida Fog photos at: http://lanephotography.com/florida/Florida_Fog/Florida%20Fog_01.htm

Flowers 3

A variety of flower photos for you to enjoy this morning. The red flower with another tiny white flower growing in the centre has intrigued me for several years - a flower within a flower. These are difficult to photograph in bright sunlight because the red gets washed out most of the time. However, I used my close-up lens attachment on a 28-80 zoom lens to get a nice macro shot of the flower.

The red and pink flowers really attracted my attention and I photographed it from the road because I didn't feel comfortable walking on people's property. I used my 70-300 mm lens to make this image. I used the same lens to photograph the pink flowers with water droplets.

Flowers have such a variety of colours that I enjoy photographing them wherever I go. I don't have a book for identifying cultivated flowers so I can't tell you what they are. The blue flowers from a couple of days ago have been identified as plumbago.

Flowers 2

This morning I chose photos of the same type of flowers (which I have not identified). As I stated yesterday, I tended to photograph flowers on overcast mornings while walking around looking for photos. There was some dew on a large pot of pink flowers so I used my 28-80 mm zoom lens with a close-up attachment. Even in the reduced photos, you can see the tiny water droplets on the petals.

Flowers

On foggy or overcast mornings I tended to photograph flowers during my walk around Citrus Park. Several years ago I read that it is the best time to photograph flowers because there is less contrast and shadows from the bright sun. I have to agree that the colour saturation is good when the conditions are right.

The white flower is a gardenia and the orange-pink flower may be a hibiscus. I have no idea what variety the blue flowers are. If you know, feel free to tell me. I will share more flower photos over the next couple of days.

Birds in Flight 2

Continuing with the Birds in Flight series, I am sharing photos of two hawks this morning: the osprey (fish hawk) and the swallow tailed kite.

I have photographed osprey many times, both in Florida and Newfoundland, and have many good images in my collection. A great place to photograph osprey here in Newfoundland is the Bellvue, Trinity Bay. In fact, they call that area of the province the Osprey Trail.
The swallow tailed kite, however, has eluded me in the past, but I was able to capture a few good images of one as it flew by near an orange orchard in Florida.

I used a 70-300 mm lens at maximum zoom to capture these images.