Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Thursday, January 15, 2015

A line in the sand, PVIC

I am always amused by people who ask why I walk on the same beach two or three times a week. "After all, it's just sand and water, isn't it?"  Well....yes and no. Both of those things are very susceptible to movement. Wind moves both of them and water moves sand. Over the past year the prevailing winds have allowed the beach to slowly creep up. The white line is the edge of a seawall in front of the Ponte Vedra Inn and Club (PVIC). A few years ago, our granddaughter loved to run and jump off this wall. There was a three foot drop to the beach. Now, when we have a Nor'easter, the beach comes over the wall. Nature is never static.

Sand flames, PVIC

A few days of high winds and the sand is always shaped in interesting shapes.

Amy's Nails, Jax Beach


Forrest Gump's nightmare.


Served with good cheer!

Jacksonville Beach

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

FAILED

Maybe if they had used beans it would have worked.

Weese weeds, Jax Beach

We love our cabbage palms here in Florida (they are the state tree). They are incredibly tough and they throw off a huge seed load every year. As you can see here, they don't need much incentive to start.

Wire bird, Jax Beach


Future counter tops, Jax Beach

There is a business, on my Sunday route, that sells all manner of stone. They have columns, benches, tables made of stone. Their main product is counter tops, an ongoing obsession here in america. If I could design the counters in my dream kitchen they would all be chopping block. They lean these great slabs out front. The assumption being that they are so heavy that theft would be too difficult for the return. The types of stone change from week to week so I always have a new set to shoot.

Picasso in rust, JaX Beach



More truck scrapes, Jax Beach


Dancing scrapes, Truck trailer, Jax Beach


Cement abstracts, Jax Beach

 So, it was Sunday, time for my spin class followed by a long walk. Low overcast, with rain on my way to the gym. spin class was more taxing than usual and I hoped to beg off my walk due to rain. But the clouds had lifted.....rats. I had a new camera with me. My first Micro 4/3 camera was a Panasonic GF3. A tiny model with almost no features and the smaller 12mp sensor. I soon got fancier Panasonics, a G2, G3, GX1 and then the Olympus E-M5. All but the G2 had moved up to the 16mp sensor and had features that I liked a lot, including an EVF. The GF3 went to France twice, as a backup and camera to take when I didn't want the big body. Oddly, some of my best pictures from both years came from the GF3. I am quite comfortable using the screen on the back with no viewfinder. Even on my Sony RX100 III I hardly ever use it's fine EVF. But features such as a movable screen developed and the GF3 sat on a shelf. I pulled it out two weeks ago and still liked it's form factor. I knew that there had been a GF5 and a GF6 (GF4 never was as apparently the number 4 is like our number 13 in Japan). So I looked online and found a new GF6 for sale for under $300.00. I ordered it from a company in Japan. It arrived last week and the only hard part was figuring out how to switch it to English from the Japanese. It is just like my GF3, only a tad thicker...to accommodate the swing up screen! And it is using the current 16mp sensor. It came with the kit lens, a 14-42 unit. So, I took it out on my walk. It is a great little unit. The rear screen is clearer and it is a more solid body than the GF3. The kit lens is the revamp of the original, an ordinary lens, at best. I believe that it is a very competent lens and it weighs almost nothing. These are some shots in back of my gym's building on my walk.


Friday, January 9, 2015

Monday, January 5, 2015

Christmas fence, Roscoe Blvd., South

Simple and clean.

Egrets, 16th hole, Ocean Course

This is the start of breeding season for all of our local birds. Egrets are usually territorial and solitary, but this time of year congregate, looking for dates. Cormorants, another usually solitary water bird, gather in large flocks and get in a line in the water and beat their wings on the water and drive fish to the edge of a pond or lagoon, where they can dive and eat. Egrets, being no dummies, wait on the shore and get their share. Every now and then even a pelican will swim behind the line of cormorants and suddenly fly over them and dive, getting a beak full of fish.  These guys were awaiting the line of cormorants.