bad photography

Florida Thursday

The final day of training was only a half-day, I decided to head home via hwy 98. I stopped off in Bayport and had a great grouper sandwich as a very late lunch, took some decent photos of a nice wetland using an orange filter as an experiment, and headed on up to the Chassahowiska NWR. It was completely empty, so I walked one of their short trails, the 'Wild Turkey Trace.' It was a nice scrub environment, and I felt completely isolated except for the occasional shotgun blast in the distance. I didn't see a single soul until I was leaving the park. I also didn't see much wildlife, but saw plenty of deer tracks and perhaps bear tracks.

From the NWR, I went to the Yulee Sugar Mill ruins and took some interesting photos there, mostly of the giant cogs and of a nearby inlet/bayou/whatever leading up to a bar.

Then on to Homasassa Springs, where I saw manatees, egrets, bald eagles, and a great variety of other wildlife being rehabilitated.

Next came Rainbow Springs, once a resort-type attraction, now a very well maintained state park. It was easily one of the prettiest state parks I've ever seen, with three waterfalls, swimming, and hiking.

By then it began to get dark, so I hit the highway up to Perdido Key, planning to visit the other panhandle locations the next day.

Tampa Wednesday

After my training class, my father and I went to the County Extension Service where he volunteers as a Master Gardener. We collected a nice bit of fruit, thewe stopped off at a produce stand where I bought even more fruit. We then wandered from nursery to nursery, looking for a specific tree my father wants. Took some cuttings at his house, and then I headed over to Orlando to meet Ayan for a beer.

The photos I took in Orlando were, well, very bad. We were in a dark bar & grill, so the aperture was f/1.7 (!), and my usual 'get it close' zone focusing didn't quite cut it. Combine the Canonet's softness at large apertures and my poor focusing, and you end up with two fuzzy photos of Ayan.

Probably shouldn't even post them, but I will.

Tampa Monday

After training, my father and I went to the power station and watched the manatees bathe in the warm exhaust water from the coal furnaces. It was a physical representation of irony: an endangered species, beloved by environmentalists, bathing at the base of a coal-burning power plant, enjoying the heated water exhaust.

I took a few shots on kodak royal 200, but the manatees were too far away to do much good with the 35mm lens on the XA2. I also had the XA in my pack, but I forgetfully left the Canonet behind. Not that the 5mm difference would be a huge improvement, but it would still be an improvement. I did get a few good shots of the power station, so that's something.

Also tooled around the Ft DeSoto park and beaches, but the sun was far too harsh for anything but bad snapshots. I know, I only take bad snapshots as it is, but even I knew better.

Lunch was a crab-cake sandwich on the St Johns pier, and I had an excellent Cuban dinner of ropas viejas (sp?), yucca, and fried plantains. Great Cuban food in this town, even near my father's house.

As before, I'll post photos after I get them processed. Today's film was exclusively Kodak Royal Gold 200. I also have some Provia, and I'm saving my T-Max 100 for later.

The weather is calling for rain tomorrow, so after training, we'll probably check out the museum of fine arts.

Perdido to Tampa

Note: Perdido is conspicuously devoid of 'adult' content. No strip clubs, no massage parlors, not even dirty magazines at gas stations. After being surrounded by it for so long, I notice such things when they're absent.

The trip from Perdido on to Tampa was relatively uneventful and very pleasant.

I snapped a few daylight photos of the villa and left early enough to make Tampa by dinner. ASA 400 is just too fast for this daylight in my Canonet, as it really doesn't have a fast enough shutter. I manually took a (probably overexposed) photo while driving a gorgeous bridge (will insert name later after looking it up), and I resolved to get slower film for the rest of FL.

Tallahassee is in a beautifully wooded area and seems to be fairly well laid out. I learned from a guy I met there that the last strip club in town had recently closed, and that most adult bookstores were also closing due to the DA being a bit overzealous. Perhaps he is just trying to help Gov. Bush?

I called a few places in my 'Eat Your Way Across the USA' book without any luck.

No other photos, though I really wanted one of the 'Risque Cafe' billboards. I'll try to get one on the way back. Maybe I will try to take a picture INSIDE the joint? No, probably a bad idea.

Traveling to Tampa

I'm on my way to training in Tampa, FL this week, and the trip got off to a pretty good start. Photographically, anyway.

Somewhere in Louisiana, I saw two hot-air balloons drifting over the highway. I pulled over and took about 8 shots. I snapped a few more photos on the way, photographed a gas station where I attempted to evade a patrolman after driving over a median (not on the highway, fortunately), took some shots of the villa in Perdido, and wandered off to find food.

It seems that every restaurant / bar / grocery store / whatever on Perdido Key closes at 11, so in this great area of seafood and decent local food, I ended up ordering from Dominos. The driver drove off the road, between villas, and into the front 'yard' of where I was staying, then stupidly commented to me that he probably shouldn't have done that.

Everything was soaking wet, as though it had been really raining, but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Nice and cold, too.

That concluded my roll for Day One. I'll attach photos after they're processed. All were on B&W C41 film.

The joy of the Olympus

The joy of the Olympus XA
I know I like to rave about the Olympus XA, but I have my reasons. One of them is a lack of fear.

I was coming back home from dropping off some equipment in Pasadena (as seen in Urban Cowboy), and I passed a very picturesque overgrown pasture cut off by a nice barbed wire fence. The nearly freezing rain had caused a large puddle to form, and with the haze of the rain, it was oddly beautiful.

Since I was driving the insecure Jeep, and since the weather was extremely unpleasant, I certainly didn't have a nice camera with me. However, I did have the XA in my jacket pocket, sans flash. I'm sure I was quite a spectacle while I crouched near a small river of runoff water, trying to keep my balance without falling in, wiping off my camera lens after each shot.

You see, not only is the XA pocketable, it's cheap enough to not worry about it. Several are on ebay for under $50, so I feel free to take it with me wherever I go, even if the camera gets rained on, dropped from my pocket, or left in the sun. If I were limited to a Leica, or even just a Bessa R, I'd still feel anxious about using it in the middle of a cold rainstorm. And since it's so compact, I don't even have to think about carrying it. It's just there, in my pocket. After I dropped off the equipment, Liz and I dropped by the Houston Art Car Klub meeting and then to Brasil for coffee. I was very tempted to take a few pictures of Liz there, but the flash on the XA is just bulky enough that I don't carry it with me. The XA could have taken the photos just fine, but the shutter would have been open for at least a full second, if not longer.

I took quite a few pictures today by the pasture, and I look forward to seeing the results. I picked up last week's efforts, and not a single frame is worth showing. Not a one. I picked up some more C41 black and white (not called 400CN, called something else), as I'm not doing home development and I'm always in a hurry.

Update

It's been a while since I posted, mostly because I have not been keeping up with my 12 frames / week plan. Even during a week of vacation, not one frame exposed.

I took about 10 shots today, so more should come later. Not that anyone reads this or cares. Such a self-indulgent log...