Welcome back to the second “looking back” post in which I review my photography activities from 10 years ago. Today, we go back to November 2013 and my big photographic outing was one of my early trips to St. George Island, Florida.
The iconic symbol of St. George Island is the Cape St. George Light. It was originally built in 1833 but has had to be reconstructed several times since then. I photographed this from a parking lot just to the west of the lighthouse so the lighthouse would be lit by the setting sun which would contrast very nicely with the dark clouds in the background. Then, it was just a matter of timing the press of the shutter button to capture the glow of the actual light emanating from the top of the lighthouse.
I had discovered this catamaran sitting on the beach the evening before and thought it would make for a nice compositional element, but it really needed a nice background to work. And what better background could I have had but a fantastic sunrise. The next morning, I got up to discover a heavy layer of clouds on the horizon. However, higher up in the sky, there were breaks in the clouds that gave me some hope, so I headed out to see how things would play out. As it turned out, things played out quite amazingly.
After photographing the catamaran, I decided I wanted to create an image that felt open and free and captured the feeling of being the only person on the beach, which I actually was. Stepping away from the catamaran, I attached the widest lens I had, 14mm, and photographed this beautifully expansive scene.
Although I don’t do a lot of wildlife photography, one of the things I became intrigued with on my trip, almost obsessed with actually, was photographing the shore birds, particularly the great blue herons that would stand on the beach. This turned out to be especially challenging. I was able to get a couple of images over the week I was there, but this photograph of a blue heron taking flight was my favorite one.
That’s it for looking back to November 2013. I hope you enjoyed it.
These are very nice and I think I may try this out in 2024, looking at my images for that month 10 years prior. Would be a nice project outside of my current Photos of the Month.
My favorite of this collection was your first image with some very nice color contrast.
Thank you. The first one is one of my favorites; the second one isn’t far behind. I remember getting the lighthouse composition set up and then having to wait to figure out the timing of the actual light so I could photograph it when it was illuminated. Even with that, it took a couple of tries to get it.
The the idea for doing a “retrospective” came from the blog of none other than Alex Kunz, and I thought it was a really great idea. Because I see them it all the time, it can be difficult for me to see improvement in my photography. Going back and looking at these “old” images helps me realize where I am because I can see where I was.