People watching the sunset over the water is something I see all the time here in Florida; not just once in a while, but ALL THE TIME. Hehe. And it's a little more organized than you might think. Every evening there are groups of people who have gathered together with fold-up chairs at the beach to experience this event together. Sometimes, like on the evening I took this, it's just a few people. However at another beach I'm thinking of there could be as many as twenty. This is serious business down here in the sunshine state. I know of a mobile home park along the water that has permanent chairs set up facing west for just this purpose. I know that because I've seen them all line up, drinks in hand, watching the sun set. What a life. Sometimes when I see these groups on the beach I think they are church groups or maybe a meditation circle, because before the sun sets they're all in a circle discussing or singing or playing drums. Its kind of like something I'd expect to see in California, not here in Florida. I'm developing a theory that if you live someplace where it's warm and has a lot of sunsets you are more likely to be mellow. Okay, so I'm no Einstein, I suppose its just common sense, self-evident. On a related note, I've heard that we Floridians are called stone-slackers. I have an inkling about what the connotation is and I think there's more than a seed of truth in that. It's no wonder so many people come here to retire. After living a hectic life, why not? Well, I'm probably not a stone slacker yet because I'm not retired, but when and if I do, I'm in the right place. I already have a fold-up chair, all I need now is a drum.
This is Fort De Soto Beach a couple of days ago. With the holiday over we decided to head to the beach and unwind. This is a section that looks across towards the Sunshine Skyway Bridge as it enters Tampa Bay. I don't spend as much time at the beach as you might think. I go for photography quite a bit, but to sit and vegetate, rarely. I suppose that's common among us who live here, we take it for granted. I go maybe two or three times a year. But as I say, for photography I go many more times than that. In the end it doesn't matter because I do spend time along the shore with the waves, breeze and sunsets; I do not take that for granted, at least not yet. I worked on this image for several hours this evening. I used a motion blur and carefully blended the original layer. Prior to that I created about ten layers in Photoshop to carefully craft the image to an idea I had in my minds eye. Then finally I used a Lightroom preset to give it an overall desaturated tone. You may understand some of these technical details but if not, no worries. The point is, on some images I spend a lot of time and effort to transform an image into something resembling a dreamscape. For no other reason than I like to and, I think that dreams can be just as important as ordinary life. I've heard that we make our own reality, so if that's true, then sometimes I like to create a reality that is a little bit ethereal like a dream, one that I would like to inhabit if I could; at least in my mind.
This is a country oak I found along the highway in the outer reaches of my county. I see these whenever I drive along the pastures east of my home. Yesterday I just had to stop and take a picture. Normally these oaks are shelter from the hot Florida sun for the cattle and so it's not uncommon to find several in the shade. For whatever reason there were no cattle here and so the simplicity of the scene grabbed my attention. When is warm and humid, we get these rows of clouds stretching as far as the eye can see. In this case there was another layer above that creating a spectacle in the sky. For whatever atmospheric reason, the clouds form readily at mid day over the rural areas, but as you get closer to the coast and beaches, the clouds disappear; not always but most of the time. On the west end of the county is pristine beaches of the Gulf of Mexico, the eastern end is mostly farming and ranches. The beaches and the rural sections seem to each have their own distinct climates. After I titled this image Country Oak it occurred to me that indeed this is a common name. There are streets like Country Oak Lane; developments like Country Oak Estates; and schools like Country Oak Middle School, ...the list goes on. I never really thought about it before now, but the idea of Country Oaks seem to be iconic and somewhat popular around here. And here I thought it was all about the beaches.
