I took this picture at three in the morning as our ship entered the port in Miami. I am surprised it turned out given that we were moving at it was dark. Its the second time I've taken this same perspective from a ship. The first time was a year earlier when I used an f2.8 lens; this time I used an f1.8: the f1.8 aperture is wider which allows more light and, creates a better result without too much noise. Anyway, we were arriving back from Europe, so the early morning hour didn't seem too bad. And, after being at sea for about ten days, I was not about to sleep in as we returned to civilization.
In one sense, the scene of children on the beach is timeless, it could have been taken a hundred years ago. However, the landscape might have changed quite a bit. Mechanically speaking, beaches are the act of erosion. The beach here probably looked quite different a hundred years ago. Because changes happen slowly, we don't notice much of it. But take a picture of anything year after year, and we begin to see changes. With technology, and from this point forward, we are recording the transformation of our landscapes accurately. Assuming we're around in a couple thousand years, we should have a high-resolution time-lapse recording of all the changes. That should be pretty awesome to watch because it will show the changes that span a human lifetime in just a few seconds. Then, maybe, we will have an appreciation for just how dynamic the changes on our planet really are.
I took this photo in Pass-A-Grille. The name is anglicized from the French: Passe Aux Grilleurs. It seems it's always been a favorite place to grill fish. http://www.pass-a-grille.org/history.php I've only been here a few times in the last decade, but I've never grilled fish. Nevertheless, it's just south of it's more famous cousin, St Pete Beach. And unlike the communities just north of it, has a distinct village feel. Anyway, I arrived just before sunset and, just like at all the other beaches in the region, people arrive to watch. In case you haven't noticed, that's a favorite photographic subject for me. I am attracted to the colors in the sky and, the scenes it creates of people watching the spectacle unfold. I think we like watching the sunset because, at a subconscious level, it's a reminder of our place on Earth as it moves through the heavens; and, that we are part of something much much more significant.
