bridge Archives - Page 6 of 8 - Just Enough Focus

June 12, 2017June 12, 2017

Strawberry Moon

Over the weekend we had a full moon and for some reason it’s called the strawberry moon. Apparently it’s the smallest full moon of the year, but I think that doesn’t means much in practical terms because we can’t see the difference with our eyes.

Daily Image

This is the Sarasota skyline from across the bay. It was one of the few nights we didn’t have cloud cover and this scene is one I’ve been waiting to capture.

In fact this is a large panorama consisting of twelve individual images in a grid of 2 x 6. At full resolution this is two by eight feet. If you are thinking of purchasing a print, be sure to select the wide panorama crop (20 x 80 or similar) when checking out or just contact me so that I can ensure you get the correct fit for the frame size you want.

I’ve been creating a lot of panoramas lately. I’m intrigued by the perspective and level of detail that’s possible. However the bigger the panorama the harder it is to put together. There are a lot of nuances that need to be fit just so. The software helps a little but most of the work is slow detail effort, although it’s something I enjoy a lot. The long slow process in kind of like a meditation for me, I’m in a different world when editing images.

I spend more time working on photos than taking them. That’s just part of my artistic process. Often I’ll come back to a photo a dozen times before I feel it’s ready. Many times it never gets there and is relegated to the reject bin. Every now and then I review the rejects and see something in a different light and bring it back to life.

more panoramas

In this case I had a strong idea of what I wanted so it was just a matter of taking the time to get it just right, in camera and in post processing. After all that work I still don’t know why it’s called a strawberry moon. I should just Google it but on the other hand I think I’ll just leave it as a mystery for now.

May 30, 2017

Bradenton Beach Pier from the Bridge

This is a view of the Bradenton Beach Pier from the bridge. I’m facing west so the pier is on the inter-coastal waterway. The Gulf of Mexico is just behind the row of buildings. To get the whole bridge in the frame I walked on to the bridge between the mainland and Anna Maria Island. Other than that I’d need to be on a boat since there’s no other place to get the full view of it.

Daily Image

I took this early in the evening as people were coming home from the beach. Basically I was standing on the sidewalk next to a traffic jam. That’s because there are only two bridges leaving the island and all those thousands of people have to go home. Right after sunset it can time to drive home, good thing there is nice scenery along the way.

With all the cars crossing it causes the bridge to vibrate. That creates a challenge when taking long exposures like this. For instance, if I have a ten-second exposure and a car goes by in the first five seconds, the image will come out fuzzy. However my Sony A7rII camera has image stabilization so it was able to take a sharp image even with the vibration.

more of bradenton beach from the gallery

If you follow the pier back to shore, it leads to Old Bridge Street. That’s an area with outdoor establishments and live music at every corner. People are out walking around, listening to music and just seeing the sights. There are a lot of choices from ice cream to lobster, from smoothie to martini.

My favorite thing about Bradenton Beach is the small town atmosphere, something not so easy to come by these days. But now you know where you can find it.

May 25, 2017

Water Under the Bridge

I’m not sure where the term water under the bridge came from, but it’s one I often repeat in my head. If ever there was a metaphor for letting go this is it. It sums up our attempt to keep moving and not get defeated by stuff that happened.

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Events are like water; they just happen and we usually have no power to stop them. Water is the most powerful force on the planet. It carves continents, it sustains life and it’s a force that we cannot control. We are born into a place where have little control of things around us.

Water under the bridge is both an acknowledgement that we have no control and an opportunity to keep moving. I think what’s important is how we react rather than what happens to us. It reminds me of the other saying about the journey, not the destination. Life keeps moving and how we endure each day, and every moment in-between, is more important than what has happened or will be the destination.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t have goals or a direction in life. Rather, what defines us is how we live each day while working toward the goal, not the goal itself.

more minimalism

We all face the same choice. We may as well acknowledge the flowing water, cross the bridge, and move on through life.

May 2, 2017May 2, 2017

On the way to St Armand’s

On the weekend we decided to head to Sarasota for dinner and I had a vague thought to grab the camera. On the way to St Armand’s Circle we saw this scene as we approached the bridge. Since I had my camera I pulled over to capture the sun nearing the horizon. Although it looks white here, the sun was glowing red from behind what appeared to be atmospheric dust. Every so often dust from the Sahara blows across the Atlantic and creates a filter-like effect that’s good for photography.

Daily Image

This is another panoramic image. I was using a 35mm lens and took three vertical images and then stitched them together in Lightroom. Unlike the panorama of Miami that I posted yesterday, this does not have as much detail. Nevertheless I am fond of this technique for capturing landscapes because it produces very little distortion. It’s similar to turning your head from side to side.

I get a little wistful when I see a sunset and don’t have a camera. So I’ve gotten in the habit of carrying one even if I don’t plan on talking pictures. You never can tell when something might come up. If I use a small prime lens then the camera is not so bulky. Then, if I feel I need to go wider than the lens allows, I can simply create a panorama with as little as two side-by-side images.

Sarasota Gallery

Anyway, this is my favorite location to take photos in Sarasota and I had it in the back of my mind that I might see something as we dove by. I’m glad I listened to that little voice in my head. Hopefully I’ll keep listening.

April 24, 2017

Amsterdam in the Early Morning Hours

Here’s another image I took while walking around central Amsterdam in the early morning hours. I was only here for a week so I made the decision to stay on North American time. That meant I was still wide awake very late which works well for night photography. I could capture the lights reflecting on the still waters of the canals to my heart’s content.

Daily Image

A couple of times I left my tripod back at the hotel. To get these long exposures without shaking the camera I would make due by balancing it on a bike seat. All of the little bridges have bikes leaning against the railings. All I had to do was pick one with a relatively wide seat and gingerly set the camera down. I used a wireless trigger so that I didn’t need to touch the camera to activate the shutter.

That little system worked quite well and to be honest, it’s a technique I’ve used in many other places as well. I don’t always want to bring a tripod especially when shooting street scenes at night. For that I’m grateful for the high ISO performance of Sony cameras, it allows me to do things that were unheard of just a few years ago. For street photography you want to travel light and be able to react quickly.

Yet when I’m out walking around I’ll invariably see something like this scene and I wish I had a tripod. Then it becomes a little game of figuring out what I can use to stabilize the camera. I use all manner of things like balancing on a fence railing, stabilizing the lens with the camera strap, even placing the camera on the ground and shooting up.

night photography gallery

As a result I’m hard on camera bodies. They get scratched quite a bit. But for me the scratches on my camera body are like notches on a belt. It’s funny but a scratched up camera feels to me like a comfortable set of well worn shows; we’ve seen a lot together.

April 6, 2017April 6, 2017

Cityscape Panorama Across Sarasota Bay

This is a cityscape panorama across Sarasota Bay. To create this I took three vertical images using a 55 mm lens and then stitched them together in Autopano Giga. The reason I did that rather than use a wide angle lens is it creates a realistic view of the scene whereas wide angle lenses tend to distort the sky. Each method has its use.

Daily Image

My guess is that these sailboats are in a mooring field. There is another mooring field on the other side of that bridge just out of sight. That one is busy but this one seems to be long term as I’ve seen the same sailboats sit here for years.

The day was a little hazy but the clouds added an extra dimension to the sky. These types of scenes, urban panoramas across the water, represent a technique I find appealing. Sky and water frame a cityscape and create a different perspective. It’s a little like looking down from an airplane only in this case we’re looking across. I have a coffee table book I’m working on called Sea and Sky; it has a few images like this.

Another thing I like about these stitched-together panoramas is that the image is very high resolution. That’s good for two reasons; it allows the viewer to zoom in and explore the details and, it can be used to create large prints. This resolution of this image can produce a print that is six feet across without losing detail. That makes it suited for large spaces like offices or hallways.

more panoramas

In a few years camera sensors will capture more detail than they do today. Actually these already exist but are specialized for surveillance and mapping. However soon even landscape photographers like myself will have them. And when that happens we’ll be able to pass the time just exploring the details of a scene like this on someone’s large wall.

March 31, 2017March 31, 2017

Impression of the Glow

This is an impression of the glow of the clouds. It represents a combination of old and new styles. I gravitate towards pictorialism, meaning that I take liberties to convey a feeling or idea. This is an example of that. I’m more interested in an impression than the actual event.

Daily Image

I’ve taken a lot of Florida photos over the years and I have collection that I printed and framed several years back. I used to take those to art shows and sell them but then I got too busy and took a break. However I just did another show and what surprised me was that that folks still enjoy those scenes.

I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise. Since then my own preferences and style have changed and I’ve moved on to different themes. Yet what I came to realize is that images that are old to me are still fresh to others.

cloudscape images

So my idea is to begin printing the newer images as well. I’d be curious to see if they have the same appeal as some of my earlier works. But in the end, I’m not sure how much that really matters. I think that as long as I continue to evolve as a photographer, what people think should not be my main concern.

March 28, 2017March 28, 2017

All Roads Lead to Sarasota

When it comes to taking photos, this is my favorite section of Sarasota. On the left is the fishing pier, which I’m standing on and on the right is the Ringling Bridge that leads to the center of town. I take so many pictures from here that I’m at risk of running out of views. Not this time because it’s a perspective I haven’t yet captured. It reminds me of the saying about Rome, only in this case all roads lead to Sarasota. That could be a metaphor for something else.

Daily Image

It’s silly but I have an ongoing fear that I’ll run out of things to take pictures of. Nothing could be further from reality because the possibilities are infinite. Yet each time I go out I feel that fear. Maybe it’s just part of the process, a propellant for creativity. I compartmentalize it so it doesn’t take control of me but it’s always there. I can acknowledge it without letting it change my agenda. It’s a reminder that art and creativity are tangible and as such there is resistance to succeeding.

I think about these things a lot. That’s because I take the time to write about my images. That in turn causes me to explore my thoughts, motivations and ideas around images. Any time you do that it invariably leads to these questions; what is art, where does it come from, where does it lead? And in the end the answer is always the same, all roads lead to self discovery.

Sarasota Images

So perhaps the new perspective that I found for this area can be an allegory for self awareness. That’s my two cents on the matter.

March 22, 2017March 22, 2017

Sunrise in Siesta Key

I took this last year during a sunrise in Siesta Key. I like wandering around and taking pictures here. The beaches are some of the best in the world. But this time I’m looking at bridges rather than beaches. This is one of two bridges to the mainland and I’m standing in a little park where tour boats pickup guests.

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Speaking of tour boats, I did a fishing tour last year not far from here. Normally people come back with bags of fish but I wasn’t so skilled. I’m not cut out for fishing, not patient enough. When I do fish I feel like I need to have a beer or two, it goes down hill from there. Nevertheless, thousands of fishermen around this part of Florida are very productive. They are just as serious about fishing as I am about photography. Perhaps I could offer to take their photo when they catch “the big one”.

Speaking of taking photos of fishermen, that’s exactly what I did later on this morning. A family of fishermen (or fisherpeople?) noticed me an asked if I could take their picture. Normally folks just hand me a cell phone but this time they asked if I’d do it with my own camera. So I did and ended up sending it to them later. They liked it so much they use it for their Facebook profile.

beach gallery

Speaking of Facebook, did you know you can follow me on Facebook? Go on over here and say hello: https://www.facebook.com/JustEnoughFocus . While you’re doing that I’m going to take a break from Facebook and go take more fisherman pictures.

Speaking of which….

March 14, 2017March 14, 2017

The New Bridge

Each time I travel to San Francisco I pass over the Bay Bridge. This new section was recently completed after a monumental construction project. Now they’ve started deconstructing the old one which sits adjacent to this. Finally after many months it’s getting so you can take a picture of the new bridge without it being crowded by the old one.

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I took this from Treasure Island which is halfway between San Francisco and Oakland. Fortunately it was calm that night so as to produce the colorful reflections on the water.

I take pictures of bridges because I find them fascinating and especially enjoy images at night. That’s because bridges form leading lines for our eyes to follow. They also have repeating elements to provide a sense of scale and direction. The link below is a collection of bridge pictures from places I’ve been.

bridges in the gallery

I grew up near San Francisco so I’ve been over the old bridge countless times. Maybe in a hundred years we’ll all fly drone cars and won’t need bridges. Until such time they’ll keep building new ones and i’ll keep taking pictures of them at night.