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Sunrise over the Manatee River

I took this sunrise over the Manatee River with a drone one morning. For years I wanted to take a helicopter so I could get a photo with this perspective, but now I just use the DJI. It’s a lot cheaper and I don’t have to hang out the door to get a shot.

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Sunrise over the Manatee River
Sunrise over the Manatee River as viewed from a small DJI MavicPro drone camera

The town of Bradenton is on the right and my home town of Palmetto is on the left. The traffic flows into Bradenton over the second bridge in the morning and the other way at night. The first bridge is the rail bridge to the Tropicana plant. In the old days the trains carried people, now it only carries oranges to the plant and juice in the other direction. If you buy a container of orange juice, chances are it crossed that bridge.

other images of this river

I was standing on a pier just off camera to the right. The drone was so high and far away from me I couldn’t actually see it with my eyes. But I could tell where it was through the live feed it was sending back. I always get a little nervous when it’s so far away, but nothing happened and I got the image I’ve been waiting so long for.

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An Afternoon Thunderstorm Dissipates over the Water

I took this from Palmetto Florida one evening last summer. There is a lot going on in the sky as an afternoon thunderstorm dissipates over the water. I needed a panorama to capture the expansiveness of the sky. It’s made up of ten photos in two rows so there is a lot more to see than I would get from an ordinary photo.

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An Afternoon Thunderstorm Dissipates over the Water
An Afternoon Thunderstorm Dissipates over the Water

This image is a good representation of what it’s like here in summer. You look one way and it looks dark and ominous, you look another way and it’s a nice sunset. That’s why I used a panorama, so we can see in both directions.

more panoramas in the gallery

But in reality, panoramas are the predecessors of 360 images. With your browser or a VR viewer you can look in any direction. I like still pictures because of the creativity I can put into them. VR is a different thing altogether but they each have their place. Maybe one day all photos will be VR, wouldn’t that be interesting?

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Supermoon

This is the supermoon rising under a bridge in my home town. At the time, I only knew it was a full moon, but when I showed up at the river and other photographers were there I realized it must be something special. Shortly thereafter supermoon photos were circulating on local and international news.

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Supermoon
Supermoon under a bridge over the Manatee River

What makes it a supermoon is that the full moon coincides with its closest approach to earth. It has an elliptical orbit so technically it is closer; however, I have a sneaking suspicion, the moon does not really appear bigger in the sky, we just think it does. That aside, if you ever see a full moon just above the horizon it appears quite big on account of a lens effect of our atmosphere.

more night photos

Each month I see it too late to take a photo and promise myself I’ll catch it next month. After about a year of doing that I finally remembered to get out and capture it. Actually, that’s a little lie, my wife reminded me. In truth if it wasn’t for her I would have missed this one also.

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Overhead Shot of Coquina Beach

Here is an overhead shot of Coquina Beach I took last summer. The camera is pointing west but the beach is diagonal. It’s something I never noticed from the ground. In this case I was standing about a mile up the beach recording video of the waves and stopped to shoot this still. I still think it’s strange that I can be taking photos remotely.

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Overhead Shot of Coquina Beach
Overhead shot of Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island, Florida

When I’m flying the drone, I don’t like to get too close to people. If I was going to the beach to relax I would not want to be irritated with the sound of a quadcopter buzzing overhead. When they first came out it was a novelty, but now with so many people flying them I think a little etiquette is in order.

In this case I’m flying high enough above the beach that the sound of the drone is not audible. And, the drone is so small that most people would never notice. This way I can fly up and down the shore line looking for compositions without disturbing anyone.

more beach photos

One other thing I’ve tried is flying a parallel path a hundred yards out over the water. With the overhead perspective I can see marine wildlife such as dolphins, manatees and sharks. That’s not unusual for this area, just part of the normal scenery from a drone.

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Daylight Savings

Here is another sunset from Lido Beach in Sarasota. I took this a few months ago around eight o’clock but now that it’s almost winter the sun goes down three hours earlier. If you ask me that’s a big change to adjust to. Part of it is due to the seasons but it’s also due to daylight savings that we have here in the US.

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Daylight Savings
Daylight Savings at Florida’s Ledo Beach

Why do we change our clocks twice a year? As far as I can tell it’s based on an outdated notion of efficiency. In this era of automation I think that daylight savings may have outlived its usefulness. One thing it succeeds at is confusing our bodies twice a year. Wouldn’t it be more natural to just stay in one time zone? Other countries do it without problems.

more sunset photos

If the sun set a little latter then we could enjoy longer afternoons. In Florida it would make a difference for folks who come down in winter to go to the beach. Anyway, I’m not the only one thinking about this, the idea is picking up traction. Maybe we can do away with daylight savings soon. Something tells me this might be one thing we can all agree on.

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Oasis in Plain Sight

One of the things I like most about Sarasota is their public spaces. This is a good example of that, an oasis in plain sight.

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Oasis in Plain Sight
Oasis in plain sight – Bayfront Park in Sarasota

I took this in the middle of summer when we get amazing clouds. I don’t normally take pictures of city parks but this one is situated right on the inter-coastal waterway so I couldn’t resist.

Every time I drive by this park seems empty. I’m not sure if people just aren’t aware of it or what, but it’s the perfect spot. Just stop the car, walk over to the water and sit on a bench. As far as parks go this is one of the prettiest in the area.

more Sarasota photos

This is an HDR image; I took three photos with different exposures and combined them in AuroraHDR. It makes it possible the show the whole range of light when there are extreme ranges like this. It’s hard to take an image like this any other way.

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Calm Before the Storm

I took this a couple years back on Sanibel Causeway, which connects the mainland to the small island of Sanibel. We have a lot of causeways and bridges in Florida because there are so many islands. When I first moved to Florida the unbelievable number of bridges was one of my first impressions.

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Sanibel Causeway
Calm Before the Storm on Sanibel Causeway

Wherever there is a causeway you’ll find people standing at the waters edge with a fishing poll. In many ways this is a typical scene when driving around either coast.

The setting sun illuminated a large column behind the fisherman. I walked around and took a bunch of photos but within thirty minutes it had moved our way and we were covered in dark clouds. As I jumped in the car it started to rain and within a few minutes there was thunder, lighting and zero visibility. That’s a fairly common occurrence during the hot months.

more cloudscapes

This image continues a theme of simplification. I removed a lot of distractions to create an impression of the scene from that afternoon. In effect, this is the calm before the storm.

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Sunrise from the Fort Hammer Bridge

This is a sunrise from the Fort Hammer Bridge in the town of Parrish, Florida. The western part of the county is all beaches along the Gulf of Mexico, but the eastern part is all farmland and natural surroundings. I took this while standing on the new bridge that opened just last week.

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Sunrise from the Fort Hammer Bridge
Sunrise from the Fort Hammer Bridge in Parrish Florida

If you look carefully you can see smoke rising from a fire in the horizon. It’s brush being cleared for another development. The inland communities of Florida are growing and new home construction is continuing out where only farms existed. It makes you wonder where all the farms will be in the future.

This view is of the preserve below the bridge that is protected and, a sanctuary for wildlife and migrating birds. It’s also a place to kayak and row, the local rowing club is just behind my vantage point.

more from my county

I came here because the bridge is new and I’ve waited a long time to take this picture. Now that construction is complete I am finally able to get this eastern view from the Fort Hammer Bridge.

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This Spot at Bradenton Beach

I take so many photos from this spot at Bradenton Beach they may as well name the pier after me (no, not really).

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This Spot at Bradenton Beach
This Spot at Bradenton Beach

Piers make great leading lines and they always attract people. So if you’re a photographer and you sit near one long enough you’ll see all kinds of things to take pictures of. And, by the way, this pier and several others nearby were recently built to replace old piers destroyed in storms. I’m happy to say that after a recent hurricane the new ones had no damage at all. Yay!

This spot is popular with surfers and sometimes they use the pier to launch. When I took this, another offshore storm was creating waves, which in turn brought out the surfers and photographers including yours truly.

more images of piers

The pier is made of massive concrete blocks attached to pilings. It took about a year to construct and I remember wishing it would be finished. The day finally came and now they’re magnets for everything from surfers to seabirds, not to mention photo guys like me.

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Panorama of Anna Maria

This is a panorama of Anna Maria Island taken with a drone the other day. To get this I took seventeen images and re-combined them in post-production. It’s not as difficult as it sounds but the results can be stunning. This is a perspective I’ve never seen; I come here all the time but like everyone else I see it from the ground.

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Panorama of Anna Maria
Panorama of Anna Maria Island from the air

I like to think that I’m not afraid of heights, but when I fly the drone and look at the live view on my iPhone I get a little queasy. It’s a form of virtual reality, almost as if I’m in two places at once, simultaneously on the ground and in the air. From the air I look straight down and think to myself, it’s a long way down.

Phobias aside, the island is very low-key as compared to other places in Florida, it reminds me of Hawaii. The beaches are almost always filled, yet there are no flashy or tall buildings, just relaxed places to hang out and chill. I recall that in certain parts of Hawaii the building codes don’t allow for anything taller than a palm tree, I think it’s the same idea here.

more from anna maria island

The only way you’ll ever see this view for yourself is if you take a parasailing ride up and down the beach; or, if you happen to have a drone and can virtually fly with your feet still on the ground. In either case, it’s a long way down.