islandpark Archives - Just Enough Focus

May 1, 2019May 1, 2019

Park Scene

On a typical evening at Bayfront Park in Sarasota, people are walking along a scenic path or merely sitting on a bench. Given the view, can’t say that I blame them.

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Sometimes I come here to take sunset photos; other times I prefer to take pictures of people watching the sunset. I’m not sure which I like more, it depends on my mood I suppose.

more monochrome from the gallery

This is street photography, even though it’s in a park. The idea is to freeze a moment in time to preserve the essence of movement, place, and people. Street scenes are studies; they take something fluid and solidify to be examined in detail later. In scenes like this, I see things that were not apparent at the time. I think there is value in that, like maybe an appreciation for the multitude and beauty of things unnoticed.

April 10, 2019April 8, 2019

Park Bench

Bayfront Park in Sarasota has benches along a winding path. A good time to come is the evening to watch the sunset by the water.

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Park Bench — A scene from Bayfront Park in Sarasota, Florida

One side faces the city, the other Sarasota Bay. There are yachts docked, so it’s also a residence of sorts for folks that live on their vessels. That sounds like a fun lifestyle.

Sarasota Reflections

When there is no breeze, the water on Sarasota Bay turns to glass. I was fortunate enough to show up one night two years ago when the conditions were just right.

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Sarasota Reflections — Apartment buildings overlook Sarasota Bay, as seen from Island Park.

Everyone likes the views from Island Park which is why folks come here to walk and take photos. I’m particularly fond of the perspective it provides for nighttime cityscapes across the water.

Midday Walk

Like its name suggests, Bayfront Park in Sarasota has a good view. It’s small enough to walk around on your lunch break and still make your one o’clock.

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Midday Walk — A midday walk in Sarasota’s in Bayfront Park

But if you’re like a lot of people here, the days of the one o’clock meetings are long gone. You are in retirement with time to go fishing, walk in the park, or whatever in heck it is that you do.

Lights Reflecting in Sarasota Bay

Lights reflecting in Sarasota Bay on a recent evening. I’ve taken similar images but of course each one is a little different. This is a long exposure panorama of three separate images; the exposure is about ten-seconds and it makes the water look smooth. Panoramas over the water work well only if the water is smooth. Otherwise there are noticeable lines where the wave patterns are stitched together. That’s because the waves from each picture are in different positions and don’t match when combined. A little tip for the day.

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I’m addicted to long exposure photography, I love how it transforms a scene, making it seem almost serene. I’m also addicted to night or low light photography, I like how the mood shifts when the bright light of day fades. When I get to combine the two I’m in my happy place. It’s a lot of fun and I never quite know what I’ll end up with. The main thing is to keep experimenting and, of course, having fun.

panoramas from the gallery

Anyway, now that the weather here in Florida is finally cooling a bit from the long hot summer, an evening outdoors can be refreshing. A cool dry breeze is something I haven’t felt around here in about six months, so now that thats starting I think its time to get out and enjoy the weather. Not that I need an excuse but for me that means doing more long exposure panoramas. Stay tuned, more images to come.

March 27, 2016

By the Numbers

My eye is always in the sky whenever I’m outside. I suppose that’s a side effect of being a landscape photographer. It’s my opinion that clouds are fifty percent of what makes an image interesting. That’s a generalization and there are exceptions to every rule, but ninety percent of the time, clouds are fifty percent of the picture; photography by the numbers.

More cloudscapes from the gallery

Of course I’m being a little facetious, art cannot be divided and multiplied. At least I don’t think so. But I think art gives inspiration to ideas like mathematical theories. It’s a side effect of how we work. We look at something abstract and try to make sense of it. We look at clouds and each see something different. I think abstractions give our subconscious an opportunity to communicate with our conscious selfs, only we don’t realize it so we call it “sub-conscious”, one of life’s little ironies.

Back to the math. In photography we have something called the rule of thirds. Dividing the subjects on boundaries of one-third makes and image more interesting, so they say. Some of my images, like this, are a little more extreme. I’ll call it my rule of tenths. One-tenth of stuff on the bottom and nine-tenths of abstract at the top. That way, my sub-conscious has more room. It’s just a theory mind you, but you never know, I could be on to something.

February 24, 2016February 24, 2016

Midday in Sarasota

I took this at midday in Sarasota while driving around last weekend. For me this is more of a daydream than a real picture. I daydream when I drive sometimes. Some things are so automatic that they get relegated to the autopilot side of the brain while the other side goes in a different direction. I’m headed that way right now.

When I look at a scene I look for an impression. We’re each so different no two impressions are the same. For some reason this takes me back to when I was about five years old and our family went on a road trip to San Jose. I remember the hotel and that it had a pool. I have no idea why this reminds me of that, it’s not logical. The blur in this image represents my faded memories of my five-year-old self; looking through a glass darkly.

Isn’t it a paradox that some people revert to their childhood memories as they grow older. I think something gets inverted. Maybe memory is like a fabric we can fold in or out and expose different surfaces. Not that I have a clue, but I think it’s a little different then I might think. Anyway, this has been a little trip down memory lane. Time to stop the daydream and drive.