These two images were made on film that expired in 2001.  I was hoping to use it to experiment with long exposure, but the scene didn't lend itself to that procedure.  Instead, I used it to be sure the camera I was using was doing what it is supposed to do...it was.  What you cannot see here are the manatees who were swimming near the pier, and sounding ever few minutes with their loud exhalations.  You also cannot hear the guy who was not far away playing his Uilllean Pipes...a wonderful bagpipe sound that's more gentle than the Great Highland Bagpipe.  (Film)

Update.  It seems that Uillean pipes are usually played sitting down, so it must have been something different as the piper was standing.  I discovered that there are 16 varieties of bagpipes in the UK and Ireland alone and about 3 times that many in other countries.  Whichever kind it was, it was very nice to hear. 

I have begun to experiment with neutral density filters to learn how to make long exposure photographs.  I don't know what's involved with digital cameras and this technique, but with film it's mostly a lot of careful calculation and consultation with reciprocity failure graphs.  (RF is the falloff of film's sensitivity with extended exposure that is compensated for with still longer exposure which  has to be fairly precise.)   To do this, I'm using my oldest medium format camera, a Mamiya C220.  The reason is that it uses no battery, so exposure can last as long as necessary.  This photograph was only a one second exposure, but I used a fast film (ISO 400) so couldn't extend the time given the brightness of the scene.  I'm learning.  More to come!  (Film, of course!)

It rained the day before I made these photographs, but the sky remained sullen.  The ocean was also in a terrible mood hurling itself on the beach in a tantrum.  Not to be upstaged, the wind whipped water into froth and sand into stinging splatter. I kept forgetting to turn my peaked cap around when facing the wind so off it would go. I quickly developed Medusa hair chasing it.  It's also true that eyeglasses and camera lenses are inclined to attract vapor (thankfully, the camera ones have clear, protective filters). With all the cap chasing and glass cleaning, it's a wonder I had a moment to make a photograph.

The air was on the cusp of feeling cool, and on such a day at this particular state park, I was reminded of Cape Cod. It's the Atlantic Ocean's seashore in both places, and the dunes and flora are not too distant in character. In Florida, though, if I fail to dodge an aggressive wave, my toes don't suffer frostbite.  (Film)

It's rare that I turn my camera on its side for a portrait view, but every now and then it seems to be a good idea.  I took this photograph a while ago, and only found it interesting enough to work with  today.  So, I'm posting it months after the fact.  But, if I said it had been taken today, it would be nearly impossible to prove otherwise! lol   (Film)

I always try to develop film on the same day I expose it, but sometimes I don't finish the roll then.  When I do, it often holds pictures made in another place at a later time..  This photograph was taken on September 14th, but developed yesterday.   It's a view from a bluff at Big Talbot Island SP that used to have a wooden stairway to the beach below.  But, the storms that caused the scores of trees on the beach to fall also destroyed the stairway.  Now, people walk around a fence intended to keep them back from the edge and clamber down a steep embankment.  I did walk around the fence, but did not descend to the beach.  (Film)

There is a beautiful area on the coast that's new to me, Hanna Park.  It's fee based (as are all the SPs in this area I think), but it's worth it.  There are 20 miles of trails to hike or mountain bike though that mileage is achieved by a lot of switchbacking loops.  It's also right beside Mayport Naval Base that is home to aircraft carrier sized ships and a Naval Air Station.  Had I turned my camera 90 degrees to the left, the ocean view would have included a warship heading out to sea.  I'll be back for more as soon as the weather becomes less rainy.  (Film)

As I've mentioned before, this is a blog where photographs are posted more or less when they are made.  A web site is where only carefully curated work should be on view.  The point is that I may post photographs here of the same subjects that will be different, but not necessarily better.  It's a kind of visual journal that will be wearing a tuxedo one day, and a tee shirt the next.

Relying on clouds to make a pictures sing is pretty safe, but not very adventurous.  Here are two from Pumpkin Point that don't have clouds.  Maybe at another time, the water will be dead calm and clouds will be reflected in it, but that was not the case for these two.  Still, I like them for other reasons.(Film)

Other than the ocean beaches, the most fertile places for photographs around here are the tidal salt marshes to the north of where I live.  These two photographs were taken two weeks apart as of yesterday, Sunday, September 13th.  The top one is from the boat launch area at Cedar Creek Preserve which I've posted scenes from earlier.  The lower one is from a brand new boardwalk at Big Talbot Island SP.  What would we do here without those marvelous clouds!   (Film)

In 2001, I was spending a lot of time in NYC living with a woman friend.  On the Saturday following that horrific Tuesday, September 11th, we walked downtown into an area by the 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue and 25th Street.  The walls were covered with messages, the sidewalk with candles and flowers everywhere.  I look at the pictures I took there every year.  They get to me as deeply now as they did when all this happened.  Here is one I've posted before.  There are several others I posted in 2011 if you want to scroll back to that year.  (Film)

The last two posts here have felt a little strange as they have emerged as a kind of time capsule...photographs from New York taken years ago.  This, photograph, however is once again from a nearby marsh; Dutton Island Preserve taken a few weeks ago.  I think I will have my darkroom ready to use in a few weeks to a month, and I'm really eager to print this series of tidal salt marsh images as well as a large backlog of photographs I've made since moving here.  Can't wait!  (Film)

I continue to find rolls of exposed film that have been stowed away in boxes I'm now unpacking,  Stupidly, I hadn't written anything on the paper that wraps the film, so I had no idea what I would find when developed.  I souped two such rolls last night, and still couldn't figure out when or where they were taken as I looked at them.  One roll was truly bizarre in a way that made me doubt I had anything to do with what was on it...strange patterns and shapes I didn't recognize at all.  But, the other roll was vaguely familiar and the two images below were the best of the ten.  (Film)

We've lived in Florida for the past two years.  Only now have I been unpacking boxes to clear the room that will be wet darkroom in a month or so.  In one jumbled pile of stuff that must have been dumped from a drawer, I found a roll of exposed film that was unlabeled, so I developed it last night.  Below, is one of the four images it held.  I think I remember where I took this, and I remember it fondly...a little park a few miles from my NY home that was a memorial to a departed child.  Odd to be posting 'ice' in early September here with a predicted high of 90 degrees.  (Film)