Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Winter trek, Part XVI:
Everything else, Ormond Beach

Aside from the 15-mile drive south to Ponce de Leon Inlet to tour the lighthouse and museum (covered in yesterday's post), we didn't venture out much for the two and a half days we were in Ormond Beach. Like our time in Key West, this was designed to be another period of chill time for us.

So the entire lot of "everything else" Ormond Beach consists of more beach shots ... and sunrises from the second full day and checkout day, Feb. 11 and 12.

Leading off the post is a shot from the second full day ... a study in how the sun and its rays affected the rippled sandbar from my vantage point ... with the full ocean and a couple of beachwalkers in the distance serving as secondary elements.

This is the last post in the series devoted to non-food stuff. The final post will be about our various choices and experiences while dining out on the trip.

As always, to view a larger and sharper version of an image, simply click on the image. This is particularly important if you access the blog using a mobile device. To view a gallery of shots taken on Feb. 11, click on the previous link. For photos taken on Feb. 12, click on this link.

Photo geek stuff: All of the images in this post were taken with a Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di PZD VC lens equipped with a B+W polarizing filter. Each composition was bracketed for three exposures to allow the possibility of treating some shots in Photomatix high-dynamic range (HD) software. Almost all of the shots in this post are single-frame images.

The shots above and next two below actually were from the fog day (Feb. 10). The two people above were seated the hotel's lounge/plaza/pool area fronting the beach. The game pieces you see in the photo below do not represent a macro-closeup of a traditional table top chess set. Those are people-size pieces on a board, also available in the lounge/plaza/pool area. And that's heavy fog you see behind the pool in the second photo below. 



Above: The idea for this composition -- human legs (and shadow) next to the seabird -- came to me just a few seconds before I tripped the shutter for it. I had to wait those couple seconds for the guy to reach the point he did before making it. 

Above and next three below: Back light spurred me to make these monochrome conversions. While on the beach, I used the tall pole you see in the photo above often to find (hopefully) interesting compositions.  




Above and next two below: My camera and I made another visit with beach-side fishermen, the one above (along with his reflection) with the tip of his rod just above an incoming wave. In the first photo below, the same gentleman chats with a woman who happened to walked by (it could have been someone with whom he was acquainted, for all I know), while the second shot below is a different man altogether. 



Above: A look at the residential and commercial buildup behind the beach. 

A congregation of seabirds and their reflections (above) were near where sand meets water. The color version of this (as opposed to going to a monochrome conversion) does justice to the shadowed area, I thought. I present the two below mainly because of change of bird species in the foreground. The pictures were taken close together and not far from each other on the beach. 




I've had less than average luck snagging dramatic wave shots in my sundry visits to beaches in my recent travels. But I like the ones above and next two below, which I caught on the same day, the late afternoon of Feb. 10 (aka fog day). In the second below, I was fortunate to get some additional elements -- frolicking waders, a low-flying seagull and the bird's reflection -- into the composition. 




The shots above and below represents efforts to capture sunrises on Feb. 11 and 12. The one on Feb. 11 (above and below) was the best as far as having few obstructions and getting natural color. The one on Feb. 12 (photos two and three below) had both clouds and haze, giving us three days of varying sunrise obfuscations. The last photo below has the sun completely behind a horizontal bar of clouds, but I liked the spattering of birds in flight.




Next (and last) up: Dining out on vacation

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