We saw some spectacular sun-painted sky tapestries -- both in colors and cloud patterns -- on several drives, from St. Augustine to the Florida Keys ... as well as on a couple sunsets later in the week. So I felt that I ought to dedicate a single
Photo Potpourri post to just that.
With the photo leading off the post, I start with several shots taken the night of Feb. 6 from the ocean overlook at Sunset Grille and Raw Bar in Marathon, a city that is just about at the halfway point between mainland Florida and Key West. We first visited Sunset Grille in January 2017 ... and I had loved the smoked prime rib, an offering on the eatery's special Tuesday-only barbecue menu. So we went back ... for the food (on a Tuesday), but also for the great view of the nightly sunset.
Now, about the photo at the top of this post ...
In February 2009, not long after I started
Photo Potpourri, I devoted a
post to French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the earliest known photojournalists and the shooter remembered for coining the phrase "the decisive moment" in photography. The "decisive moment" refers to the perfect timing of a shot that would be available only for a moment (often, a moving subject) and that also is spontaneous.
For example, you often have plenty of time to prepare for an "important moment" shot involving a sunset or sunrise -- because the sun's movement develops quite gradually (i.e., it is not spontaneous). You can plan for it -- i.e., you know it's coming well in advance, and there is time find an ideal spot and/or elevation, spotting landscape elements to integrate into the composition, etc.
But a "decisive moment" shot is spontaneous, something a photographer has very little time to prepare for. That's what happened in the photo leading off the post.
I had been standing along Sunset Grille's wall near the water shooting some sky and sunset pictures when I noticed, in my right peripheral vision, a fast-moving motor boat coming toward me. I pulled away from the camera to verify what I thought I had seen, confirmed it, then returned to the camera viewfinder to focus on the solar reflection on the water.
A second or two later the boat reached that point. Using no different settings than what I had been working with previously, I pressed the shutter when the boat reached the reflection, making three quick exposures in burst mode (the camera had already been in that mode from my three-exposure-bracketing of all my shots for possible processing in HDR). I knew I'd be happy if I could nail just one of them. I'd momentarily forgotten how beautiful the sky was with the clouds filtering the golden rays of the setting sun. Or even that there was a pretty symmetrical cloud pattern at all. Or that the iconic 7-Mile Bridge and bridge arch were in the far background.
The camera settings on my 6D for this exposure were f/8, 1/1000, ISO-200. The Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di VZD VC lens that I was using (equipped with a B+W polarizing filter) was set at 50 mm.
The photos that appear below probably don't require a whole lot of explanation ... but I will drop in comments anywhere I feel context might be helpful. Until noted otherwise, the first series of pictures were taken Feb. 6 during our aforementioned dinner visit to the Sunset Grille and Raw Bar in Marathon, which is located on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Keys. The restaurant pier that appears in some pictures is easily accessible from the outdoor dining area.
The highway you see on the right in these photos is U.S. 1, also known as the Overseas Highway, which spans the full Keys. The arched portion of the roadway that you notice in some pictures (beginning with the first one below) is iconic; it's near the unofficial start of the so-called 7-Mile Bridge -- a long section of roadway that doesn't hit any section of land.
To view a larger and sharper version of any image here, just click on the photo.
Photo geek stuff: All but two shots in this post were taken with my Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di PZD VC lens equipped with a B+W polarizing filter. I bracketed each composition for three exposures to allow for possible melding of those three frames into one in post-processing using Photomatix high-dynamic range (HDR) software. Most of the 6D images in this post are single-frame shots. Two of the shots were taken with my iPhone X. I've noted those under the pictures below.
Above: This is one of two photos in this post taken with my iPhone. The woman sitting on the pier with her dog will appear again -- in a closeup composition -- a few photos below.
Above and next two below: Post-sunset scenes of the Gulf of Mexico from our resort in Marathon shortly after we arrived on Feb. 4.
Above: Also an iPhone shot.
The shots you see above and below were taken Feb. 4 as we drove along U.S. 1 (the Overseas Highway), heading to Marathon in the Keys. Marathon is considered the halfway point between mainland Florida and Key West. The last shot below features a utility line juxtaposed atop the sun in the background.
Next up: Return to Key West
My approach started to turn around in mid-April 2012, the morning I got outside early and shot landscape scenes in a heavy mist above the still waters of Wasatch Lake in Owen County, Ind. I saw how wonderful of an element the mist added to my shots -- an "ah ha!" moment. I include an example from that shoot at right; the the mist lifts lazily above the water in the background of a shot of swans on the lake.
On Feb. 11, our first full day in Ormond Beach, Fla., we awoke shortly after 6 a.m. to a thick fog. We'd gotten a beach-side room overlooking the ocean, which I had been hoping to exploit for at least one good sunrise morning. But on that first morning, the combination of fog and my cob-webbed brain frustrated me when I tried to make sunrise pictures from our balcony.
