Boats Archives - Page 4 of 4 - Just Enough Focus

October 7, 2016October 7, 2016

Sarasota Bay Mooring Field

This is the Sarasota Bay Mooring Field. If your anything like me you can be forgiven for not knowing there was a such thing as a mooring field. I just thought it was a bunch of sailboats docked in the bay. Well, well well, …not so. This is a reservation only mooring by the day, week or longer. I took this photo last weekend. Its is a three image panoramic view by the way, but…, I digress.

Daily Photo

After processing this image I went to Google Earth to look at it from the sky (so to speak). And much to my surprise this jumble of boats were actually lined up in neat little rows. That got me wondering and then I found they have a web site. And all this time I just thought it was just a random collection of boats.

sarasota gallery

As I stood at the waters edge I could here people talking and music playing music. In a way it’s no different then a campsite on water. There is a little beach where they can park their rowboats and go ashore to get supplies. Not far from here are all kinds of nice restaurants and even a Whole Foods market. With so much choice it seems like a very nice form of camping.

Now that I know all this is I feel smarter. All this time I was in the dark. People have been camping and having fun all this time and I thought you had to go to the mountains to camp. All it takes is a sailboat, a rowboat, a reservation at the mooring field and a bag of marshmallows.

August 30, 2016

Riverhouse Reef and Grill

That building on the left is the Riverhouse Reef and Grill. I live near a crossroads of sorts, it’s a main thoroughfare between the two towns of Palmetto and Bradenton. As it happens the thoroughfare is really a couple of bridges over a river, and on each side of the river are marinas, parks and restaurants. All in all it’s a pretty nice place to explore and you don’t have to go too far to find a good waterfront restaurant.

Sometimes we’ll come to this place in Palmetto, other times we’ll go directly across the river to Pier 22 in Bradenton. We sit outside, why sit indoors when the weather is so good? Its rare that we go to an indoor restaurant with so many options. I’m not fanatical about eating outside but it’s rare we go out and eat indoors.

florida gallery

I took this shot at dusk from a concrete pier that used to be the main bridge between the two towns. Someone recently told me that the main bridge was destroyed in a hurricane back in the sixties and so now it’s just a fishing pier. It’s a nice place to walk at dusk and sunset, especially after eating too much at the Riverhouse Reef and Grill.

August 7, 2016August 7, 2016

Sunset Over the Twin Dolphins Marina in Bradenton Florida

This is sunset over the Twin Dolphins Marina in Bradenton Florida. I took this the other night from a bridge that crosses the Manatee River into Bradenton. The river meets the Gulf of Mexico just a few miles beyond and in it’s waters are dolphins, manatees and all manner of fish. At this point it’s not a river in the traditional sense, more an estuary where the water flows in and out with the tide.

The bridge overlooks the Twin Dolphins Marina where folks have pleasure boats. However a number of people live here on their boats full time. There is a restaurant straight ahead called Pier 22 that we frequent on account of the outdoor patio and food which is very good.

Manatee County Gallery

This is one of those places that I pass when running errands in Bradenton. When I’m driving the bridge I don’t get a chance to enjoy the view so much. But today I parked my car and walked across the bridge at sunset. Not surprising, there were a lot of other people walking across for exercise the scenery. Sometimes it pays to just take it slow and enjoy the sights in my own backyard.

August 2, 2016August 2, 2016

Safely Docked

I was in Alaska at the peak of cruise season which means you can get a look up close of these massive ships. And as big as they are they’re still about half the size the ships in the Caribbean, but I digress. This was in Skagway and I took this as I walked back to my ship which was behind this one. I believe this is a Princess ship but I didn’t make a note of it at the time.

I am still amazed at how big these ships are and how they operate. The elements can be unforgiving and the crews that sail them must be the best.

This year there was a YouTube of the wind pushing a ship into the dock and causing some damage in Ketchikan. When I was there a few weeks later I inquired about it because I saw no damage. The dock was already fixed, and there were no signs of the incident. It turns it was pilot, not he ships captain, at the helm that day and thanks to his quick thinking he avoided what would have been much greater damage. These pilots are retired ferry captains that know the waters like the backs of their hands. This pilot in particular decided it was better to take out the dock than hit one of the other ships. As it was explained to me, he is considered a hero for what he avoided rather than what was destroyed.

more clouds in the gallery

After hearing the story I had a whole new level of respect for the men and women that sail the Alaskan waters.

July 15, 2016July 15, 2016

Idea in My Mind

Last Saturday I walked around Vancouver in the evening. As the sun was low it cast a glow on the towers of Coal Harbour and reflected in the harbour. I’d been thinking of walking over to the west end to get more of a sunset photo but am glad I stayed on this side. When taking photos, I think it’s best to have an idea and then be flexible. You never know which way the wind blows.

I have this idea in my mind about photography. It goes like this: the best photography is not from a place but a state of mind. Here’s what I mean, iconic locations don’t make a photo, being observant regardless of where you are does. I’m beginning to think magic happens everywhere, not just in Iceland. No offense to Iceland, you’re still on my bucket list.

more Vancouver from the gallery

I travel a little; I was traveling when I took this. And I like iconic scenes as much as the next person. I’ll be there snapping away with everyone else at the Eiffel Tower. But I think the more I pay attention to light, shadow and placement in my own front yard, the more I see. Its fun to travel for photography, but not necessary. Anyway, that’s my latest theory, and since I spend a lot of time at home, I’m putting to the test.

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.

January 4, 2016January 4, 2016

Entering The Port

This weekend I was in Fort Lauderdale where I captured this ship entering the Port of the Everglades. This was just one of a half dozen or so I watched from the beach in the predawn hours. My hotel faced the Atlantic so that I could see the ships all lined up single file as they waited to enter the port. The preceding evening it was the reverse with the ships streaming out in the opposite direction.

I walked down to the very end of the beach along the jetty at the entry to the port. Standing there the ships pass so close I could probably hit them with a beach ball. It’s a strange feeling standing there as a tremendous amount of mass passes only meters away. It overloads my simple mind. I’ll bet the people in those apartment buildings have quite the show each day.

The orange light coming over the apartment buildings is the light from the port bouncing off of the clouds we had Sunday morning. The whole scene was surreal and totally unexpected. I love little surprises like that, especially when I’m out with my camera. It’s been said that photography is fifty percent just getting out and putting yourself in a place where something might happen. Sometimes it works out and of course I get really excited when it does, kind of like hitting a great golf shot. This image for me is a three hundred yard tee-shot straight down the middle of the fairway. I better stop now before I start mixing my metaphors.