skylum Archives - Page 11 of 27

April 11, 2019April 8, 2019

Remote Beach

At the tip of Longboat Key is a beach strewn with the remnants of past storms. It creates a surreal scene, and it’s a nice place to hang out.

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Remote Beach — A remote beach at the northern tip of Longboat Key in Florida

The beach is only accessible by hike so, it becomes a bohemian camp of sorts. You feel very much away from it all here. Each time I come, there are groups of people in temporary camps with hammocks hanging from the trees. Sometimes they are playing music or singing, like gypsy gatherings in a Patrick Rothfuss novel.

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.

Window Shopping

I like to walk by restaurants and see what the people are eating. It’s also fun to take a picture and freeze the moment so I can decide later if I want to go back.

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Window Shopping — Another night scene from South Beach in Miami

This is another South Beach night scene. I shoot in places where there are a lot of folks out at night. People are relaxed, and it shows when you catch them unaware. But if they see you, faces change in a blink.

Steam Clock

On the east side of Vancouver is an old steam clock. In the Steampunk universe, these things are commonplace.

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Everyone stands around and waits and, after about fifteen minutes or so it gives off steam. In the age Apple Watch, it’s fascinating to watch a relic mark the hours by vapor and gears.

Bridge Again

I take a lot of photos of this bridge; I should open a gallery and call it the Manatee Bridge gallery. With these types of scenes can you blame me?

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Bridge Again — Another image of the Manatee Avenue Bridge in Bradenton, Florida

What makes this so mesmerizing is the calm water of the intercoastal. When it’s like glass, it reflects everything and creates a dreamscape-like effect. That’s what I strive for but rarely achieve.

more bridges in the gallery

Anyway, if you go to my gallery and enter the keyword “ManateeAvenueBridge” in the search, you’ll get all the versions of this bridge I’ve taken over the years. In another five or ten years I’ll probably have quite the collection. Then they can rename the bridge after me. It will be called the Rick Bridge, or not.

April 4, 2019March 18, 2019

Streets of Nice

Here is another photo from Nice France. I took this as I walked around the streets above the harbor on a hot August morning.

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Streets of Nice — A small street in Nice, France

The hill above the harbor is steep, and I remember thinking to my self that I didn’t want to get too hot first thing in the morning. So I paced myself and took slow steps, trying to avoid exertion. That was a fool’s errand because I quickly became covered in sweat no matter how slow I walked. I ended up getting ice cream for breakfast to cool down. That’s just how I roll.

more bicycle images from the gallery

Nevertheless, I prefer to walk around these little streets as opposed to the more famous beaches of Nice. Beaches I have all around me in Florida, so when in Europe, I like unique places like this; even when covered in sweat and eating ice cream.

April 2, 2019March 18, 2019

Caboose View

In Skagway Alaska, we caught a sightseeing train from the sea up into White Pass. I took this just after we reversed directions to head back down.

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Caboose View — The view out the back of the White Pass Railroad in Skagway, Alaska

The whole trip I hung out between the cars where I could get pictures of the landscape. On the way up we were in the first car behind the engine. Then the train pulled into a siding and the locomotive connected to the other end and, as you can see, we were at the back.

Streets of Salerno

It was one of the hottest days of the year, and for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would carry a sweater.

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Streets of Salerno — A summer day in Salerno, Italy

Maybe the stores were air-conditioned in the shopping district of this Italian port city. In Florida, we freeze going to a movie in summer. You dress in shorts and flipflops but then need a jacket in the theater.

Beach Fog

The other day I went to the beach to watch the sunset, but the beach was covered in fog; time to execute Plan B.

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Plan B is to try and make lemonade out of lemons. This shot is one where a hole opened up in the sky just as some birds flew by. Photos like this in the fog have no shadows because the light is very even. I think photography in this type of soft light is more comfortable on the eyes when we look at it.

South Pointe

Shooting into the sun on an afternoon is not a great idea. But when it comes to experimenting, I’m full of not great ideas.

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South Pointe Afternoon — Afternoon scene at South Pointe Pier in Miami

In this image, I took about seven exposures to get a wide range of exposures. I then blended a few of them to make the final image. There are some cases, like this, where you need to think outside the box to create an image.

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I experiment quite a lot with my camera, and in a lot of cases, the experiment does not turn out well. But, more and more I’m able to imagine what the result should be in my head before I take the photos. Post processing is where the magic happens; it’s where the camera in my mind gets to work with the camera in my hand. In other words, it’s the creative process.