Ginnie Springs

I was invited to go to Ginnie Springs on Saturday with some friends. We bought some rafts to float on the river since we found some for almost the same price as the rentals. The hour long drive or so was great. As soon as we pay for the day pass and park the cars, the sky opened up. The rain wasn't the big problem seeing as we were going to be in the water but it was lightning as well. We made our way to the river with the rafts and tubes but I didn't want to go in the water with it lightning although everyone else went.

I was a little disappointed and so was Holly but what were we to do. We were waiting the lightning out but it didn't stop and she was getting cold so we went back to the car to warm up. The rest of the group arrived and we went to a shelter gazebo type thing where they had a small grill to make burgers. There was a spring/cave entrance a few feet away. At this point the lightning had stopped so we decided to go in. One of the cave entrances was there and it was quite scary. I was in chest deep water and a 3 feet away was a 30 foot drop into a labyrinth of underwater caves.

The water was so cold I could barely hold myself afloat so I went to get the rafts. We all floated down the river for a while and someone decided not to go too much further and got out of the river at a campsite. It was a little tough getting out there but cool. The long, barefoot walk back to our site hurt my baby skinned feet but I made it.

Despite the bad start with the weather, we had a great time. Of course I got most of it on video. Check it out below.

Ginnie Springs (GoPro)

Fort Caroline

If you read my last post from a few weeks ago, I rode out to Fort Caroline to get some photos but it was closed. This weekend, I wanted to go during open hours and see it. Unfortunately, there wasn't much there.

It was raining when we wanted to go but we waited a few and went after it stopped about 30 minutes before closing. We walked the trail to the fort and came across this hole in the tree. I had a photo of Jake, the dog, peeking in there but I formatted my card and lost it.

Arriving at the fort itself, which isn't a fort, there is a cool entrance. If you don't know the story, the fort is believed to be in the area but remains have never been found. They've built this kind of replica in it's place. It really isn't great.

Jake was off the leash and ran around. He was quite excited and was jumping over the short walls. In this image I called him to run towards me to get some action shots.

As we were leaving the small fort replica area, Jake slowed down near the archway and Holly had him stay there to model. He's a photogenic dog.

Jake stepped into the fake, small moat they had and the mud was a little deeper than he expected. He almost needed assistance getting out.

Even though it was forbidden to go beyond the rocks, Jake needed to get clean so we went over to the water.

When we were on the shore we found a sea of crabs. It looked like Indiana Jones with all the crabs scattering beneath your feet. These guys with the one large claw were dancing. They would raise their claws apparently to attract a mate or show dominance but it looked like they were all in a Zumba class.

This is a different crab. Not quite as cool as the big claw guys and much more mobile. I guess they're cool the way they move sideways. This and the previous were taken with the Sigma 50-200 at 200mm f5.6.

Holly wanted to try her hand at some photos so she asked me to change back to the Sigma 17-50 f2.8. It focuses a lot closer than the other. She got up close and personal and waited patiently for some shots. This guy was so bright red.

This image had a lot of detail so I decided to crop it heavily. It's good enough for web at least. I wouldn't print this one too large because of the heavy crop.

Holly took this because she likes to look in photos and find stuff. How many crabs can you spot?

Holly picked up this tiny crab. It was difficult to shoot because it was moving so quickly. This was also heavily cropped.

I shot this before leaving the shore line.


I shot a few more which you can see at the Flickr site: Fort Caroline Set

Photo Ride

You've heard of a photo walk, I'm sure. It's where you walk around specifically looking to make photographs. Well, whether it's a thing or not, I did a photo ride on Sunday. I tossed a bike lock into my Lowepro Photo Hatchback 16L backpack and went on a ride to find some photos. I wanted to go to a park near my house but it was closed after 5pm.

I left about 2 hrs prior to sunset to scout locations for golden hour. I rode out to the closed park and started riding back to this location that I thought looked cool. I exposed for the sky which left the field and foreground posts dark but I was able to correct the RAW file. I didn't have a graduated filter and didn't use any fill flash.

Once I was done with first photo, I was about to leave and realized I should turn around and get the other side with the sun shining instead of the backlit version. So I whipped the camera back out and shot this one. I was working the colors and got the sky a little more purple/magenta to change it up a bit.

They say to make a great photo you should get closer to your subject so I got close to the posts acting as a fence to the power grid. The color version didn't look to special so I made this sepia-ish.

On my way home, I noticed a shopping cart thrown into a small retention pond. There usually isn't much water in there but today there was and it had a cool reflection from certain angles. It's also kind of sad looking. Again I went with the sepia tones since the color wasn't spectacular.

Here's another angle of the shopping cart. This one is straight black and white. The sepia wasn't working for me. Again it has a nice reflection and looks sad. I bet it was some kids that threw this in the pond. There is a grocery store just across the street.

I'm going to be doing this again. I'd like to go to the park before it closes. Too bad I can't get in (legally) during golden hours.

All the pictures from this set are included in this post but as usual, if you're like to check them out on Flickr, go there: Photo Ride