My Favorite Shots of the Year (April-June)
As time moved into the spring and early summer, the amount of pictures that I took definitely increased. With a trip to Florida, Indy 500 season, and generally better weather that made being outside more hospitable, my output was undoubtedly larger. With that being said, choosing a favorite image became a lot more difficult for this trimester. So, I've actually decided to choose two pictures that I'll call my co-favorites. Both shots are from my trip to Florida in April. The first is titled Creep, while the second is titled Bygone.
Creep (taken with a nikon z6 & nikon 200-500 mm f/5.6 @ 500 mm, 1/800 sec, f/5.6)
Anyone that has been to Florida (or any part of the Southeastern US) will understand that little lizards called anoles can be found almost everywhere. They will sunbathe on sidewalks, scamper along fence railings, scale the sides of buildings, and more. However, despite their prevalence, they are quite skittish. Get too close and they will dart away faster than you can follow. With them being so widespread, I had always wanted to get a good picture of one. But, they're quite small (less than 8 inches in length) and, as previously mentioned, skittish and unpredictable. So, I knew that a quality shot of one would require some forethought, prepartation, and luck. It just so happened that with enough patience, I would have all three.
When I visit Florida, I usually stay with my great aunt. She lives in a condo with a sizeable balcony, and I often see anoles skittering across it while reading or watching TV. I realized that the balcony would probably be my best chance to capture a picture of an anole because I could have my camera on standby. So, I went about relaxing on one of the days of our trip, but with my camera ready to go should I need it. By simple chance, one of the times that I turned my head to check the balcony, not one, but two anoles were out there. I grabbed my camera and slowly approached the sliding door to the balcony. Carefully and quietly, I pulled the sliding door and it silently glided along its track. I slipped out of the door as soon as it was wide enough, and shut it behind me. I squatted down, hefted up my camera, pointed it at the anoles, and quickly realized that the angle at which I was shooting looked terrible. I needed to get lower to the ground to be on eye level with my subject. As I reoriented myself, one of the anoles ran off. I prayed that the one remaining stayed put, and began shooting (now laying prone, with my stomach on the ground). Fortunately, it did, almost as if it was posing for me. And so, I captured the image that you see above. Without the story, it's hard to tell where the picture was taken due to the desaturation I did to it, but the object that you can see a little bit of in the top left is actually part of a flower pot on my great aunt's balcony.
I've never really done any true macro photography (taking pictures of things very close to show extreme detail), but I think that this picture is pretty close, and I'm quite proud of it. I've also been told that the pose I was shooting in looked a little humorous, but it paid off. I've found that to be a common experience in photography. Getting the angles right takes some flexibility, both figuratively and literally. You also have to be ok looking a little odd, but no one is ever laughing when they see the shots I get. Speaking of angles, let's talk about Bygone.
Bygone (taken with a nikon z6 & Sigma 12-24 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 12 mm, 1/1000 sec, f/11)
During our trip to Florida, we obviously had to make an outing to the beach. Our favorite beach near my great aunt's is a protected state park on its own island, so that's where we went. There is only one entrance onto the beach, but it's a decent distance away from the driftwood that makes the park famous. Being that I had my camera, I wanted to go photograph some of the driftwood. So, my brother and I took off walking down the beach. Over a mile of trudging through sand later, we found some of the driftwood. It was stunning (you can find one of my pictures of it on my prints website!). However, the allure of finding even more impressive driftwood pulled us down the beach, until, two miles further on, we reached the end of the island's beach.
We were in rolling dunes and ready to turn back, but my brother found an oddity that he wanted to show me. Rising from the windblown wasteland was the rusted piece of metal pictured above. It was big. Really big. The piece you can see above was almost as tall as me at its highest point, and it clearly went much further down into the sand. We thought that it might be a telephone pole, but how did it get into dunes on the edge of the Atlantic? Our best guess was that it was a boat trailer. Perhaps someone had driven their car onto the dunes to unload their boat and gotten stuck when high tide came in, requiring them to detach the trailer to escape. Truly, though, we'll never know, and that's what makes this shot so great in my opinion. The low angle creates a sense of size and awe for this subject for which no one knows its origin. During art fairs that I participated in this summer, no picture was as good of a conversation starter as this one. Everyone would ask me what it was, and I would tell them I didn't know. Everyone has their own theory. What's yours?
I'll be back next week with my favorite shot from July-September. If I thought choosing this week was hard, I took even more pictures during that trimester! You'll have to wait until then to see how I navigate that. Until next week!
