It’s a wild and windy weekend

Daytona’s annual Bike Week is upon us and as luck would have it the weather has turned very windy and grey. Thursday, the day before the official start, was beautiful. Temperatures were in the high 80’s and the sun was shining. Friday we plummeted about 20 degrees and the wind switched bringing us the cooler air from the North. For the visitors for this huge motorcycle event, this is not what they came down for. Most will have looked forward to some warmer temperatures after having endured months of colder weather up North. Mother nature has foiled us this time around. The prediction for the remainder of the week stays on the cooler side with changes of rain and wind in the forecast. That being said we probably won’t have too many images from this event to share. Instead we thought we’d share some from some of our recent trips along the beach. As you can see from the images below it was a foggy and windy day with off and on rain. Not the usual images you get to see from our Florida beaches. March is coming in like a lion and we hope it departs like a lamb 😉

Marks checking his camera

Pretty to look at but watch out for those thorns

Foggy day at the beach

Sea gull

Should I fly or just stay?

Gloomy Beach

Peninsula Beach

Joey and Mr. Seagull

Waves crashing onto Flagler Pier

Stormy seas

Peninsula Beach Path

Thistle flower

Should I risk it? A Pelican’s Tale

We encountered this lovely fellow on our walk yesterday through “Coastal Strand Trail”. He was standing on the small dock overlooking the river. It really looked like he was debating whether or not to go for a swim but stayed on the dock long enough for us to snap a few shots of him.

Pelly Pelican

Should I or shouldn’t I

The posted sign showed “Alligators No Swimming”. He wasn’t really sure whether we were the threat or the gators. This was a big decision for Pelly Pelican. What would he do next?

He wasn’t very graceful

Still looking but his wings showed the decision was made and he was going to go for it. Graceful he wasn’t. He tripped over the ledge and ended up doing a resounding belly flop into the water.

Have a nice “trip” Pelly

Have a nice “trip” Pelly Pelican. 

Salt Prints – an alternative process from the 1800’s

With the weather being up and down, one day cold and wet, the next warm and wet, we’ve been spending some time working in the darkroom on our “alternative process” prints. The salt print was the dominant paper-based photographic process for producing positive prints during the period from 1839 through approximately 1860. It was created by the British photographer William Henry Fox Talbot. On his first attempts paper coated with a silver nitrate solution and exposed to light only gave a faint metallic silver image. He later discovered that by first applying salt to the paper and then coating it with the silver nitrate solution he could get a much stronger image. This is pretty much the same way we create salt prints today. Here are a few from our darkroom.

Haw Creek Salt Print

Wood Burning Stove Salt Print

Bulow Woods Tree Salt Print

Hickory Nut Tree Roots Salt Print

Bulow Swamp Salt Print

Turkey Tail Fungi Salt Print

The softer antique look of these prints are a different look from our silver gelatins which had a clarity and uber sharpness to them. We hope you’ll like these. Let us know what you think.

Another day in “wild” Florida Bulow Woods

We went out this morning with every intention of getting some shots of our highly elusive deer and wild hog. The animals had other ideas or other plans, who knows. They definitely didn’t show. We sat for about an hour in one place with no luck whatsoever, not even an armadillo wanting to pose. However, when you’re out in a beautiful natural setting like Bulow Woods it’s never a wasted trip. Here are few from today’s outing, some in black and white and some in color. Some of us and some of the gorgeous wildness around us.

Bulow Woods Swamp

Bulow Woods Swamp

Marks getting the shot

Patiently waiting

Thank goodness for waterproof boots

Have a wonderful weekend.

Just a few from both of us from both Bulow woods and in and around the garden. Enjoy the weekend everyone 🙂 .

Kallitype – some more from our darkroom and Bulow Woods

Nature in monochrome. Bulow Woods with its gnarly roots tenuously holding onto life, deep dark swampy growth, and fallen trees providing nutrients for new growth. Winter provides some of the best opportunities for photography for us as the lack of foliage bares some of the marvels that shows off nature’s resilience to its best. 

We’ve had fun this week both in the woods photographing (sans mosquitoes – yay!) as well as in the darkroom. Hope you enjoy some of the latest fruits of our labor.

Happy weekend everyone.

 

 

Alternative Process – Kallitype

We spent yesterday in the darkroom working on both salt and kallitype prints. It has become very obvious to both of us that to produce a quality result it’s ultra important to have a good negative with considerably more contrast than would be acceptable for a silver gelatin print. These images were all shot with our Canon EOS Rebel 5Ti cameras. Both of us have decided that the kallitype prints are more the result we’re looking for but thought we’d share our latest results with you. The first two are kallitype prints which were gold toned with Nelson’s Gold Toner.

Bulow swamp Kallitype

 

These next two are salt prints which were also toned with Nelson’s Gold Toner.

Bulow Salt Print with woods nymph