Good Morning

Mashes Sands

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All of these images were taken handheld with a Canon 60mm macro and a Canon 7d body. The on-camera flash was used for the katydid photos.

Sweetgum leaf


Magnolia and cycad leaves


Note the two red ?mites? on the side of this kaytidid.


A third ?mite? is visible between the kaytidid's antennae in the next two photos.

Salt Marsh at Skipper Creek on Saturday Morning

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Walk In Cascade Lake

Last week while in Tallahassee I walked for several hours taking photos around the noon hour on a bright sunny day in Cascade Lake. The lake is west of the intersection of Capital Circle and Orange Avenue West. The lake has drained again through several large sink holes. For more information go to http://www.mcglynnlabs.com/LakeBradfordHiawathaandCascade.pdf

The view of the tall cypress trees in the dry lake bottom is amazing ... the waterline on the trees in the second photo is over 8 feet above the dry white sand of the lake bed!

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Aucilla River

Photos on Saturday from a canoe on a you-can't-there-from-here portion of the Aucilla River.

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Walk from Otter to Alligator

These images are from a walk on Monday with David Moynahan in the St. Marks Refuge, from north of Otter Lake toward Alligator Lake. Gates in the Panacea unit of the Refuge are unlocked at this time to provide vehicle access for freshwater fishing. The walk was along a ditch dug years ago by slaves of a private land owner to drain Alligator Lake in an attempt to grow crops. The understory vegetation is open under ancient live oaks, with periodic sinks/ponds along the ditch. We encountered two snakes, a rattlesnake and an oak snake. What I fine morning!

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Azalias

Trudy and I won an azalia from Native Nurseries as a door prize at a Sierra Club meeting about 15 years ago. We planted it near our home and it has thrived, gracing us with bright orange flowers each spring. This azalia is Florida's native flame azalia (Rhododendrum austrinum) that has been hybridized to make it more cold hardy.

I spent considerable time with the photos below ... I wanted the flowers as my eyes see them, with flowers in focus and the background a pleasant blur. All were taken with a 60mm macro lens shot wide open to achieve an extremely narrow depth of field. The first two images are composites by Photoshop CS4 of multiple photos manually focused on individual flower parts to get more of the flowers in focus. The third image is a single photo.

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