It occurred to me, as I was heading to Florida a couple weeks ago, that there was something I could take pictures of that’s much easier there than here.
Clouds.
Yup, we don’t have that many of them that often here on the Left Coast. But in Florida they’re abundant—profuse, even—almost every day. And on the photo forays I had while my daughter Rebecca was studying, I had no trouble bringing them into focus.
The first place I headed was a seaside strip mall south of Clearwater Beach, a place called Sand Key. It sits on the west side of what’s known as the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, which meant that I’d have an unobstructed view of the eastern shore of the waterway. That’s where the clouds happened to be hanging.
Downtown Clearwater, with the bridge that goes to Clearwater Beach, was a long stone’s throw to the north, and it, too, had a pretty impressive cumulonimbus build-up. I’d been reading and watching tutorials for the last several months about exposure and editing techniques to bring out the best in clouds.
I also wanted to try my hand at depth-of-field maneuvers, and ways to create interplay between the foreground and the background.
The far shore has Morton Plant Hospital (the cluster of large, white buildings) and some very expensive water-front property in the cities of Belleair, Belleair Bluffs, and Largo.
And wherever I moved along the boardwalk, I was followed by this guy.
But then, it’s every bit as much his cloud as it is mine, isn’t it?
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These are great!