Photo Gallery: London in late 1980s

Karl and I lived in the Republic of Ireland for three years in the 1980s. As mentioned before, Karl bought me my first professional camera for my birthday the first year there, and started me on my sometimes career. That Nikon FE went everywhere with me, with its manual controls and film canisters.

London weekends became one of our favorite short get-aways. During a cool, rainy day on one of those trips, I took this shot in Hyde Park. Remember, this was transparency film, slides, and Karl scanned this a few years ago as we realized that the slides wouldn't last forever.

The chestnut vendor stood with his lit cigarette, hardly noticing the light rain. As I look at this shot now, I realize that I should have shot from a higher angle, so his inclined head stood out against the grass background rather than the street. Since street photography means not posed, and that angle might have alerted him to my camera, it likely would not have worked at all had I tried it. This remains one of my favorite shots of London as it was in the 1980s.

Florida: Weeki Wachee Mermaids

The small theatre with seats arranged in a semi-circle could be anywhere. Then, the curtain goes up on the outside of what appears to be a giant glass aquarium, and just inside the glass a wall of bubbles takes the place of the curtain. As it clears, mermaids swim and dive in a beautifully synchronized show, in this case, “The Little Mermaid”. Often fish and turtles swim by, reminding you that this is an actual outdoor spring, not a staged set. Since 1947 and continuing to this day the mermaids of Weeki Wachee entertain tourists and locals. Today’s mermaids wear a tail, unlike the originals. Before the mouse became synonymous with tourism in Florida, the natural springs attracted people from all over the country, and people with vision transformed springs into tourist attractions. Those springs attractions, usually privately owned, gradually went out of business, their imperfect natural world unable to complete with a fantasy destination. Recently a new generation of visitors, looking for something different and perhaps even authentic, started visiting the springs again for birding, nature walks, diving, swimming, and entertainment. Florida is big enough to support both types of tourist attractions.

 We visited Weeki Wachee, now a Florida State Park, in mid January in preparation for our February book club meeting. Weeki Wachee Mermaids, Thirty Years of Underwater Photography by Lu Vickers and Bonnie Georgiadis was our selection for the month, and Bonnie herself often attended the book club discussions. She is a wealth of information on historic Florida, and for many years was a part of it as one of the mermaids of Weeki Wachee, then later choreographing some of the shows. We all loved the book, and all the extra tidbits told by her and her sisters. The book jacket shows a woman floating in the water, not a mermaid! Several of those in the group, not realizing the photo was not a person from the show, commented that there were a few other photographs in the book that they felt would have made a better cover. As it happens, the authors do not choose the cover, the publishers do. We enjoyed a highly educational and enlightening view of Florida of the 50s and 60s from one who lived it. I highly recommend this book as a visual history of Weeki Wachee mermaids, and a fascinating story of how it came to be and what it was like to be part of this still very popular Florida attraction.

 

A narrated boat ride down the river and back and animal shows are included in the admission. The stars, of course, continue to be the mermaids. Check the park schedule for the current shows.

Barberville Pioneer Settlement

This past spring we passed Barberville Pioneer Settlement on the way to a state park. Once settled in our site, I checked for information and found the times and days they opened to the public. On the way home, we made time to stop, and we are both glad we did.

Barberville Pioneer Settlement features a look at old Florida of the late 19th and early 20th century. Locally and regionally significant buildings were moved to the site, creating a snapshot of a small town of long ago. We took the self-guided tour, speaking to many of the costumed interpreters showing various skills once necessary to produce the items needed in everyday life, before a trip to the store accomplished the same. We did stop at the store/gift shop and purchased some of the items made by the volunteers when demonstrating their skills for visitors and school children, including a woven rug that sits just inside our sliding glass door at home.

We only had an hour or two for a visit, next time I would allow longer just so we could really look and linger.

Naturally we took photographs. Karl visualized this one in black and white before he shot, and it now graces our home gallery.

Photo Techniques: The Blur

When I started photography, way back in the film days, "tack sharp" dominated the criteria in judging a good photography. Minor blur suggesting motion occasionally found acceptance, but for the most part we looked for sharpness.

Lately in reading and watching videos of photographers I find blur in part of the photographs explained away as needed for showing motion, directing the eye to the sharp portion of the photograph, and in general as an OK part of the photograph. This comes from noted, long-time professional photographers.

On a recent hike I decided to see what I could do with blur. Upon my return to my office, I downloaded all the shots off the camera, and deleted all but one photograph. They looked out of focus, period.

This one I kept:

Everything came out sharp except the bird in motion, and even the bird in motion is clearly a bird.

I need a lot more practice, but for the record, here is the technique I used: I focused the lens on an area where a lot of bird activity centered. As activity shifted to that area, I shot. This is one of three of this particular bird.

"Fashion" changes in photography as well as everything else. Keeping up makes us better photographers.