Signs of Life: "No Swimming"

I'd seen the sign at Homosassa Springs State Park in the alligator pond on prior visits, but this time this alligator seemed to keep an eye on me, was it a dare?

No Swimming?.....No Kidding!!

Spring in west central Florida

Yes, the blog has been quiet for March. I love this time of year, our weather warmed and so has the pool with the help of the solar heater. Our family from the northern states, tired of the never ending winter of this year, have visited over the past several weeks. We love having houseguests, and love entertaining, but the photography turns from artistic pursuits to shots of all of us in the pool, visiting local attractions, and just enjoying ourselves. In other words, family snapshots that make memories but not art. And those memories are so important.

The blog will be back next week. In the meantime, here is a memory from this past Christmas. The two stray kittens we adopted loved the Christmas tree...a little too much.

Who, us?

Photo Story: Ribbon Snake

This lovely little snake seemed as curious about me as I about him. He leisurely checked me out, then slowly continued on his way, most likely scouting around for his next meal.

I shot this with a telephoto lens, which is why the depth of field is so shallow. While not a venomous snake, I saw no need to disturb him by getting closer.

The Prairie at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park

The scene from the observation tower at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park early one recent morning. The morning light lit it perfectly, and the horses, absent during a hike the day before, grazed in the foreground.

Three robins feeding in the sunlight. The American Robins are on their way north now, the large flocks of a month or two ago aren't seen here now, but there are still smaller flocks enjoying the last of Florida before heading north.

Photo Gallery: The Barrel

Karl works in black and white quite a bit. I often see him studying a subject, not only working the light and the angles but determining if certain angles and shadows work better in black and white than color. This old barrel, left to fall apart, is the result of one of those shoots.

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.