I. The Dreaded Beach Shot:
Traveling through the woodlands throughout Florida over the years, including its swamps, springs, parks and lakes, I have largely ignored one of Florida’s finest and most famous features: its beaches. Maybe I took myself too seriously as an artist to photograph the obvious. Perhaps, though, I’ve been afraid of the challenges of a good Florida beach shot.
My cousin Michael – who lived on A1A on Ft. Lauderdale beach for years – always complained that when he went to buy a beach photograph (for the wall without a beach view), he could only find a a print of a beach somewhere else; the Caribbean, Hawaii; perhaps a classic purple sunset on the rocky Oregon coastline; maybe a lighthouse along a classic New-England shore; or maybe a place in Florida that didn’t feel like Florida at all . The most notable collections and coffee table books, in-fact, centered around the flamboyant, eyebrow-raising, and quite tacky culture of small Florida beach towns.
Reef and cave diving, para-sailing, fishing, water-skiing, or just relaxing and sun-bathing – I’ve enjoyed them all – but rarely bringing along a camera, as I do on my other ventures. The truth is, most of Florida’s beaches, by themselves, can appear a little dull when compared to other beaches of the country and the world. What I’ve always found the most interesting are its twisted, haunting trees, varied brush, swamps, and isolated Springs and water systems. Growing up at Deerfield Beach, I always preferred hiking the central trails and boardwalks of Tradewinds or Quiet Waters Park, with their twisted mangrove trees that only allowed just sparkle of light through.
Point is – I always found beach shots a little uncreative, and the results mediocre. But with my new mission to document all of Florida – in its glory – during my spontaneous adventures and road-trips, I decide to venture out to Coco Beach and Cape Canaveral.
II. The Journey
Naturally, I avoided the highways from Orlando to Coco and took the longest route possible. From years of experience, I had learned that the best nature photos were never in the big parks or the highways. Like the highways, the state parks are often over-manicured and just appear a little unnatural. The best photos are along the Florida’s back-roads and trails, where the trees and shrubbery are allowed to overgrow and bloom as nature intended. While I was on a mission for beach photos, I double tasked to find hidden and new spots along the way. I’ll never stop shooting Florida’s woodlands.
Down the “” I go, with my trusty photo assistant Michelle riding along. We played with my new Canon fisheye lens, and snapped some spontaneous photos in the car. While she was shooting, I grabbed the 5Dmkii and shot out the open sunroof above, and Michelle’s hair blowing everywhere. While I plan on moderating the use of the fisheye effect, its nice to just have fun and get out of “art mode”. The fisheye lens helps with this!
Driving along the narrow state highway, and getting closer to Cape Canaveral, I spot something out of the corner of my eye, as usual, and take a rip at the wheel. **Mental note** – stomping on the brakes over soil on the side of the road makes the brakes unhappy and your heart pump. Backing up, I take a look down a trail to look for “no tresspassing” signs. None, good. The trail was narrow, made out of stacked dirt through a swamp, but looked pretty solid. I decided to take a tour in my car. The trail appears decently well done for bird watches, and I catch several Lexus owners parked aside, watching birds and taking notes.
About 2 miles off-road, I finally stopped along a wide stretched view of the marshland. Very quiet and beautiful, indeed. While I shot with my 70-200 f/2.8 IS, Michelle snapped a few pictures of me shooting for my Facebook profile. Shooting wide and long, I couldn’t decide between the infrared 5D or color 5Dmkii. So, I shot with both. With many interesting patters in the growth, along with some nice varying light from cloud-cover, I squeezed out a few good shots.
Time was passing quickly, and I wanted to make it for sunset on Coco Beach. My focus was to get beach shots, yet I kept stopping to take my same old nature shots. Turning around, I passes yet another Lexus SUV, and continued on the state highway toward Cape Canaveral.
III. Arriving in Cape Canaveral
Not much here, to be honest, besides the touristy stuff down at NASA . I found the Canaveral National Seashore bare and lifeless. While I enjoy isolated nature spots of Florida, there is something about many of the east-central Florida beaches I find depressing, even when I was a little kid. Very little trees, very little people, very little anything. This beach reminds of Planet of the Apes, part I, when Charlton Heston’s character, George, crash lands on a beach on an unknown world. There is nothing around, with a haunting drumbeat in the background, conveying a sense of isolation and death. This is how I feel at some of Florida’s beaches.
Not all is lost. To get over the tall brush and sand dunes, there are some freshly built wooden bridges that climb from the parking lot over to the beach, providing some good vantage points for closeups of the plantlife. Breaking out my infrared converted Canon 5D, I shoot with my 17-40 and 70-200.
Might as well walk on the beach. The sand is dense, rough, and packed down, so I just walk around in sneakers. I take a few fun fisheye shots in color of footprints and such, and decide to leave quickly and make my way to Coco.
IV. Finally Driving to Coco!
Big lesson here already: GoogleMap everything in advance! Driving from Cape Canaveral to Coco is a little tricky. The federal government doesn’t want anyone anywhere near the NASA launch pad, and blocks several of the highways. This will add a good 30 minutes to the drive. Gerrrr!
Heading straight back west, and then south again, and then east across the 527 highway, we enjoy a nice drive across the bridge to Coco. There is a lot of life, architecture and bridges along the beach, with awesome vantage points. I drive back and forth along A1A, looking for the most interesting and dynamic spots.
I just love the pillars underneath this pier. I brought my tripod and Infrared 5D, along with the Canon 17-40mm and 12-24mm. Oh crap, I left the ND filter at home. No worries, though, I have the iso 50 setting, along with a darkening landscape; plus the Infrared 5D is a little slow compared to the color camera, and needs another 2 stops of exposure for most shots. Circling between the pier’s pillars, I finally stood in the freezing cold water. Ahhh! Luckily, the tide was very low today, so I didn’t have to walk too far in.
I start firing off multiple exposures and vantage points. I was happy with the results, and got one, silky smooth classic photograph. One probelm: I was witnessing a rich sunset of pinks, blues, and purple colors in the sky, and I was stuck with a black and white infrared camera, with only minutes of a once-a-month sunset. Now I’m hauling ass to the car, running with equipment in hand.
I grabbed the color 5Dmkii, mount on the Sigma 12-24mm, attached the tripod plate and remote shutter, and run back to the pier. I start rapidly firing off bracket slow exposures. The pillars were dark and the sunset was bright, and I planned immediately for a HDR merged exposure. The tide moved back and forth quickly, so I captured as many different water positions as possible, in rapid sequence. The biggest challenge here was the sinking tripod, which kept blurring the shots and preventing identical exposures. Ironically, the very last set of HDR shots were by far the best; taken right before the battery died! I don’t like using the word art for very many photos, so instead I will call it a show stopper, or very “poster worthy”. Finally, I created a rich, color sunset beach photograph that had alluded me all of these years. This is the type of beach shot I’ve been looking to take.
The sun is now gone, so time for a good scotch and relaxation on the pier! After an hour or so, the sun was completely gone, and the bar started closing. Time to go back home to Orlando. By this point I was very sleepy, so I had Michelle drive my car back.
Overall, the trip was a spontaneous success and learning experience. Many more Florida shore photo adventures will follow. Please leave comments below!
