Slickrock and Shadow

Geiger Beach:  Pretty but not much of a beach To get off the beaten path in the Florida Keys, I took a trip to Geiger Beach.  This is a small drive off the main overseas highway.  It is located near the military base on Boca Chica Key.  Here you will find free spirits, some beautiful trees and pleasant water.  Sand is not very common here. I visited this beach on a February afternoon.  The weather was beautiful.  I was hoping to hike farther along the beach and find some isolation, solitude and a beautiful photographic location for sunset.  Here you do find all of those things but they do not come with a beach.  The trail is very simple at first but after you reach the first estuary, the trail becomes overgrown with trees and vines.  You just walked past the best easily accessible areas. You can continue going but there isn't any beach reward further down.  Also, you will wade up to your knees in mud in order to cross the e...

Road to Nowhere:  Bahia Honda Bridge After wonderful day at the beach, nothing can be better than a wonderful sunset.  I had planned to take photographs of the crumbling bridge at Bahia Honda state park.  There are several wonderful photographs of this location at sunset.  In general, these are taken from the east, looking into the sunset.  I figured that I would do the same. I arrived more than one hour before sunset and hiked up to the edge of the old bridge.  Looking into the West, there were no clouds at all.  The skies actually looked very bland and boring.  I immediately had a decision to make: should I stay here and try to make something out of nothing or should I leave? I decided to leave go to the west end of the bridge, hoping that the different angle of light might improve my circumstances.  Looking to the east, there were some lovely clouds.  As the sun got lower and lower, these took on a lovely yellow color with a ...

Bahia Honda clear waters and Red Sailboat I have seen some stunning pictures from Bahia Honda State Park.  When I visited the Florida Keys in February, this was on my "must-do" list.  I arrived on a sunny afternoon.  The water is beautiful.  There are lots of birds to photograph here.  For quite some time, it seemed like that was all there was.  That is okay but nothing spectacular. Then my luck changed: small red sailboat arrived as the tide was going out.  A sandbar just underneath the water level was easy to look right through.  Crystal-clear waters were spectacular.  I tried several compositions with this sailboat and some distant clouds.  Then my luck improved again and a small piece of seaweed rolled by with the outgoing tide.  It got stuck on the shallow sand.  This provided a wonderful foreground object. All the elements aligned in my favor.  I took several pictures and found this one to be my favorite of ...