South Florida

I spent 10 days in South Florida, the end of February, 2000. I had never been there and after careful study it looked like the right time of year to visit Florida. (Click on any photo to see a larger photo)

My plan was to photograph Birds,  Alligators and Landscapes.  For this trip I took my 35mm and Mamiya RZ outfits. I decided to stay in Naples, which is about 30 miles west of the Everglades. It is also about 15 miles from Big Cypress and Cork Screw Swamp.

The weather was perfect every day. It was Sunny in the morning, big puffy white clouds came in every afternoon and on a couple days it was nice and stormy, great for photography.

Sanibel Island and Ding Darling

   This was my first stop after getting settled down. I arrived at the gate to Ding Darling 30 minutes before it opened and there was already a line of cars. When the gate opened a herd of cars headed in and I followed. Everyone stopped at the third pond and for good reason. The place was full of birds in a feeding frenzy. It was great to watch and in 1 hour, I shot 10 rolls of film.

The film I was using for my 35mm stuff for this trip was the new Fuji Provia 100F Transparency film. I had shot several test rolls before I left and it looked like a great 100 speed film. It does not have as much color saturation as Velvia. But I feel it does give a true color and I am very happy with the results. I will continue to use it. After the first hour everything slowed down and I headed out. I did go back 3 days later but it was very slow. But I did get one great hour the first day and many great photos. One of my favorite Images from the trip was this Osprey in flight with a fish.

Cork Screw Swamp

   This was a great place to visit. You walk out onto a two mile board walk and it takes you through the swamp. There were many Alligators, including babies. Also all kinds of birds. Wood Storks were nesting high in the Cypress trees. Just after I took the photo of the Great Blue Heron on the left, a Great Egret had just flew in and landed behind him and snapped up a big Bull Frog. The Blue Heron went crazy and chased the Egret all over the pond. The Bull Frog was so big, the Great Egret could not swallow it and he finally flew off with the Bull Frog hanging from his mouth. I had just ran out of film and could not get a roll of film loaded fast enough, so I did not get a single picture of this very interesting confrontation. 

The second morning, I was there when the gates opened and headed for Lettuce lakes. It is an area full of life. I decided to just sit and watch the lake for a couple hours. There was no one else around and it was just the swamp and myself. The activity around the area was very interesting.  I watched an Alligator eat a 4' snake. All sorts of birds were flying in and out. An Alligator got to close to some baby Alligators and the mother flew off the lake bank and got into a huge fight with the other Alligator. The sound of the fight put chills down my spine. The mother Alligator put some serious cuts on the other one and he could not get out of there fast enough. It was a great place to visit.

 Big Cypress

This turned out to be my favorite place. You can park along the highway and the birds fly down the river (canal) next to the road, I was able to get many birds in flight photographs. It is very much like the Everglades. It was also full of Alligators. I must say I had hoped to see some Alligators. I ended up seeing hundreds of them. They were from 6" to 12' long.

I also had a chance to stop at Clyde Butcher's Gallery. He shoots with an 8x10 camera and his Black and White Images of the area are incredible. I also took a B&W shot of his pond which is the B&W image shown here. I have included his web site www.clydebutcher.com . Click on the link above and you can visit his site. Besides having beautiful B&W prints of the area he also has some great books on Florida.

The Everglades

   This is truly a wonderful  place to visit. I spent a couple afternoons driving around Everglade City. I did find some Beautiful  Brown and White Pelicans. The Pelicans were very cooperative and I was able to get some nice close-ups with a long lens. The Brown Pelican Portrait on the left has become a very popular Image and I will probably add it to my Limited Edition prints in the near future. I did find some nice places for some B&W Landscape work. The next time I come back to Florida I will bring my Large Format Camera and I will shoot a lot of B&W landscapes. It was also fun to watch the Air Boats take people all around the area.

Eagles Nest

I also headed north to Cape Coral to a great Bald Eagle nest. I spent two afternoons there. It was a perfect nest to photograph. My best photo was of one of the Eagles taking off from an old dead tree by the nest.

Also in the same area were some burrowing Owls. They were great to watch and at times there were ten photographers taking their pictures. All the Owls would do the whole time is just strut around and look at everyone. I think the Owls were more interested in the People than the people were interested in the Owls.

Venice Rookery

   I also stopped by the Venice Rookery which was very interesting and a great place to photograph nesting birds. The nests are on an island in a small lake in the Venice city park.. The Island is about 75' from shore and the nests are almost at eye level. There are so many nests in the Pepper Trees that it is hard to get a shot of just one nest. This was indeed a very popular place for photographers.

   Over all I have to say that the trip was a huge success. I got quality Images of everything I wanted and Florida is a wonderful place to visit in winter. 

I will go back in the future 

Scott