We came to Florida for some winter photography. My husband grew up in Florida until he was 14 years old and I had only been there once to the Orlando area. We had signed up for a workshop on Sanibel and Captiva Islands, with our friend Les Saucier, but also wanted to explore some other areas to break up our long car ride there and back. Our first stop was in the Palm Coast area so that we could visit Washington Oaks Gardens and Beach. (Be sure to scroll down to the video and watch it). We are always looking for new foreground elements for sunrises and the coquina rocks looked intriguing. Since this park is on the Atlantic Ocean on the east side of Florida, we expected that it would be good for sunrise, but my husband also wanted to try sunset for the golden tones coming from the west. The skies had been bright blue all day, but I was happy to see them becoming partly cloudy, one of my favorite Infrared subjects. The board walk and palm trees anchored the clouds and tell the story of the location.
The top photo is taken facing south. I walked down onto the sand and faced north to find a different set of clouds. Both photos were processed in NIK’s Silver Efex Pro to turn them to black and white. It is interesting to note that the leaves of deciduous trees are white and pine trees are dark in Infrared photography. The palm trees here are dark.
I returned the following morning to see what the clouds were doing. They had become feathered. The lines in the clouds and the lines in the surf all lead out of the photo from the center.
