Skip to main content

Other Pics From Vinoy Night Shooting


Here are some more night pictures taken at the Vinoy.   Existing now in Bedlam rather than Shawshank does not afford me as easy an access to the Park and the downtown St. Pete areas I used to enjoy going to during the early morning hours.  It can still be done, traffic is light, but Bedlam is in Clearwater and just takes longer to get there. It was nice to get back.



This is the Vinoy park looking North toward Bedlam (Egads!) and the Tampa Metro area.


In most of the landscape pics you will notice orbs.  These are not pesky impish ghosts but rather glass flare from the particular lens I am using.  These flares happen with zoom lenses that you can adjust - prime lenses, meaning single millimeter, which are non-adjustable usually has no flare. 




I post this poor sky picture just to show you the amount of light pollution down here.  There is no escaping it; try as you might, the light will simply obscure many stars and constellations.  Northlandia is becoming increasingly blighted according to a map I saw which showed areas you need to go to escape it - those places are mainly in the West, or North Korea.   




This is a somewhat strangely tweaked picture of the Whitted Airport and looking directly East across the bay.  The length of the exposure has turned a green navigational light to teal.  If you look close enough right-center you can see an elongated white streak in the sky.  That would be a far off airplane.  




Another shot of the Whitted airport.  





I took a few star pictures and noticed one had this streak in it.  I cropped it and zoomed in and frankly can't really tell if it is a plane high up or not.  The sequential reds kind of attest to it, but then again it looks almost too streaky for a plane.  I have no idea, but for lack of anything else, I guess we can say it was either a faint meteor, a very high plane, or an aberration on the camera sensor. 

 You'll also notice that the stars seem elongated rather than round.  This is what happens when you expose for too long - the heavens rotate constantly and if you don't adjust accordingly you'll end up with what is called "star trails".  This may have been a 30 second exposure, I should have shortened it to either 15 or 20 seconds to compensate. 

 Always enjoy night shooting and hope to do more in the future even if it is less than ideal around here.  I have written to Santa and asked for a Tokina wide angle lens that would allow for more sky when I do some night shots.  While I don't think I've been all that good, I'm counting on Santa overlooking some misdeeds just because we have had a pretty good relationship over the decades. 

Comments

  1. Neighbor TimDecember 1, 2014 at 10:23 AM

    I suggest you save all those pennies you've been picking up. I have heard from a very credible source that you are still on the naughty list......sorry.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Flashback Friday

Class, Or Lack Thereof The Dwight Vice gravestone in Oquawka, Illinois. I bring this old chestnut out every so often just to remind me that class is classless.  Dwight Vice was killed in his home near Oquawka in 2001.  It was one of those things that can generate crime:  two guys thought Dwight had a lot of money stashed at home because of his pot-selling sideline to supplement his fishing job.   Not really one of those big drug deals gone-bad things.  Marijuana was, according to the trial, about the only stuff Dwight sold.   But these two guys barge into the house and killed Dwight and attempted to kill his 11 year old kid, Darryl, before they took off with what money they could find.   His son, now 23, was stabbed in the back and left for dead.  He survived and is wheelchair bound and has undergone several surgeries to repair his wounds.  He will be paralyzed for life.   None of this is pleasant.  Reading the f...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Mary Davis Home - Part 2

None of these pictures were taken by me,  they came right from the MDH website.  I am posting these so that friends who have never seen inside where I worked can gain access.  After 27 years I have many stories, tales and acquaintances.  But, I wouldn't know how to express them appropriately in a few paragraphs.  I enjoyed 98% of my stay there and hope I made a difference in the lives of a fraction of the kids who entered.  The original MDH at this site was just the front part.  The large red-roofed area in back was added on in the 90's. This is the Jerry Carlton library.  It was unofficially named after one of the counselors who truly loved the place.   He passed away around 2002, I think.  Mr. Farber looks like he is explaining a few things to a client. The classroom. Activity area with the gym behind the windows. Another shot of the classroom. It was a little different area to teach since we had 2 classes and 2 teachers i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Statuary In North Straub Park

The Vinoy is not the only park in town.  The place is fairly littered with them, and almost all, except Bum Paradise, are pretty nice.  This is North Straub and they have some old pieces in that seem to have suffered from time and perhaps human folly.     These and some 30 other statues were imported from Italy by local developer C. Perry Snell to help beautify the city.  Mr. Snell was in real estate and during the depression he went on a European shopping trip to collect items for the city.  He obtained these from Italy and installed them in this park even after the bottom fell in the markets.  He fulfilled his obligations at great personal loss to his own company and wealth.  Halso continued to pay his staff during those tough times.  He developed many areas in the city, Vinoy, Snell Isle, Crescent Lake and the beach area down around Fort DeSoto.  He lived from 1869 until 1949 and then buried in Kentucky.  I wo...
Post a Comment
Read more