The Ten Thousand Islands Project - Part 4

Nothing like drinking coffee with a morning view like this one.

I love being in the Ten Thousand Islands and am quite happy even when I don't come home with great images. Good thing, because most of the time, I'll be out there for days and don't "get the shot". Much of this is simply the nature of nature photography; we never have control over our natural environment. I go out there sometimes for up to 9 or 10 days and may get lucky during that time; but mostly I don't. Most of the time I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time, the lighting is not pleasing, the birds are absent, the water levels are too high or too low, the sky is cloudless or too cloudy or the winds are blowing too hard. And for this trip, I knew there would be significant changes from hurricane Irma.

For this fourth and final entry about my recent trip into the islands, I highlight the fact that you often have to try to make the best out of what is given to you when it comes to traveling and nature photography.

My final day in the islands began on Picnic Key and ended 11 miles later on Chokoloskee Island.

Our trip through the Ten Thousand Islands, a total of about 25 miles.

On the beach of Picnic Key, the sun rises behind the canopy of trees, so this is not a beach to view a sunrise. On the other hand, once the sun clears the canopies, there is about 20-30 minutes of sweet light on parts of the beach and the mangrove shoreline of nearby Tiger Key. On these trips, I have to go with the flow and the flow was pushing me off the island before 9 am. Meanwhile, I had to break camp and get everything loaded into the canoe. There was no time to do any serious photography this morning. You take what you can get.

Looking due west, composing an image from the beach can be challenging, but the clouds can help.

I had only about 30 minutes to photograph, so I took advantage of the beautiful light. I worked it as best as possible while hand-holding the camera. Because the backside of the beach was shadowed by trees, I aimed at the western horizon while including water, and worked with the clouds to compose some vertical (above) and horizontal (below) images.

Again, looking west, the trees off to the right are all shadowed as the sun rises behind a canopy of trees behind me. So capturing the shoreline with some foreground interest is not easy under these conditions. 

I walked along the shoreline and looked upon the extensive tree damage and wondered how I might capture the scene. Trees were mostly shadowed or sidelit, and it just did not look right. But then, the light changed. Clouds began to cover the sun; the effect was to even out the light (diffuse vs specular) over the trees so that more detail could be revealed, such as you see below.

Trees looked like they were bulldozed by hurricane Irma. Cloud cover allowed a diffuse light to capture the details of the damage and the new growth.

Soon, I had to put away the camera and get in my canoe for our journey back home. By that time, the sky was mostly cloudless and I spent the next few hours paddling into the relentless sun. I had one expectation for the paddle home and that was to photograph a lone mangrove tree that I discovered a year ago. We would be passing it today on our route. When I first discovered it, I was attracted to its character that I decided I would try to photograph it again, but under better conditions. Unfortunately today I would not have much time to spend with the tree and besides, I expected there would not be much left to it after the hurricane.

That's the way it goes out here. You take what you get and work with that.

I discovered this red mangrove last year and intended to come back to it when I could capture it in the evening or during early morning light.

And this is what is left of that beautiful red mangrove tree.