outdoor photography

Wildlife of Lake Apopka Over the last few days I've put together some of my favorite photos from Lake Apopka and assembled them into a video slideshow.  Lake Apopka has become one of my favorite places to visit--so much wildlife and so much diversity!  My video is about 7 minutes long; that's a little longer than I I intended, but I don't know how to make it shorter.

Muddy Creek I visited Western Maryland in late July, and I had a lot of fun visiting my all-time favorite park, Swallow Falls State Park. I visited the park twice. On one day, I went to the main park entrance and walked the trails inside the park.  On the second day, I walked a trail on the other side of the Youghiogheny River. When I lived in Maryland I wasn't a birder, so I wondered what kind of wildlife might be in the park. I was not disappointed, as there singing warblers all over the park, including Pine, Hooded, Black-throated Green, and Black-throated Blue Warblers, Common Yellowthroat and Northern Waterthrush. In Florida I never get to hear thrushes sing, and it was wonderful to hear Veeries, Wood Thrushes and Hermit Thrushes as well.  The biggest highlight was my first ever Winter Wren. Muddy Creek Falls Swallow Falls But when I was out birding, I also wanted to take photographs of the falls and cascades along Muddy Creek and the Youghiogheny River, som...

Trail to Boonie Falls Last week I was on vacation at Deep Creek in Western Maryland, and in the mornings I would visit Swallow Falls State Park, which has some absolutely beautiful waterfalls. I came home to Florida wanting more, but, well, this is Florida.  I've known of a small falls along the Florida Trail in the Little Big Econ State Forest, but I've never gone to see it.  Those that have often joke about how small it is.  But I decided I had to go see for myself.  The waterfall is called Boonie Falls, and it can be accessed by parking in the grass next to Lockwood Blvd in Oviedo. There is hardly any signage, and so you have to know where it is in order to find it. But I made the half-mile walk to the falls. A Nice Little Pond You Can Almost See The walk out there was prettier than I anticipated. I arrived at 5:30pm, so the sun was still a little to high for photographing trees, but I took a few shots with my point and shoot anyway, just...

A few months ago I purchased a point and shoot camera, the Canon Powershot G7X.  I wanted to be able to quickly take photos of landscapes while I'm out birding without having to carry two DSLRs or switch lenses.  I had very little desire to take video with the camera.  However, it's very easy to do, so lately I've taken some short videos just see if I could make something interesting.  Last week I was up in Maryland, and I took 20 second videos of all the scenes I photographed.  Then I put them together as short movies with background music. I visited Patapsco Valley State Park in Baltimore and Swallow Falls State Park in western Maryland. I love the photos I took of these parks, but when I put together the video footage, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they seemed a bit more interesting. When I returned home, I figured I would visit a waterfall in my home county. It's nothing like what I can visit in Maryland.  It's tiny and not very pict...