A Postcard View from Cocoa Beach

Wish We Were Here

Seagulls fly overhead and ships sail along the horizon as people enjoy the sun at Cocoa Beach, Florida. As seen during our June 2021 visit.

This photo looks like a great view, doesn’t it? It certainly makes me look forward to our next beach visit, whenever that might be. And it brings back some good memories from this particular trip.

However, if you pay attention to dates, you might realize that things are not quite what they seem. Those ships out on the horizon, the Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy, are not actually sailing by. Instead, they were anchored out there due to the fact that cruise ships still were not sailing at that time. We actually were scheduled to be on the Fantasy around that time, but that obviously did not happen. But we did not dwell on the negative but instead focused on the positives of enjoying a day at the beach.

Another View

Just for fun, here is another view from the same day at Cocoa Beach, just to the left of the previous view.

Actually, I am presenting these two views here because I could not decide which one to choose. So I just chose them both. Why not?

In the first photo, I liked the ships out in the water. In this second photo, I like the umbrellas all lined up. Those striped umbrellas actually reminded me of this slightly over-processed photo from two years earlier. I like bringing our own umbrella, but I like the patterns from those similar rental umbrellas, too.

Two good memories from a fun day!

Winter Dreams

It is actually not unusual for me to post a beach photo in the middle of the winter. That has happened several times in the past years around here.

For one thing, I do not take as many photos in the winter. But I like to keep the website posts going, so I often go back to old photos to find something to share. And the beach is always a good subject.

And for another thing, these cold winter days make me think of nice warm beach days. So perhaps subconsciously, when I look through those old photos, I naturally am drawn to the beach photos.

So while looking at these photos may not make me warm (the heater running next to me takes care of that), they do remind me of the feeling of those warm days. And they remind me that nothing is permanent. Seasons change, and it won’t be all that long before we are enjoying a warm summer season again. And that makes the winter even better.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven - Ecclesiastes 3:1

About the Photos

For these photos, I used some very different colors than the previous photos I shared from this same day. As you might guess from the post title, I was going for an old-style postcard look for these. So depending on your monitor settings, these photos might look bold and yet subdued, or they might look like the colors are way too bright and all wrong. Hopefully, you see the first look and not the second.

This look was accomplished by dialing down the color saturation and vibrance a bit, along with decreasing the contrast from what I usually post. I then used the individual color sliders to change the looks of some of the key colors, getting those “antique” looks that you see here.

Photo: Each photo is a single Raw exposure, processed in Luminar AI. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Sony Alpha A7 II
Lens: Sony FE 50mm f/1.8 lens
Date: June 7, 2021
Location: Lori Wilson Park, Cocoa Beach, Florida