Watching the Sunset From a Dock in Florida

One of the great things about photos is their ability to bring back memories of days gone by, whether they are recent days or far away days. So here are a few (relatively) old photos from one of our past trips.

In this photo, Laura enjoys some really neat clouds and cool colors in the sky while sitting on a dock as the sun sets. The waterway is Sikes Creek in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and the year is 2014. Yes, that isn’t all that long ago, although to some people three years may seem like a long time. We had enjoyed a nice day at the beach and a good meal for dinner, and we were out looking for something to do. We saw a sign that said, “Kiwanis Island Park,” and we turned in the parking lot to see what we could see. As it turns out, we arrived right at the right time for some evening photos, so I was glad I had my camera and tripod in the car with me.

The clouds were really spectacular that night, and as you can see it looks like some rain might have been falling from this one cloud, although that rain was rather far from where we were. We enjoyed the view, enjoyed the quiet, enjoyed swatting all of the mosquitoes that landed on us. And of course we enjoyed the company most of all. If you have not found a person that you enjoy doing just about anything with, you need to do that right now.

Anyway, it was a great night with some great views, and we were quite glad we had just happened upon it all.

I mentioned above about how photos can remind you of things, and that was the case here. Some of these photos popped up on the random photo screen saver of our home computer, and I was instantly taken back to that night and our great memories. And that is why I take photos as much as I do - to help me remember things, and to stir up memories in others as well. Perhaps others have been to some of the same places that we have been, or perhaps they have been somewhere similar and have made some good memories as well. Photos can bring up memories much clearer than several words can, and photos are much nicer to look at than just a bunch of words, too.

By the way, I have posted a couple of other photos from that night, and you can see them here and here. While these three photos are from the same night, they are all just a little different from the others. Did I mention that I take lots of photos when we go somewhere? So it is nice to wander back through the old photos sometimes and find some that I haven’t shared here before. They certainly bring back some great memories.

Remember the days of old; consider the years long past. Ask your father, and he will tell you, your elders, and they will teach you. - Deuteronomy 32:7

About the Photos

These photos were from the first Florida trip that I took with the Olympus camera. At that time, I only had the one 14-42mm zoom lens that came with the camera, which was good to start with. You may notice that these photos were not taken with a fisheye lens as many of the more recent photos have been, and that is why.

Also, back at this time I routinely produced multiple-exposure HDR photos, and for that I took 5 exposures of each scene, so that I could combine them later in to one image. You can read a little more about that in the post Which Photo Software Do You Use? I don’t usually use that process any more (see Steve’s Photography Tips for more about what I do), so that left me with several different exposures of the same scene to choose from, which was nice. But not nice enough that I would go back to shooting multiple exposures for most things right now. Being able to get more photos on your memory card is nice, too.

Even though these are not HDR photos, I still did quite a bit of processing on them, as I usually do. Take a look at this before-and-after version of the first photo to see the difference a little processing can make:

Photo: Each photo is a single Raw exposure, processed in Photoshop. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10
Lens: Olympus 14-42mm IIR
Date: July 23, 2014
Location: Cocoa Beach, Florida