It was Thanksgiving holiday last week so we went to Jonathan Dickinson park to try out some HDR photography. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and its a technique of merging a series of bracketed exposures to get a photo with more light and dark intensity. I had messed around with it a bit last year while using Photoshop CS2, and got some interesting results, but my computer was too slow to handle the process. Now, I have a better computer, but never got around to experimenting with it again. I have also switched over to GIMP for my post processing, so that was a bit different as well.

Here are my first couple of attempts. I am hoping to get better results next time as I become familiar with the software.

It was a beautifully sunny and cool day yesterday so we ditched our responsibilities and headed to the beach. Blowing Rocks Preserve, in Jupiter Island, is home to a unique Anastasia limestone formation, the largest on the Atlantic coast. Our visit coincided with high winds and approaching high tide, which is the best time to see the water forced through gaps in the rock, "blowing" jets of water up to 50 feet in the air as the waves crash against the shore. We saw quite a few impressive bursts and almost got soaked a few times getting too close!

The weather forecast warned of extremely dangerous rip currents at Jupiter Beach.


Pelicans fly in


Before the wave


Blow








The preserve may have been on Jupiter Island, but upon closer inspection, the limestone formations looked more like Mars!
(It was funny at the time...had to be there I guess... )

Last week I was horrified to see one of the curly-tail lizards grab a brown anole by the head and drag it off behind some flowerpots. I was stuck on the phone and couldnt intervene, so by the time I got over there all I could find was one very fat curly-tail! I guess its better for one invasive species to eat another, rather than preying on native wildlife. We have actually seen a couple of native green anoles here, to my great surprise. I hope they can stay out of reach of the curly-tails.



There is an abundance of dragonflies in our back yard these days. And at night the hummingbird hawk moths come out.





I an finally getting over the sinus infection so maybe if there is time this weekend we might go explore the local beaches, we are only a few of miles from the coast.

Last week I was in Milwaukee for a work conference. It was COLD on Monday (30's) and there were even snow flurries! It warmed up throughout the week and by Thursday when I left it was in the 60's! And lovely and sunny the whole week. It is a fascinating city and I wish I could have explored some more. The hotel was a 15 minute walk from Lake Michigan so I crept out early Tues. morning to snap some photos.





















Unfortunately I got sick on Thursday and it developed into sinusitis. Luckily no more travel planned in the near future so planning to catch up on some rest!