Sometimes people ask about the camera.  What they're usually thinking is, " this thing of mine would never take a picture like that."   But in fact, while I use a decent camera,  it's certainly no where near the exceptional standards you can find now for around 600 bucks.  I use a Lumix DMC-FZ-50.   

I try to keep the Photoshop adjustments to a minimum.  I usually just adjust for color balance and some lighting.  With a little tweaking, any reasonably good camera - 6 megapix higher -will duplicate these shots.

(these lower resolution images here don't have quite the "life" of the full size - which I usually adjust to 1200x 750 or so.) 

 There's been a cold snap here in FLA.  I dragged my ass out of bed and make down to the banks of the Caloosahatchee River.  It was 26 degrees. This is fog rising into the sun.   To get this shot, I had to sneak into a backyard in a very "security oriented" neighbor hood, the two posts you see lead to a dock.   I didn't stay long.

 This shot is taken near the last.  These pelican's were looking mighty stiff in the frozen air.  Maybe it was only my imagination.

 Really something you are not going to see near the coast,  south of Naples very often.  It may look dipped in sugar,  but this straw flower was frozen solid.  I had pulled my SUV out into a vacant lot to get this shot.  It was taken as a macro shot, so I was huddled there on the ground twisted in my parka getting it.   "Hey!", I suddenly heard about a foot from my head, "whatta doin'?"   It was a county Sheriff,  frozen nosed wearing a crazy looking Fargo hat.  I'm shooting this flower I said.  He didn't reply, just shook his head....and slowly moved away from the nut with the camera.

 Nothing special here except that I shot it the same morning.  So, considering the tempertaure, to me the blackbird looks like he froze there.  Or at least,  the metal he was perched on was too cold to put both feet down at once.

 Whe I showed the original of this shot, in color, to my dad who also hobbies with pics,  he told me "too bad nothing's in focus."  It was kind of a mess.....but in BW I think it grows on you.  Struggle of Nature? 

 I've taken a million shots of herons.  But for detail and lighting, this is really one of the best.   This pic has not been adjusted in Photoshop(except cropping) so in that way,   I like it because it's "old school", just the way I pulled the trigger.

 Of course this is the next shot - when a couple of goobers walked out to "see what was goping on".  But......for sheer drama,  this "take-off" shot is one of my favorites.  You can feel the tension from his neck down to his toes gripping the rail.  ( I will be Photoshopping this guy into a different background someday)

 Again, nothing special but I really liked the composition.  This picture feels like old Florida to me.  

 I included this shot because this is a good example of "photographers Luck".   I don't have any special lenses so it's not like I can shoot from miles away.  I don't know why,  but these particualr birds are very shy.  They seldom sit still close enough for me to get good resolution.  My tri-pod was set up for shooting a wide "pondscape" when this guy landed about 100 yrds from me.  He kept moving along the edges toward me while stayed still and finally walked right up to the tripod and posed.  "Gotcha!"

 Yep, just lemons.  At a local growers market.

 Yep, just beans.  Same Market.  

 For something different.  This is a Photoshop deal that I did with a couple of pics my dad sent from a fishing trip.  There's a Photoshop tutorial on making "Polaroids" from .jpg files that's easy and I think turns out pretty cool.  The background map is a Google screen shot of the actual area with texture applied and the lure I swiped from .net ad for fishing gear and added a 3-D effect.  The push pins I got from a Clip Art site.  And the handwriting font on the Polaroids was downloaded free.  ( too much info?)

Hope you enjoyed........