Last month I took a kayak trip out to one of the barrier islands here in Naples, Florida called Keewaydin. I was able to get out there shortly after sunrise and find some decent shots. The warm light and high contrast made for some lovely black and white imagery.

I was out kayaking one morning and came across this brown pelican. The rising sun provided a lot of warmth to the shot, and thankfully the gulf was calm enough to get a clear shot.

Here’s me messing around with the saturation levels.

The last of my beach related photo backlogs. This was also taken with the 70-200 L. There were an amazing amount of birds on the beach this day. Take a look and let me know what you think!

If you’re near any body of water in South-West Florida, chances are your’re going to see a Double-Crested Cormorant. Not to be confused with the Anhinga, These seabirds spend their time diving underwater and swimming for their food. Since these birds are unable to waterproof their feathers, they are usually seen full-spread, drying their feathers.

Some more back catalog of photos from when I first tried out the 70-200 my friend loaned to me for the weekend. These were taken right before sunset, and a little under exposed.

I’ve started to collect a little back log of sunset photos where I only really got one or two decent photos from the trip. Instead of bloging about them individually, I figured I would post them up in sets. Here is the first set of misc shots.

Click the link for more from this set.

The wave’s erosion have almost taken over this last piling.

A group of Royal Terns rest on the beach.

I love the focal point of this shot. Almost makes the boat in the background look like a toy.

And one of my all time favorite sunset shots.

I made way down to the Aqualane Shores beach access and walked down to the large set of pilings that usually have some sort of action.

There was nothing really happening in the sky or the shores, so I figured I would play with exposures and shutter speeds to see if I couldn’t get anything interesting.

Check the full post for the dramatic results!!!

A little too dark.

Trying that again from a low position.

Now lets slow the shutter down and wait for a larger wave to come in and capture it on the recession!

Another attempt, but at a funkier angle.

Looking back at the beach, there were some beautiful colors coming in.

With the experiments complete, it was time to just watch the end of another beautiful week.

Oh, by this time I was sitting up on top of the pilings. The trick to this is to pick one that isn’t full of seagull and pelican poop.

There was a rain storm that had just passed through. And the sun was set to go down in 20 minutes. I grabbed my gear and raced down to the Naples Pier to see if I could get anything out of it…

Probably one of the most dramatic shots of the Naples Pier I have taken.

The tide was about as low as it gets.

I didn’t get to see the sun drop, but I was given this beautiful after glow.

And a final parting shot before the lights went out.

Mostly devoted to the Snowy Egret, this post highlights one of the more typical sights found here in Naples, Florida.

Keep reading for more shots.

Hah! I fooled you, this is all about Sandpipers!!!

Just kidding. I thought this was too cute to pass up from the set. On to the Egret.

A near miss.

Heading back out to the water, this Snowy Egret is in full breeding plumage.

Stop motion rinse out.

I can’t decide if this is the best shot of the bunch, or the one right before it.

Here’s the base of the pilings the birds were fishing off of.

The Egrets weren’t the only ones feeding on the bait fish.

Im out!

Tonight’s sunset was going to be a bust, or so I thought. I was planning on heading to the beach to catch it, but looking at the severe weather alerts on my iphone was making me wonder how it was going to turn out.

As I walked onto the rain soaked beach, the people who had obviously been there all day looked at me rather stragely with all my camera gear. “What’s this douche going to take pictures of? It’s complete shit out.”  Or so I was thinking they were thinking about me.

To be honest, I was thinking the same thing. The sky was almost all gray and there wasn’t really anything going on.

I saw a group of people freak out at the sight of a pod of manatee swimming along the coast. They though for sure it was a shark. I didn’t say anything and just kept walking on.

This composition is obviously forced. But wanted to take it anyways.

The sea snails were not liking the rain and made their way up to the tops of the pilings.

Go snail!

As the sun started to set, I thought I would take a go at trying to catch some of the lighting.

Along with the cover shot, I only captured three instances of lighting. And this was out of 150 photos I took trying to catch it in a 20 minute period.

There was some nice cloud formations worth noting as well.

You can see Naples Pier in the lower corner.

That’s about it.The cover shot was really the best one of the bunch. Next time I try this, I’m going to bring a tripod and a remote. Holding that camera up to my eye and waiting for lightning to strike was a real pain!