Atlantic Ocean – Michael Stephen Wills Photography

Success: IStock Accepted Beach Textures

March 25, 2018 MichaelStephenWills7 Comments

This photograph of an expired (freshly dead) Speckled Swimming Crab washed up by the surf onto Cocoa Beach one January morning is now available on Getty IStock for your creative usages.

Click the photograph, below, to visit the listing.

It is one of the thirteen (13) images accepted in set with the theme “Beach Textures.” During our winter visits to Florida our routine is to rise in the pre-dawn darkness, enjoy the emerging sun, different every day. Then, I take off for a beach walk in the dawn, early morning light.

The view of the first photograph is frontal including eye stalks and antennae above the mouth. The main body, called cephalothorax, is speckled. The mouth is the large opening in the center of the leading edge of cephalothorax. To the right and left are the arms with pincers. Scientific Name: Arenaeus cribarius.

This view from the rear is also available. Click the photograph to view listing.

It is a rear view of the walking legs extended from the cephalothorax.

This gull feather, below, was the inspiration for the series. You might remember my posting of the feather as “Beach Dreams” back in January, shortly after I captured the image.

Click the photograph for the Gull Feather IStock Listing.

The sand castle, at the top of this post, is also in the series.

Here is the link to browse the entire series on IStock. License my photographs for an affordable fee to use on your blog, website or other creative venues.

Thank You for visiting.

Man of War Beach Walk

Beauties and Dangers Encountered During a Walk on the Beach

March 23, 2018March 24, 2018 MichaelStephenWills12 Comments

Yesterday, I submitted to Getty a set of beach photographs featuring abstract nature patterns and do not yet have the approval. The same images were published on my Fine Art Gallery. Click this link or any photograph to visit my Textures Abstracts Patterns fine art gallery.

Setting off from the International Palms Resort Pam and I turned left, walking toward the pier, about 2.5 miles away. On the left is Lori Wilson (public) Park. One benefit of this location is the life guard station and “protected” swimming. We have reservations about ocean swimming. What is swimming with you?

That hotel with the dark windows, on the north side of Lori Wilson Park is the Hilton. This sand castle, washed out by high tide, caught in the dawn light, was in front of the Hilton. It brings to mind the interaction of nature and people.

There were strong on-shore winds that day. Dune grass driven by the wind made this pattern.

Click photo to visit my Fine Art Gallery

The wind and tide washed ashore all sorts of man-mad junk.

These small pieces of plastic washes off distant islands by hurricanes, the plastic ground up into bits.

The branded drink holder, the “corn huskers” of the University of Nebraska Lincoln, does not speak well for the alumni as these are sold locally. Community-minded people walk the beach with bags, picking up the bigger stuff.

When the wind changed the small plastic washed out with the next high tide and the beach was cleared.

Corpse of a gull with ground up plastic bits.

The gull beak has the same cruel beauty in death as it does in life.

Click photo to visit my Fine Art Gallery

The wind drove ashore living creatures, left them on the beach to dry out or as food for crabs and gulls. After a Man Of War washes up on a beach it is still dangerous. Long tentacles extend from the body and can deliver painful stings.

The person walking around these tentacles is wisely wearing shoes, as I can tell from the footprint shape.

Each such tentacle is threaded with stinging, venom-filled structures coiled, like a spring, ready to pump venom into the victim for the purpose of feeding, catching larval and small fishes and squids.

These structures, called nematocysts fire on contact and do not differentiate targets be it a human foot or a squid.

Click photo to visit my Fine Art Gallery

The crest of the Portuguese Man of War is very visible in the water, the sac can be inflated/deflated to catch the wind or even sink the organism to escape surface feeders. The fanciful resemblance of the floating crest to a sailing ship is the origin of the organism’s popular name. The scientific name is Physalia physalis. While it appears to be a single creature, it is actually several working together for common benefit.

We talked with life guards about first aid procedure, for the stings, and were not comforted by their ignorance. We had done the research ourselves. Be informed before you step onto the beach. Do not expect well informed assistance in the case of a sting, pre-arm yourself with knowledge.

Click photo to visit my Fine Art Gallery

This is an especially dangerous configuration of a beached Man O’ War (also known at Floating Terror): a blue balloon with strings trailing from it. Young children will see the balloon and want to grab or play with it. If we see tourist families with young children, when these are around, we will go out of our way to warn them.

These disconcerting findings on the beach do not diminish our enjoyment of the environment, instead we are left with a greater appreciation and respect for the ocean.

Dunes welcome us home after a successful sunrise photo shoot.

Click photo to visit my Fine Art Gallery

Please browse my reasonably priced stock photography. License a photograph, download and use it for your website or blog. Click this link to browse all my Getty IStock Photography offerings.

Or click this link or any photograph or this link to select a print with custom framing from my “Textures” Fine Art Gallery.

A Secretive and Failed Zuma SpaceX Mission

March 8, 2018March 8, 2018 MichaelStephenWills7 Comments

Driving to Cocoa Beach from Ithaca, Pam and I missed a horrendous storm because we did a side trip to Louisville, Kentucky, avoiding I95 January 4th and 5th and a rare and treacherous ice storm.

We met people who were stranded overnight near Savannah, Georgia while, on the same days, we drove Kentucky Hill Country for an overnight at Macon, Georgia all in excellent, dry, cold weather.
The storm itself, was a stroke of luck. The first Space X launch of 2018 was delayed by the weather until the evening of Sunday, January 7th.
I was in place, in the dark, on Cocoa Beach with my Canon DSLR on bulb mode, securely mounted on a travel tripod. My choice of lens was the 24 mm “wide angle.”

Proximity to the Kennedy Space Center is a reason we return to Cocoa Beach. A year ago, March 2007, we did the “Launch Director Tour” offered once a month (if at all) and had a fantastic day. I’ll need to blog about it.

For now, here is a shot from the former Space Shuttle launch room.

I planned camera placement well for this night launch. The view held the entire parabola of the trail. Camera placement was based on researching the launch complex, finding it on Google Earth, using the line feature to determine the orientation of the complex from my location on Cocoa Beach.

Live, the start of the launch is like a dawn in the northern sky. I broke off the exposure to somewhat capture the effect.

The human eye, only the Falcon 9 flame is visible, as a single point of bright light ever rising, lighting the beach and clouds in a soft glow.

The long exposure blends the flame into a bright parabola, at one point the rocket engines throttle back, eventually the color changed to reddish from bright white. I held the exposure until the rocket flame, in the image, turned to blue and faded away.

We waited for six (6) or so minutes, the camera mount and orientation unchanged, and then the incredible returning booster briefly lit up to land at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. I missed the beginning of the burn. In retrospect, I should have timed the launch and opened the shuttle 5 minutes or so after “blast off.”

Followed by a TWO sonic boom finale. Kabooom….Kabooom.

We read in the news the secret military satellite, named “Zuma”, on top of the Falcon crashed into the Indian Ocean. SpaceX claimed the launch was a success (??), that the protective fairing jettisoned successfully. No mention was made of the secret payload. The failure was with the Northup Grumman built “Zuma” satellite? Hmmmmm.

Offering of Black Skimmer Photographs

Looking for the perfect photo for your web site and blog?

March 7, 2018March 8, 2018 MichaelStephenWills6 Comments

Looking for the perfect photo for your web site and blog?

Browse my reasonably priced stock photography.

License the photo, download and use it.

Click this link for my recently published Black Skimmers Feeding photographs. This link will open a new page to display my Black Skimmer photographs on Getty IStock.

These are different and higher quality images from my posting of earlier this week.

Click this link to browse all my Getty IStock Photography offerings.

Lady Feeding Gulls, Cocoa Beach Dawn

unflappable lady hand feeds seagulls

March 6, 2018March 7, 2018 MichaelStephenWills20 Comments

When my wife read my post “Black Skimmers Feeding” she asked, “Where is the photo of resting Skimmers?”

To answer her question I looked through Cocoa Beach photographs and discovered I did NOT capture the Skimmers resting. Instead, here are a related species, the Royal Tern (scientific name: Thalasseus maximus), whose behavior is similar in that it exclusively feeds from the water. There was a wind that morning and these individuals face into it. These birds are, from a human point of view, well behaved, unlike the opportunistic gull.

I searched around the web for identification of this gull without success.

It dines on a dead fish washed up by the surf. In my previous posting I used the word “grifting” to describe gull behavior, again this is from the human point of view. Gulls are notorious for stealing food from unwary beach goers, brazening walking over to unguarded chips (any kind), for instance, grabbing them and flying off. If the chip stash is large, this sets off a nasty feeding frenzy when tens of gulls swoop in and grab.

Here is a series of photographs, demonstrating this behavior.

Click this link or any image in this article for my Fine Art Gallery from Florida.

The dawn flowed over Cocoa Beach as a lady attracted a crowd of hungry gulls, reminiscent of scenes from Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”

She is obviously an experienced gull feeder, unflappable with a steady hand.

She had come to the shore at dawn for a photo shoot. Her male companion (husband?) was there with a camera.

Pam and I were there for the dawn, me with the Sony camera.

At first, I stood there amazed at the spectacle. She was in such control of the situation, not a victim, more like a lion tamer.

Then, Pam said, “You have to get this.” And I did.

Black Skimmers Feeding

An early morning revelation

March 4, 2018 MichaelStephenWills25 Comments

Today, I published six fine art prints from this photo session. Click this link for any photograph to visit my new Florida Gallery.

One early morning, just after dawn, Cocoa Beach, Florida, I had a revelation. My wife and I walk the beach four or more miles each day we are lucky enough to be in Florida for the winter. Yes, we are “snow birds” who flee the snows of New York for a few weeks, now and then.

We love to catch the sunrise together, have breakfast, pull together a lunch for a long walk. We catch the passing beach scenery, find a place to enjoy our meal, and return late afternoon.

The Black Skimmer (Scientific Name: Rynchops niger) literally stands out from the gulls. The individuals gather together in a large group. If there is a wind, most group members face into it. They are aloof and dignified, unlike the gulls who grift for food, obnoxious and bothersome if you make the mistake of throwing a gull a morsel.

Black Skimmers are just as large a gulls. Slender, tern-like, black and white bodies. Recognize a Black Skimmer from the colorful red of the base of the bill. If you view my Fine Art versions, notice the lower mandible is much longer.

My early morning revelation was how the Black Skimmer feeds, flying just above the surf, the lower mandible extended to fish by feel. Unless you beach walk early mornings, you will be most familiar with the habit of grouping together, facing into the wind. I captured this individual, a member of a larger group, just after sunrise, on Cocoa Beach. It was just me and the Skimmers.

Their feeding is successful enough to allow them to longue on the beach most of the day. I have only seen them feed early mornings. Here is another part of their feeding behavior. They feed as a group in long sweeping lengths. At the end, they turn as a group and head the other way. Here are three Black Skimmers in a turn.

One morning, after our sunrise view, I pulled together my photography kit for this successful photo shoot. Enjoy!!

Beach Dreams

seascape and still life

January 15, 2018January 16, 2018 MichaelStephenWills24 Comments

January afternoon

Sea gull feather on a windy beach

Click this link for my Gallery of Fine Art Photography.