Category: travel

Bullet Dodge Series 5

Aquarium as metaphor

MichaelStephenWills12 Comments

Perusing the Epcot brochure as we walked beneath “Spaceship Earth” (see photograph, below) we planning the afternoon. Between that moment and Tokyo Dining at 7 pm we had a afternoon “Fast Pass” for Spaceship Earth.

It was natural to wander into”The Seas with Nemo and Friends,”the first attraction after Spaceship Earth, first turn on the right. Pam and I were enthralled for an hour, walking about, viewing a 5.1 million gallon “Sea Base” aquarium.

A metaphor of aquarium occupants stops at the glass edge, the sea creatures on one side of the glass, the humans on the other very much closer to each other, breathing the same air.

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Spaceship Earth, the icon of Epcot
Orienteering Map within Aquarium

Here is a crowd favorite, the “funny nose” Unicorns.

The Unicorn

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“funny Nose”

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Fish Home Schooling

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Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Bullet Dodge Series 4

amid the COVID crowds

MichaelStephenWills3 Comments

In the 2000’s the company I worked for was installing software at Walt Disney World and over several trips became familiar with the Team Disney building, especially the wonderful sundial. My coworkers and I took dinner once at the “Rose and Crown” restaurant, Epcot United Kingdom pavilion. At first glance Epcot pavilions have a high cheesiness potential. A saving grace, what most impressed me, was the staffing. Young people from the United Kingdom served us, creating a deep authenticity to the experience.

I always wanted to visit “on my own dime”, January 2020 seemed like a good time. We are not “Disney or Die” (as in “Give Me Liberty AND Give Me Death”), the news available to the public was of an ill defined illness in China. Over that week I researched the park and purchased tickets for Friday, January 10. That morning I greeted the dawn and we headed out later morning for Orlando.

Once Walt Disney World is once again open, as I am sure it will be, two important preparations I recommend are (1) install the “My Disney Experience” app and, on arrival (2) take a photograph of the parking location before boarding the tram. The Disney Experience smart phone app allowed us to book restaurant reservations. Admission fee includes several reservations for attractions, to skip the line. Disney calls it a “Fast Pass.”.

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Preparations

In keeping with our dangerous position, wandering among COVID-19 spotted crowds, “the invisible enemy,” here are several dangerous inhabitants of the first attraction we enjoyed, “The Seas with Nemo and Friends.”

Poisonous Fish among Coral from the IPhone 7

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Hammerhead Shark

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Lurking Eel

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Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Bullet Dodge Series 3

Not quite murmuration

MichaelStephenWills1 Comment

Today, enjoy two videos of shorebirds taking flight at once. Starlings can flock and swarm in clouds of birds, called murmuration. My videos of a shorebird colony taking fright, at something unknown as the beach was empty, are from my IPhone 7.

This is a still image, high resolution, similar to the view of the second video. A repeat from yesterday.

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With a tripod it is simpler to achieve a level horizon….

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III

December 3, 2014 President Obama warned of the coming pandemic and passed along plans and a team to the incoming Trump administration. By December 2019, the pandemic unleashed in China, Trump gutted this capability and, while Pam and I were planning out January 10th Walt Disney World trip, hid the truth from United States Citizens.

We were keeping an eye on China, by January 10th the Chinese communist government was lying, “there is no human-to-human” transmission they told the WHO (World Health Organization). Knowing the truth, our plans for that day would be different.

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Sunrise, January 109, 2020 Cocoa Beach, Florida

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Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

References:

CNN YouTube, “Hear what Barack Obama said in 2014 about pandemics.”

Daily KOS, “How the Obama administration tried to save us from what Trump is doing right now.”

FOX News, “WHO haunted by January tweet saying China found no human transmission of coronavirus.”

Bullet Dodge Series 2

Shroomed (Happy May Day)

MichaelStephenWills8 Comments

One week before January 10, the dawning of the day photographed here, “the CDC Director Robert Redfield was notified by a counterpart in China that a “mysterious respiratory illness was spreading in Wuhan [China]”. Redfield notified HHS Secretary Alex Azar shortly thereafter, who shared his report with the National Security Council (NSC). According to The Washington Post, warnings about the virus were included in the President’s Daily Brief in early January, an indicator of the emphasis placed on the virus by the intelligence community.” December( and maybe October/November), 2019 through January, 2020: COVID-19 was spreading across the USA as visitors from Wuhan disembarked from planes.

The following images compare IPhone 7 to a dslr mounted on a tripod.

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IPhone 7

With a tripod it is simpler to achieve a level horizon….

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III

I heard the word “shroomed” (as a verb) used in Episode 1, Season 6, of Bosch. As in “the Federal Government treats us like mushooms”: grown in excrement and kept in the dark.

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Sunrise, January 10, 2020 Cocoa Beach, Florida

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Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Reference: the quote is from the Wikipedia article “Timeline of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States.”

Bullet Dodge Series 1

First of a looooonnnngggg series

MichaelStephenWills4 Comments

One day after my “Sunrise Texture” series as the sun rose on Cocoa Beach I was waiting with the same photographic kit. It was perfect weather for a visit to Walt Disney World, planned for that day: unsettled.

This image couple demonstrates the effect of long / short exposure without using filters. I changed the ISO and F-stop to achieve these effects.

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  • ISO 50 F/32

With a tripod it is simpler to achieve a level horizon….

  • ISO 500 f/6.3

I turned around to observe the colonies of shore birds…..

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Want to see more? Visit this my “Sunrise Textures” series on Getty IStock.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Cushendun Published

Photography accepted this week by Getty

MichaelStephenWills3 Comments

Click me to visit Getty, my recently accepted Cushendun photography.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Kite Encounter

catching the wind

MichaelStephenWills5 Comments

Awhile after encountering the hydrofoil the same north wind powered a large, eight foot wingspan kite high overhead. Cheri Down Park, my meeting point for lunch with Pam, was in sight as I took a detour to talk with the kite flier.

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Seated in a comfortable beach chair, he turned a one foot diameter reel pulling the kite in. Kite flying was a relaxation for this permanent resident. As the kite descended overhead I caught this short video. In retrospect the beauty is ominous, a metaphor for the approaching novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

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Copyright 2020 All Right Reserved Michael Stephen Wills Photograph

Bright Surf, High Tide

Invasion

MichaelStephenWills15 Comments

Morning walks through January 2020 were solitary events, more so on stormy morning such as this, January 23rd. Even the dog walkers stayed home. The surf surged to the dunes. Click me for my posting, “Rough Surf.”

Today’s photographs are a sequence of the surf’s high point. Click me for yesterday’s post including a video.

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The sun broke through between clouds to rake with light the beach scurf and wind scud. In the distance, a steady west gale blows surf onto itself as a white curtain.

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Copyright 2020 All Right Reserved Michael Stephen Wills Photography

Dawn Rough Surf High Tide

beyond belief

MichaelStephenWills5 Comments

At dawn I walked on the beach from North 1st street to South 8th Street Cocoa Beach. Tide was at peak of high, the surf still high from gale winds. Click me for yesterday’s posting, “Rough Surf.”

In the first video, set the effect of a strong west wind pushing surf spray back onto itself, the ocean brightly lit across dunes. I was standing on a boardwalk access from South 8th Street.

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South 8th Street is my turnaround, walking back the squall clouds broke, releasing sunlight for this video.

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Squalls returned, forcing me to hide the DSLR (digital single-lens reflex camera) under my waterproof shell. Then, the squall broken once again, releasing sunlight for this double rainbow.

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Click this link to visit “Man O War Beach Walk” on my blog.

Copyright 2020 All Right Reserved Michael Stephen Wills Photography

Beauty and Infection

Cutting Trees to Fight Disease in Glenariff Forest Park

MichaelStephenWills9 Comments

White Hawthorne tree blooms grace hedgerows of the rural hillside facing Glenariff Forest Park. The other white is grazing sheep. The North Channel of the Irish Sea is visible at the foot of the glen, with the shore of Scotland just visible.

Foreground are the stumps of mature trees cut by the forest service to control the oomycete plant pathogen Phytophthora ramorum. We visited June 2014, the year before, October 2013, the Belfast Telegraph reported “Northern Ireland is close to the point where it will be impossible to eradicate a virulent disease from the forests where it has taken hold.” Glenariff Forest part was one of those forests and the tree stumps are victims of that struggle.

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Here is a link to this photograph on Getty.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills