Fresh Snow
In Dawn’s Light, Untouched
Category: Winter
Pushing Back….
…Darkness
The wonder of electricity through a timer, lights greet the sunset offering cheer until, precisely 4 hours later, surrender to the night UNLESS there is a power outage and the lights return for a renewed countdown.
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Visitor from the Good ‘ol Days
Our animatronic skiing snowman has entertained and terrorized a generation of grandchildren.
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Bullet Dodge Series 3
Not quite murmuration
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….
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.
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)
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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With a tripod it is simpler to achieve a level horizon….
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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Want to see more? Click me to visit my Florida photography on Getty IStock.
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
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
Kite Encounter
catching the wind
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
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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Click photograph for a larger view. You will open a gallery to flip back and for between images.
Copyright 2020 All Right Reserved Michael Stephen Wills Photography
Dawn Rough Surf High Tide
beyond belief
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
Sunrise Texture Series 7
Final Series, Sunrise Completion
Betelgeuse, AKA “Alpha Orionis”, was the first star disk, other than our Sun, measured. One hundred years ago the apparent size of Betelgeuse was then as now 0.003% of the sun. I bring this up because this “red” star at the end of its life cycle, is in the news, being now 40% of its brightness last year.
Betelgeuse is so far away this dimming is 700 year old news, the time it takes for light span the distance. News of our sun is more recent, sunlight informs us of the Sun’s surface from 8.33 minutes ago. Sunlight bursts from clouds to the camera in an instant of a second. In comparison my reactions to capture it are glacial. Sixteen seconds passed since the images of Series 6, time for three exposures at a slowed pace now the sun breaks free from the clouds.
Twelve minutes, fifty four seconds elapsed from the first images of this series. Seventy nine exposures taken with 16 selected moments, these last without the sand mirror.
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Exposure: 1/400 sec at f / 4.5, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 100
A Willet feeds in the new day. This is a species sandpipers, a cousin of the Sanderling of yesterday’s post.
Exposure: 1/400 sec at f / 5/0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 100
All sixteen Sunrise Texture moments are presented below.. Suggestion, for this series in a larger format, open a separate browser tab for each post. At series end you will then have eight (including the very first post a few weeks ago) landscapes to compare.
Exposure: 1/6 sec at f / 22, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125 
Exposure: 1/250 sec at f / 4.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125 
Exposure: 1/250 sec at f / 4.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125 
Exposure: 1/10 sec at f / 22, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125 
Exposure: 1/250 sec at f / 4.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125 
Exposure: 1/320 sec at f / 4.5, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125 
Exposure: 1/400 sec at f / 5.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 250 
Exposure: 1/15 sec at f / 22, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 250 
Exposure: 1/400 sec at f / 5.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 250 
Exposure: 1/400 sec at f / 5.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 250 
Exposure: 1/400 sec at f / 5.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 250 
Exposure: 1/500 sec at f / 5.6, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO250 
A sanderling is a species of sandpiper. Exposure: 1/320 sec at f / 4.5, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 100 
Exposure: 1/8 sec at f / 22, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 50 Exposure: 1/400 sec at f / 4.5, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 100
Want to see more? Visit this series on Getty IStock.
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 