St. Petersburg fine art photographer

Wide Panorama of Pass-A-Grille Beach St. Petersburg Florida Fine Art Photography

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Click for 2000px version - 5 shot panorama of Pass-A-Grille Beach St. Petersburg Florida available for commercial license & fine art printOn the same stormy evening I photographed the kiteboarder out on Pass-A-Grille Beach I made this 5-shot panorama of the beach as empty as you will ever see it.  This shot was made handheld which is surprisingly not hard to keep aligned if you have a grid view inside your DSLR's viewfinder.  I put the lower third of the gridline in the viewfinder straight on the horizon allowing me to make the shot without the tripod.  What I had to watch for was leaving enough overlap (about 1/3 of a frame) so that Photoshop could work its stitching magic with its Photomerge automation.

Pass-A-Grille Beach is one of my favorite spots in all of Tampa Bay as it represents the very tip of the main Gulf Blvd beaches in Pinellas County.  It definitely has a "land's end" feel to it, especially at a time like this after a storm at twilight.

St. Petersburg Downtown Waterfront Skyline at Twilight

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St. Petersburg Florida waterfront at Twilight, this image available for fine art print & commercial license - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 10 sec tripod mounted with cable releaseThe waterfront of St. Petersburg, Florida is home to the third largest continuous waterfront park in North America (behind Vancouver and Chicago).  This is why at the very edge where the city meets Tampa Bay as viewed from the water the first thing you will see are trees.  This long park system is my favorite part of the entire city.  

I made this photograph from a secret-ish spot on The Pier allowing for a low near water-level viewpoint of the St. Petersburg skyline.  The ten second exposure allowed for some motion blur on the surface of the water and for pulling out the last remaining light in the twilight sky. 

Safety Harbor Pier HDR & Panorama Clearwater Florida

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The view from under the Safety Harbor Pier - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/11 ISO 200 5-exposure HDR handheld

Due to a very low tide, I found myself with the opportunity to go under the Safety Harbor Pier.  I did not go to Safety Harbor with the express purpose of photographing it, but I of course did have my DSLR with me, but not my tripod.  The sun was still high in the sky and as you can see from the shadows starting to make its way toward the west.  A single exposure shot would not capture much of the detail under the pier itself.  However, since there was still quite a bit of available light I dared for a 5-exposure handheld HDR shot.  I highly recommend using a tripod for HDR no matter what the light, but as you can see, in a pinch, and with enough light, even a 5-exposure shot can be handheld and still produce a sharp image.

Click for large 2000px version - Safety Harbor Pier and Tampa Bay panorama - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50 @ f/11 ISO 200 1/400th 5-frame panoramaLacking my tripod did not stop me from also making a 5-frame panorama of Tampa Bay and the Safety Harbor Pier.  I used the gridlines in my viewfinder to keep each shot level with the horizon as I set the exposure to f/11 in aperture priority mode and rotated to make the five shots that I would later stitch together in Photoshop CS5 using the Photomerge function.

Safety Harbor Pier HDR image - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 5-exposure HDR handheldOnce again no tripod on hand, but I felt confident to be able to handhold this shot for five quick frames (using my Nikon D300's 6-frames per second burst mode) given the light available.  My composition choice came from putting the horizon in the lower third of the frame and having the pier form a leading line toward the center.

Brown Pelican Bird in Flight St. Petersburg Florida Fine Art Nature Photography

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Brown Pelican preparing to dive St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1250th

Regular followers of my nature posts will know that I am very fond of photographing the many local brown pelicans in my St. Petersburg, Florida neighborhood.  I have not yet achieved my long-term goal of photographing a pelican skimming just over the water, but I was glad to be able to add these images to my pelican portfolio.  On Saturday pelicans were regularly diving out of the sky into the water for fish around The Pier.  Once getting the settings dialed in using shutter priority mode and multi-point focus, it was just a matter of tracking the birds fast enough as they made their dives.

Brown Pelican on an aerial fish survey - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/6.3 ISO 200 1/1250thThis collection of pelican images focuses on the birds as they are about to make a plunge into Tampa Bay hoping to come up with a beak-full of small silvery fish.  Observing a bird's behavior is key to being able to capture the photographs one wants.  I watched where and how they circled and what they did with their wings right before their split second descents.

Brown Pelican wings arced for diving in St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/6.3 ISO 200 1/1000thDuring this shoot I also became, at long last, a believer in shutter priority mode.  With the pelicans diving from a bright blue sky background down to the dark waters of Tampa Bay, I knew what shutter speed I needed to freeze their flight, but adjusting the aperture constantly to maintain the correct exposure would have been nearly impossible.  Thus, shutter priority was the best exposure mode to use for these bird-in-flight images.

Brown Pelican hovering before diving in St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4.5 ISO 200 1/1250thI also used multi-point focus because I was able for the most part to fill the frame with the pelicans, allowing the 21-focus points to act as a net.  If I could not fill the frame with the pelicans, well, I probably would not even push the shutter, but in that case I would use a single focus point to place right on the bird to distinguish it from any other possible background elements.  In relative close-up shots like these, the multi-focus point setting gave me the best chance of landing a focus point on the subject (pelican) where a single focus point might get lost under a single wing flap.

Visit The Pier for great pelican and bird-in-flight photography opportunities:


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    • Two heads are better than one - Florida Pelican Fine Art Photography

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    quizzical brown pelican - Florida Fine Art Photography - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/160thThe many brown pelicans that make St. Petersburg home are a frequent photography subject of mine.  These birds are often very approachable, allowing one to look deep into the bird's eye, a rare human-non-human-animal close-up encounter.  I am always curious what animals are thinking.  Since they supposedly have a much different perception of time, how does this affect how they think?  If pelicans cannot think of the far future and who knows how far back their memories of past events go, what occupies their minds?  Perhaps nothing enabling them to live in a blissful present?  I often get the impression pelicans look upon humans with contempt, "go on with your life and quite gawking at me," I imagine them saying.  Are humans the only animals that feel wonder toward other animals?  Does a pelican look upon a great blue heron and think it is beautiful or merely a competitor for food?

    unimpressed brown pelican - St. Petersburg Fine Art Photography - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens @ f/4 ISO 200 1/1250th


    Sailboat reflections in St. Petersburg downtown harbor HDR

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    The marina across from the Vinoy Hotel sailboat reflections - Nikon D300 with Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens @ f/11 ISO 200 3-bracket HDR handheld

    One day I will have to go out and make fine art photographs like this on purpose, as this one was made while teaching a DSLR Photography Lesson.  I noticed the sailboats' masts reflecting in the water and thought this makes this spot look much more interesting than the other 198 times I have seen and walked by it.  I normally do not center the horizon so much in the frame, but for certain reflection shots it works.  I left the top of the sky and did not crop right to the top of the masts to let the sky itself have more of a place in the photograph instead of only featuring the boats themselves.  

    Taking three bracketed shots and using HDR processing allowed for a much more colorful and detailed image than the single exposure photo I took first.  I liked the scene, but I recognized that a single exposure may only leave me with a black & white choice for a final image, whereas also taking bracketed shots for HDR gave me an additional option to pick from once I returned home and looked at the photos on my 24" monitor.  

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