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The Arrival and Concert #1

Well finally!

After two years of fitful starts and incubation, my first solo recording in 15 years has arrived. The kind man in the big brown truck stopped by Thursday evening, and after being terrorized by my Labrador Retriever, Jake (all bark and no bite), dropped two boxes of CDs on the porch. There really is something magical about cracking open that first box of discs -- reminds me of the scene in the original Back To The Future movie when George McFly opens that first box of books that he wrote. That's it! I'm the George McFly of contemporary folk music... okay, maybe not. But they're here, they're done and they sound great!

Within the next couple of weeks the album will be available for download on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, and most anywhere else you can purchase music on-line. Physical CDs will be available on the web through CDBaby-dot-com.

So right on the heels of getting the album, I did my first solo performance last night at Olivia's Coffee House in Eustis, Florida -- a bit west of Orlando. I was joined on stage by three of my Ashley Gang bandmates (Bob, Michelle and Kay), which was a very comforting situation. We had a decent crown for a hot August central Florida night, and most stuck it out for the full three hours. I have to confess to a pretty heavy dose of nerves, which is actually pretty unusual for me. I think that it only really affect me on one tune... one not on any album that I played without any backup, and that is politically controversial. Otherwise we did a nice mix of my original music spanning the last 15 years, two solo albums, and two with the Ashley Gang. On the whole, it was great fun -- Fred and Olivia are the consummate hosts, as are Margie and Joel who put us up for the night and tolerated Bob's snoring...

The next concert is the August 20th "official" CD release concert at the European Street Listening Room in Jacksonville, Florida. Many special guests that night, not to mention excellent food and drink. If you are in the vicinity, drop by and say hey, and pick of a copy of "Songs From Sand Lake". Remember that this is music with a mission -- a decent portion of all sales proceeds for this CD will be donated to the St. Johns Riverkeeper, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of Florida's historic Saint Johns River, and a cause near and dear to my heart. We actually made some money for SJRK last night...

Stay tuned, support live music wherever you live, and stand by....

Underdock

A 3-exposure handheld HDR image taken under the pier at Alpine Groves Park, Switzerland, Florida (on the Saint Johns River).

More on my website: River Road Photo

Another Sunday in North Florida

Just another Sunday in paradise... we ended the day at the County Dock on the Saint Johns River in Mandarin as we often do. There are many such photos throughout this blog, but it's a scene I never get tired of shooting. It always changes. No two sunsets are ever the same, as cliche as the sunset photo has become in the digital imaging age. The biggest bonus is that the algae seems to be gone. No dead fish. At least for now. Nature is resilient, and will always prevail. Long after we and our polluting habits have passed to dust, my river will remain... Then there was this morning in the backyard...

There were probably 20 butterflies in our gardens when I went out to the porch for breakfast this morning. Fritillaries, swallowtails of several varieties, monarchs, and skippers. by the time I could grab a camera, they were out of there... but this black and white tailed dragonfly was hanging out on the blue porter weed.  Little did he (or I) know what was creeping up from behind...

I have no idea what the little brown guy is... a hornet, some sort of fly? I didn't see him until I uploaded the image out of the camera. Pretty cool piece of luck. So yes, just another day in paradise after a remarkably stressful work week. We both really needed the sunset and cool river breezes down at the dock tonight. That leaves us with one last paddle stroke into the sunset....

County Dock - After the Storm...

Another Sunday evening trip to the County Dock on the Saint Johns River, off of Mandarin Point.  The tide was in after a hard rain, and the ammonia smell of the algae blooms, while still present, was tolerable, and there were no dead fish in the water. In fact, the water was teeming with manatees -- a family of at least three, maybe four kept us well entertained for a good thirty minutes. Unfortunately I had only my 10-20mm lens on the D200 tonight, expecting to shoot the drama in the sky, not in the river, so no photos of the sea cows worth sharing today... On the other hand, the scene was beautiful as the cloudy remnants of the recent storm played agains the descending sun....

All of the images here (except the one above) are three-exposure HDR images, processed using Photomatix Pro. Some were also run through a Topaz Adjust filter to provide a variety of interpretations of the scene. So enough chatter -- I'll let the photos speak for themselves. These will help you understand why I'm in love with this river...

Unti next time -- enjoy your week, appreciate the world around you, and take good care of it....

Killing Paradise

It's Father's Day and I wasn't intending to go off on an environmental rant today, but after an early afternoon walk down to the banks of my beloved Saint Johns River, I really have no choice in the matter.

The obvious devastation occurring in the Gulf of Mexico, despite it's enormity, is not the only man-made kill-shot aimed at Florida's fragile natural environment this spring. The Saint Johns is one sick river this year -- thanks to algal blooms facilitated by excess nutrients pumped into the river as fatally as BP is pumping oil into the gulf. In some cases, just as criminally, and for nothing but the motivation of pure greed.

The photo above shows the damage. In twenty-five years on the river, I have never witnessed blooms of this extent, nor so early in the year. The fish kills are hideous. I could only spend about three minutes on the bank of the water -- the smell of the dead fish combined with the rotting vegetation and deadly algae was nauseating -- though not as nauseating as the knowledge that this is all preventable. We bring this on ourselves.

I can't help but wonder at the damage blooms of this extent will cause not only to the fish and other river life, but to these grand old cypress trees being strangled at the roots. These blooms (this year's includes a previously unidentified type of toxic algae) are grown by the injection of "point source" and "non-point source" nutrient pollution (mostly nitrogen) into the river. Point source injection comes from industrial effluent -- companies such as Georgia-Pacific, located just north of Palatka, about 30 miles up river (south) of here. The non-point source pollution comes from the rest of use -- millions of Florida residents who live in the Saint Johns drainage plain. With our need to have manicured green landscapes that mimic the northern and English styles (that do not work naturally here), we cover our non-native grasses and plants with chemical fertilizer, waste our dwindling water reserves by watering the pollutants into the lawns, the excess of which is then sent down our storm drains and into the river with every tropical downpour.

I have never observed the above scene when the water in the river has been anything but pristine and clean. The crap afloat as far as one can see is the deadly algae. We are killing the environmental platform that sustains our own very lives by shear stupidity and greed. If you live in Florida -- stop committing time-release suicide. Learn how to use natural methods and native plant for your landscaping (we've just put in perennial peanut to replace the St. Augustine grass and over the years a large variety of attractive native plants that, once established, thrive in the local environment without much attention), encourage your legislators to create laws and enforce regulations that STOP corporate polluters.

It's time to take a stand before we have no viable land to stand on. Happy Father's day -- your mother (nature) is really pissed.

Local Focus - June 5, 2009

In an effort to bring some amount (however small) of discipline to my writing here, I thought that I would try to venture down a path of recurring themes, wrapped around my photography. Two or three areas of "focus" (pun totally intended), that might produce two or three posts per week. So here's what I came up with: 1) Local Focus -- a look at the northeast Florida region (not what most people dream about when they dream about tropical Florida...), 2) Strangers -- photos and stories of people I have never met, and 3) Free For All -- whatever happens to come to mind through the lens of my camera.

So tonight we start this little effort locally...

...County Dock Road in Mandarin dead-ends at the Saint Johns River. An old boat ramp adjacent to the dock that extends a thousand feet or so into the brackish water. Here we found a fisherman casting for bait, in silhouette near sundown on a cloudy day. The river was calm - it had rained heavily earlier in the afternoon. A good evening to fish...

Fifty feet out on the dock a couple fished and smoked. There were at least ten people, men and women, fishing on the dock. They all smoked. I wonder if North Carolina Tobacco attracts Florida fish to the end of those lines. His white tee shirt and red shorts made an interesting reflection on the slick surface. We didn't stay long, what with the smoke and all.....

Losing Florida

Finding Florida, originally uploaded by Paul-G.

The past 5 days have brought amazing contrasts. The image above is a Swallowtail Kite hunting in the skies above the Seminole State Forest, about 15 miles west of Sanford in central Florida. This image is from a distance of about 250 - 300 yards. Mrs. Muse, her sister and husband, and I spent Easter weekend camping the way nature intended, 5 miles into the forest. Other than the occasional sound of a jet engine and the daily visit from Ranger Linda, we neither saw, nor heard another human being. What we did see were the piney woods, stands of live oak, open Florida sand hill prairie, sulphur springs, Hawks, the Kite, wild turkeys, deer, skinks and lizards, sand hill cranes, Florida Spring Wildflowers, butterflies and Blackwater Creek. Then, of course, there were the gnats, red bugs, ants, and ticks -- but they were well worth the price of minor annoyance. Nothing quite like sitting under a broad, black Florida sky on a Saturday night counting the passage of satellites and watching shooting stars flash by. Fantastic. Then there was yesterday...

Once again, a State of Florida agency, supposedly existing in order to protect our natural resources, acted shamefully, foolishly, stupidly. The Saint Johns River Water Management District Board voted to permit the DAILY withdrawal of more than 500,000 (half-a-million) gallons of water from the Saint Johns River to meet the needs of the exploding population of Seminole County. This is the same SJWMD Board that limits residential irrigation to 2 days each week (still probably too much), and is likely to grant a permit to Niagara Water to draw 175,000 gallons per year from the aquifer to bottle and sell. Political appointees at their worst. Follow the money and it very likely ends up in the pockets of board members or their supporting cast of Florida real estate developers. Keep the population growing, keep the cash flowing, but ignore the vast majority of knowledgeable scientists, environmentalists and city governments along the Saint Johns who testified that the scientific evaluation of the impact of the withdrawal is incomplete. One must hope that the ink on the dollar bills will quench the thirst of these dolts when the water is gone.

So we protect a wee bit of natural Florida -- then do what Florida good-old-boy politicians do best: suck the life out of the land for a few dollars more. When WILL they ever learn.

Four-Hulls

Four-Hulls, originally uploaded by Paul-G.

A little something to tide me over for a bit during this extremely busy week (coming home from work just a bit too tired to trust my writing skills and interpretive judgement).

I shot this image at the County Dock in Mandarin Florida last weekend (our favorite spot to de-stress and catch a Florida sunset). Post-processing in Photoshop Elements, using the Topaz Adjust add-in filter.

Hopefully this is a harbinger of a peaceful weekend to come. We have started (as of last week) a Saturday morning Tai Chi beginner's class -- and I have a photo going up for auction at the Florida Native Plant Society.

A happy and safe weekend wish for all....simple.

Path To Less, Update 4: Day Tripping

We decided that we would plan a pure decompression weekend this week. Make no commitments to be any place, at any time, to anyone. The only commitment was to ourselves -- that we would relax, do it simply and inexpensively, and do it together. So after a light lunch we grabbed the camera, jumped in the car, and headed south from Jacksonville on the back roads with no destination in mind. We ended up 50 miles south, at Ravine Gardens State Park (a place we had never visited before), in Palatka Florida. We were pleasantly surprised to find great walking trails, beautiful north Florida scenery, 70 degree warmth after a week of freezes, and even a few early blooming azaleas. For four bucks and two gallons of gas, we got out into nature, took photographs, got some decent exercise, and made the two suspension bridges that span the ravines over the local springs swing  back and forth...

From the park, we headed across the St. Johns river between Palatka and East Palatka, then northeast on route 207 through Hastings (the potato capital of the south). We then picked up route 13 -- the Bartram Scenic Highway -- part of the famous Bartram Trail, blazed by William Bartram in the mid-18th century. This portion of route 13 is lightly traveled 2-lane road that hugs the winding shore of the Saint Johns River -- until it bursts into four, then six lanes as it runs into suburban Jacksonville. Down here, the small fishing and farming communities have names like Bass Cove, Collee Cove, St. John, Tocoee, Picolatta and Orangedale. We pulled over at Riverdale Park in tiny Riverdale --  a favorite spot of ours for rest, reading, and sunset watching.
As usual, we had the place pretty much to ourselves -- another couple had settled into a pair of folding chairs to river-gaze, a small band of bikers blew in and blew out, a mother and her daughter stopped and chatted for a few minutes. Something about the folks who stop by Riverdale Park -- they never fail to say hello, and never fail to be interesting and friendly. So for the price of another gallon of gas, Mrs. Muse got to sit on the dock and chat with a new friend, I got to wade around in the milkweed with my camera at low tide, and we all got to enjoy the peace and beauty of some of nature's finest work...
No matter where you are, and no matter what your personal aesthetic tastes there is no doubt a similar opportunity for you to leave the rush and stress behind and for the price of the loose change under the sofa pillows spend a rewarding, relaxing, refreshing, and renewing afternoon. Simple....