Not Enough Time!

Again, sorry for the months of not posting. I have been so busy with taking photographs and life in general I just haven't been able to keep up here. I went to the Everglades, the Keys, and all over Florida this winter taking photographs. Here is one a little closer to home that I took yesterday. Nothing exotic about the subject matter but I liked the interplay of light in the golden sand with rocks. The duck was very curious about the camera so I included him.

I took some really beautiful shots in the Everglades and Keys. Most of them are posted at my website Fine Art America.

Cumberland Island, Georgia

To begin with, if anyone is interested in purchasing a print or greeting cards of my Cumberland Island photographs, including others I did not put on this blog, go to my commercial website Fine Art America Website.
They do fantastic work! You can customize your print by size, type of paper, and even have it framed and matted.

As I always say, commercial wildlife photography is not for wimps! I took a 45 minute ferry over to Cumberland Island, a beautiful Georgia barrier island with a lot of history and tons of wildlife. I braved the heat for the day and took some fascinating shots there.

One of the main attractions on the island is the Dungeness manor ruins. This mansion was used as a winter home by the Carnegie family until 1925. It burned in the late 1950's but you can still see traces of grandeur for a bygone era.

When the Carnegie family abandoned the main mansion there they released their horses. Today there are around 114 feral horses roaming the island from this release. Here is a cute foal relaxing in the shade

and here is a horse who is obviously very happy!

In addition to the marvelous horses on the island there are other wildlife such as this wild turkey roaming around.

Though the land is very dry now we did see a few tough flowers such as this white prickly poppy.

I highly recommend Cumberland Island as a day trip for those who love to explore. If you visit the island I strongly suggest carrying sunblock, insect repellent, and lots of cold water. Conditions are somewhat rugged and amenities are lacking but the animals and interesting ruins make it a worthwhile adventure.

Where I Am Right Now In Life

Hi all! It's been awhile blogging because I have been so busy pursuing my photography, making videos, and caring for a sick cat. Let me catch you up on my life, if anyone out there is still even remotely interested.

Well, my former principal at Bartram High School, Brennan Asplen, has managed to scare the crap out of most of the faculty so they will not even talk with me. You see, he and school superintendent Joiner are afraid that I will tell some of the garbage that goes on behind the scenes in what passes for education in St. Johns county. Joiner and his minion Asplen decided that the best way to muzzle me is to cut off all communication between myself and my former coworkers. The funny thing is that I really couldn't care less what they are up to. I have too much of a full life here without picking through their dirty laundry. I guess that is how paranoid public officials act when they have a lot to hide. It is both humorous and tragic at the same time.

Our 13 1/2 year old cat Sebastian has been fighting a tremendous battle with calicivirus, a virus that attacks his gums and trachea. He developed pneumonia and spent time in a hospital in Jacksonville. He has just finished a 2 month course of antibiotics and has been going to our local vet daily for medication to help his nausea and lack of appetite. He is a tough little guy and is hanging in there.
Here is a recent photo of him.

I have been making new videos about our cat menagerie here. My favorite so far is a music video I made about Sam The Man. I think you will enjoy it!

I have also been taking lots of photographs in my second career as a wildlife/nature photographer. Here is one of a robber fly:

and here is one of a least tern:

My commercial website has these and a lot more photographs I have been taking this summer. It is Kenneth Albin Wildlife/Nature Photography. I have greeting cards, posters, and framed portraits of my best work there.

So that is pretty much what I have been accomplishing so far this season. I will try to update this blog more often but with so much going on it will probably be hit and miss. Take care and hope everyone is doing well.

Hoppy Holidays!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish the hoppiest of season's greetings to my dear friends on the internet group PetBunny. I love you all!

Ken Albin

Washington Oaks and Big Talbot Island Parks

I've been a busy photographer this week! First I went to Washington Oaks Park. Here are some shots from there. My photos can be purchased at http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/kenneth-albin.html


This motorized parachute was cruising above the beach.


The beach has a strange set of eroded coquina rocks there that make for a very artistic view of the ocean.


The algae covered rocks there were fascinating


and this little sandpiper was happily looking for morsels along the beach.

Next I went to Big Talbot Island and fed the mosquito population there. Wow, 95 degrees never felt so hot!


Here is a pretty little zebra longwing butterfly I found.


There is a funny story behind this ghost crab shot. I was trying to get down an embankment to the beach. The sand gave way under my feet and I slid on my tush the last 6 feet, winding up directly in front of this startled guy. I grabbed the camera and got a few good closeups of him before he recovered his senses enough to scurry away.


Speaking of crabs here is an Atlantic horseshoe crab I found at the edge of the water.


This poor osprey never did find a fish for lunch while I was there.


We will say goodbye to the beach there with this closeup of one of the dead oaks laying along the beach. There are hundreds of them there due to erosion, giving this section of beach its nickname "the Boneyard".

Till next time have a good week!

Another Nature Walk

Hi all! I've been going crazy the past week because my Nikon D5000 had a recall to fix a potential power problem so I have been without my baby! It's back now so I spent yesterday hiking 4 miles along a local nature trail. Here are three photos I took. As always, my photos are available as prints/greeting cards from my Fine Art America website.

This photo is of berries from the possum haw shrub, found near swamps. It adds a bit of color to the drab summer landscape.

and this one is another flying great egret. I never get tired of watching these beautiful creatures.

This last photo has a little story behind it. The poor male grackle spent 30 minutes fluffing his feathers out and loudly singing to a nearby female. She completely ignored his advances. Ah, the neverending story of love!

Best 2009 Photography

I was recently honored by the Boulevard of Photographers in their photo challenge. They have selected my "Sandpiper on a Golden Beach" for inclusion in their Best of 2009 Photo Anthology book. This is a competition judged by a staff of professional photographers and my photograph was selected out of thousands of submissions. I am very proud of this achievement as a semi-professional photographer. If you are interested in purchasing greeting cards or a framed/unframed print of this photograph you can do so at Fine Art America

Lord of the Dragonflies!

You've heard of Lord of the Flies. I am starting to feel like the title. I must have done something good to a dragonfly in an earlier life because every time I go out to take photos they come up and pose for me. This one flew up to me on a photo excursion to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm two days ago. I went to take alligator and bird photos and I got a few nice shots I will post later but this little female amber wing dragonfly came up and demanded that I take her picture so I obliged. Amber wings are tiny guys on the order of an inch long. They are fairly common in nature but since they tend to hang out over swamps and ponds a lot of people never see them. To combat their tendency to be bird lunches they have developed the skill of imitating wasps. They fly and sit more in a manner similar to wasps than dragonflies and this fools many predators into leaving them alone.

I took 180 photos at the alligator farm and weeded them down to 5 great shots. One nice thing about digital photography over film photography is you are not always worrying about saving film. I have a 6gb card in my D5000 camera so I can take more than 1000 full size photos. The battery only lasts for around 500 shots before recharging so shot capacity is not a limiting factor and you can snap as many extra shots as necessary to ensure you find that perfect shot.

One thing I found out quickly is that I really need a more powerful telephoto lens. My 18-55mm lens is wonderful for closeup and portrait shots but I missed some potentially wonderful shots of birds because they were just too far away. This weekend I am going up to get a 55-200mm lens so I can cover those far away shots as well. Other than that I am very pleased with the new Nikon D5000 camera. I am still learning the intricacies of it but a lot of my earlier photographic knowledge learning in the stone age film era still applies to this new era of digital photography.

I have a new artist web page to sell photographs at Fine Art America. Right now I am just privately selling uploads of my images for use on websites, magazines, and other use. In the near future I am going to also be selling through their website so I can expand my sales. If interested in a photograph you can contact me at albink@bellsouth.net and I can easily arrange an upload of it for you. I will post a seperate blog post for this at a later time. I am very excited to be able to offer the type of photos I am best at taking rather than just sticking to bland stock photographs for sale on microstock sites. I enjoy taking the type of photos that I would be proud to see framed on my walls so this is what I am offering.

That's about all for now. I am going to be finishing my current batch of photos today and uploading them. Till next time!

Karen

I was fooling around with the Nikon D5000 this evening trying to learn more about it. The better half was on the computer so I asked her to turn around for a quick shot. She had just come in from work not long before and was not "made up" for this but I think it is a nice offhand shot of her nonetheless.