Sibling Affection

Great egret chicks in their nest.

The Cutest Tricolored Heron Chick!

I was lucky enough to capture this chick today at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm bird rookery while on a photo shoot.

Laughing Gull

I followed a little laughing seagull around at Guana State park in Ponte Vedra, Florida. This is a mini pictorial essay of him.

Here is the gull hunting for dinner around the lake shallows. It was low tide and there were schools of fish splashing everywhere.

He caught a fish and carried it to the edge of the water. Here he worked at turning the fish around so he could swallow it. I felt sorry for the poor little fish but I guess the gull needs to eat too.

After eating his dinner the gull became fascinated by my camera and tripod. He walked over to where I was and studied me and the camera. He was obviously a little puzzled by this strange guy who was taking photographs of him! A cute little guy, isn't he?

Do animals feel love?

Look at the photograph I took of a mated pair of great egrets and then you tell me if animals can express love. This and many other wildlife and nature photographs are for sale on my website Kenneth Albin Fine Art Photography. My photography there can be bought as framed prints, on canvas, as posters, and as greeting cards.

New Rookery Photographs

My commercial work, approximately 150 wildlife and nature photographs are for sale at Kenneth Albin Photography. The company does beautiful work transferring my art to canvas, greeting cards, and framed archival prints. If you are looking for wildlife or nature art to hang in your home or business please take a look at my site.

Here are some of last week's photos from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm bird rookery. Nesting is in full swing now!

Three great egret chicks.

The great egrets even talk while flying!

Closeup of a tricolor heron.

Great egret ballet.

St. Augustine Rookery Photo Shoot

I have a new commercial photography website. It is Ken Albin Fine Art Photography. The website company does excellent printing and framing work and I highly recommend them. If you are interested in a nature or wildlife photograph or canvas please check out my site. I currently have more than 140 photographs there. Many of them are placed into specific galleries to make it easier for you to find something specific you may be looking for. I hope you enjoy my efforts to show the beautiful scenery of Florida.

Last week I went to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm wild bird rookery to take some nesting photographs. It was a humbling experience shooting next to professionals from National Geographic and several other famous magazines. I certainly learned a lot being with them and had a great time with this opportunity to capture some images of these beautiful birds. The rookery is a swamp where herons, egrets, and storks come to raise their young. They have the natural protection of a group of alligators under the nests who keep ground predators away.

A great egret mom and her chick.

A roseate spoonbill in flight.

A wood stork. This is an endangered species.

Restoration of the Color Organ! (Part 1)

40 years ago my folks bought me a 3 channel color organ. With my fuzzy memory I had thought it might have come from Radio Shack but I can't find one that looks like it in any of their old catalogs. I believe it was a Christmas present so who knows where it really came from. All I can tell you about this color organ is that it was one cheap piece of equipment but it did put out a really cool set of colors while the lights were off and "In a Gadda da Vida" was playing! This is one of the few things that made numerous moves with me over the years, residing at the bottom of a closet for the past 30 years. It was too much a reminder of my youth to ever throw away.

This is the back of the color organ. The first thing you see is a large transformer. The original one was small and very cheap. It died after 6 months so my dad wired in this larger one he had in his parts box. The outer shell is just fiberboard and you can see the simple controls. It does not have a microphone so has to be wired into one of the speaker outputs from an amplifier to work.

Here is the front and as you can tell it is a total disaster! The plastic translucent cover with Moire design to scatter light is long gone. Over the years it became yellowed and brittle so I tossed it away about 20 years ago. The little bulbs had colored plastic covers on them. The heat from the bulbs melted most of them so I tossed them in the trash as well. There really isn't much to it, just a small circuit board with a couple of transistors and a few other parts on it. The bulbs are removed in preparation for the restoration. I also removed the cheap cardboard reflector with a thin aluminum coated paper glued to it.I attached leads from the color organ to my stereo and to my shock it still works!

Here are my plans for the restoration. I do not want to use those cheap plastic colored caps on the bulbs so I ordered a set of 6 high powered 6.3 volt wide angle colored light emitting diodes with bayonet mounts to use in place of the old bulbs. That way I won't need to fool with color filters. These came in yesterday and looked really cool but one of the diodes is bad. A replacement should arrive in a couple of days. I also ordered some Moire etched plastic which should be here in about 4-7 days. In place of the cheap coated cardboard reflector I will probably use some plastic pieces with a layer of aluminum foil attached to it. I also have a stack of junk CDs and I am pondering ways to cut and attach some of these to the aluminum foil to reflect and scatter the light like a prism. Those are the plans as they stand now. I will be posting periodic updates on how the project is going. With any luck in a couple of weeks I will have a working color organ that is better than the original.