Our rig at night, long exposure and painted with a penlight.
No deep insights at this stop. No pithy quotes. Not really any interesting people talked to. Just our nicest campsite yet right on the water with some great park wildlife to point the camera at.
This park sneaks up on you. The drive in takes you through a pretty typical beachfront area with large hotels, kitschy trinket shops, and local clubs - mostly closed for the season. Then almost without warning you enter the gates of St. Andrews and instantly you get a glimpse of what the area looked like before greedy developers started serving the interests of beach-going tourists.
We intended this just as an overnighter, but seeing a buck just off the parking lot while MsBoyink made the arrangements convinced us that an extra night would be needed. We scored a great waterfront spot, close to restrooms and showers, and (evidently) on the deer’s path for an evening stroll.
I finally got a chance to play with some long-exposure photography with the DSLR. Data and I experimented with some manual shutter releases and “painting” objects in the frame with a flashlight. My large LED worked to light up boats anchored offshore, and for closer up work a small penlight worked better.
Sue writes:
Wow! That is a great camp site and some awesome pictures! So glad that you and Data had some time to learn some camera/photo shoot skills. The wildlife shots are gorgeous. Thank you for sharing.
Phil L. writes:
Awesome pictures. And yes, an awesome story: Finding cool place you wouldn’t otherwise have stumbled upon - while having the flexibility to spend more time there, just because you want to. Isn’t this why you went in the first place? A+!
Boyink writes:
Hey Phil -
It’s definitely one of the reasons we went..;) Another was meeting people, which didn’t happen at this stop in FL but we are making up for it in our current spot in Mobile, AL.
Christy @ Technosyncratic writes:
This looks like a fantastic campground - we’ll definitely have to stop there on our way through the area! And using a flashlight/penlight to highlight objects at night is a clever idea and seems to have resulted in some really cool photos. :)
Boyink writes:
Thanks for the comment Christy. I can’t take credit for the “painting with light” idea during long-exposure photos - there are lots of really cool examples of the approach on Flickr. We’ve just scratched the surface..;)
Allan branch writes:
Look me up next time you’re here!
Boyink writes:
Thanks Allan - good chance of it since you’re in the south and close to a major highway..:)