I was invited on a walking photo tour in St. Mary's, Georgia, so I packed every lens I own and headed north. I arrived well ahead of schedule, so I figured the proper course of action was to find some food. That's one of the things I relish about travelling: finding locally owned, non fast food restaurants. Last night I tried Riverside Cafe, a Greek restaurant located, well, by the river of course. I had the lemon rice soup, a quiche and a chocolate creme filled eclair. It was all excellent, but I think the soup was the star of the meal.
After languishing over my meal, it was time to wash up and gather my camera equipment before heading to Howard Gilman Park. My lens choice was the Nikon 70-200 2.8, but after a discussion with the photo tour leader I decided to switch to the 17-25. I'm glad I did. My left hand is still bugging me from a recent sprain, and the 70-200 is heavy.
After some riotous group photos were taken (Brad Pitt somehow showed up at the tour ), we each went our merry way and started snapping.
Mistake Numero Uno: Wearing a cotton shirt in August. I was soaked, hot, and gross within 10 minutes.
Mistake 2: Forgetting to apply bug spray. Never forget bug spray, no matter where you go in Northeast Florida, South Georgia. Even if you're attending the symphony. Put on the DEET!
Mistake Drei: A walking tour is not the time to test out your new shoes. Even if they are walking shoes, you should really do a test walk before putting them into the fray.
So that's it for mistakes. Everything else went quite smoothly. I wanted to do this walk because I'm trying to expand my photographic subjects. I have photographed lots of bugs, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fungi and other natural subjects, and I wanted to try my hand at something different.
There weren't many birds or bugs tempting me back to my familiar realm, so looking for other subjects wasn't difficult. There was a flock or two of White Ibis that I dearly wanted to capture, but my lens was not right for the occasion.
I found that St. Mary's is a colorful place, full of quaint homes and shops all painted bright happy colors. So that's what I photographed. Happy colors.
At the end of the night, everyone converged upon Sharkbite restaurant to look at the photos produced. I didn't submit mine for public scrutiny as I'm too unnerved by the idea. So I drank a couple of beers and saw the work of other participants. It's amazing how different the photos were. Some people focused on architecture, while others were focused on beautiful sunsets and boats. They were all impressive and it was great to see so many different perspectives.
I'm a bit surprised by what ended up on my SD card. These photos don't look like anything Earline Gilley, bird photographer to the stars, would snap.
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