Images from Cape May, NJ - Photography Workshop

I am SO FAR behind with this blog... I will possibly never catch up. I've recently been on another marvelous photography workshop... this one led by John Barclay and George Brown to Cape May, NJ. Cape May is at the southernmost part of New Jersey and has the Delaware Bay to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east... making for beautiful sunrises and sunsets this time of year. Although I'm not really a morning person, I think you will agree that some of the images that can be had when one rises EARLY in the morning are truly spectacular! Without spending TOO much time on captions... I'm just going to post a few and give you a link at the end to a slide show in case you want to see more. Enjoy... Larger images are available by clicking on the smaller ones... look for the X in the upper right corner of your browser to close the large image and get back to the blog (took me awhile to find it on my 24" iMac screen).

Golden glow of early morning light on waves...

Early morning light on the horizon as waves break over pilings and the shore...

Fall colors of Crepe Myrtle... bokeh from color reflected in metal siding on the wall behind the tree.

A six shot HDR image of the old fire engine in the Cape May Firehouse Museum.

Sunset at Cape May with a distant view of the lighthouse across the way.

Sunrise at the 59th Street Pier in Ocean City... cannot believe I had to get up at 4:10 AM to participate in this photo shoot! This is just one of many images from that morning and is a 30 second exposure while using a VND (Variable Neutral Density) filter.

Another view of the sunrise with the color tweaked to give it a different feel.

Another picture of early morning sunlight on the water... lost count of how many similar images I took!

If you want to view more from the workshop, there is a slide show available that also includes some additional images that I will be posting later on this week if I find the time. Images in the sideshow that were taken with my iPhone start with the image titled "Moon in the sky during sunrise..." and end with the series of images demonstrating a post processing technique I'll talk more about when I post the rest of the images here (or in my other blog).

I do so admire those of you who manage to post regularly. I honestly have no clue how you manage it... probably by being more focused and disciplined about it than I am! One of the reasons I've been missing for the past month or so has to do with having had quite a bit of upheaval in my personal life. Without going into great gory detail, I will just tell you that I'm finally free of a burdensome relationship and am feeling MUCH lighter as a result. Sometimes things just do not work out and that was the case with myself and the guy who has been living with me for the past (almost) 14 years. He has moved out and I am moving on and enjoying myself quite a bit these days.

Linking to The Creative Exchange which I recently discovered by browsing someone's blog.

Horseshoe Crabs and the birds that depend on them...

Although the first image is crabs, crabs and more crabs, the rest of this post (scroll down) will be birds who love to dine on their eggs. If I haven't missed the cutoff, I'll be posting this to World Bird Wednesday shortly. (am posting here instead of my other blog because this blog is where I post when the images tell more of a story than I want to tell on my photo blog... am WAY behind returning visits from last week but will be catching up before the weekend)

My cousin Jane, friends and myself went to Slaughter Beach, Delaware (and a few nearby spots) to view the annual mass breeding of the Horseshoe Crabs. They breed and come to shore, riding high tide in to the beach, in great numbers to deposit and fertilize vast numbers of protein rich eggs over a two week period (+/- a few days) every May. One of the best places to view this spectacle is Slaughter Beach on the Delaware Bay.

Blue Ridge Workshops provided a photography instructor and a naturalist guide for our "day at the beach" and some of us even got to try out HUGE lenses on our Nikon cameras. I failed miserably to get the hang of using a 600mm prime lens fitted with a 2x converter and think my Sigma 120-400mm zoom is much easier to use! (also would need someone to carry the rig for me if I were to use such a huge and heavy lens assembly) Too bad I forgot to pack the 1.4x converter for my Sigma lens.

And now for a few of the birds who dine on the eggs laid by the crabs...

Sanderlings with a few Ruddy Turnstones mixed in (look closely and you might spot the Turnstones)

The foreground Sanderling has a crab egg in its mouth. (larger view)

Laughing Gull, aptly named if you've ever heard them! Note Horseshoe Crabs on the beach too.

Willet with tail of Horseshoe Crab visible, sticking out of the water on the left.

A few Ruddy Turnstones with some blurry gulls on the water behind them.