Lynn WiezyckiThe Board of Directors of the Tampa Bay Camera Club traditionally goes on a retreat to a photogenic location once a year. We had not done one since 2019 so it was time in 2023. We had some limitations on time away and finances so we decided to stay in Florida and check out Amelia Island.
Amelia Island is on the northeast border of Florida and Georgia. It is another of the many tourist areas in our state but we decided to visit during September which is still out of season. It was a bit warm but actually not as warm and humid as in the Tampa Bay area!
There were 9 officers and directors attending so we rented a large townhouse that was not on the beach but across the street! We had plenty of room to spread out and the kitchen and living room area was large enough for all of us!
A couple of the folks in our group had been here before so they were our leaders for places to shoot.
Our first early morning we went to Boneyard Beach. This is a beach that is covered with the skeletons of old, long-dead trees. We hoped for a nice sunrise that we could frame with the trees.
I had to get down in the sand to capture this one!
I just had to do an ICM (Intentional Camera Movement) image.
After breakfast, we headed to the Amelia Island Lighthouse.
We then went into the town of Fernandina Beach to walk around.
Ferdinand Beach is very much a tourist town so as I walked around I found some side-walk displays of interesting things.
I saw an old sign on one of the buildings.
We walked down by the water and found some mud cracks to shoot!
The next morning we went to Fort Clinch and wandered around exploring for a couple of hours. I took my infrared converted Nikon Z6 with me for this location so I could get some contrasty black & white images.
Also, had to process one in super-color!
There are several passages, under the berm that surrounds the fort, to access the gun turret areas at the top of the fortifications.
This fort is unique in that it has many of the interiors filled with period pieces as they would be when the fort was in use.
We went for a relaxing brunch at a local restaurant and then went back to the townhouse to get some board of directors work done. We went to dinner afterward back in Ferdinand Beachina at a swanky Mexican restaurant. We stayed up processing images and talking for a while but our plan was to get up very early our last morning and walk across the street to the beach to catch the sunrise!
We got up so early but it was worth it! There was a fishing pier not too far from where we could access the beach so we headed to that for a bit of leading line action!
Using my ND filter I was shooting a variety of shutter speeds for different effects.
When I was doing the post-processing I just had to have some fun with Adobe’s new Generative Fill AI in Photoshop. I added the sailboat!
As the sun got brighter, a few of us moved under the pier to get the waves crashing on the pilings.
We went back to the townhouse, grabbed some breakfast, packed, loaded up the vehicles, and headed home!
I used my new Nikon Z8 and an even newer lens, the Nikon Z 24-200mm lens on this trip to get used to this combo. I am not a fan of lenses that expand out when you zoom but they are smaller and lighter and this one did a great job! I purchased it as a “walking around” lens, particularly for my next adventure where packing as light as possible was a must!
This was a quick visit but we did get to photograph quite a bit. This is a great beach town and I recommend checking it out during the off-season!
For larger versions of these images and many more to purchase as prints or on other merchandise please visit my gallery: Amelia Island
My next adventure lasted for 2 weeks and was across The Pond! More on all that soon!
That is all for now!
Lynn
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