After several weeks of traveling around (often waking up not sure of where I was), I returned to Florida, just as the cold weather was beginning to overtake the Northeast. I always have mixed feelings about coming back to Florida, since the beauty of the Fall in the Northeast is unparalleled. This year seemed to produce a special number of wonderful images that were very satisfying to me, but as with all good things, the Fall did come to an end, with little more than a trickle of brown leaves remaining on the trees, and a host of fallen leaves populating the ground. It did stay pleasantly warm longer than expected, but then some cold evenings blew into town and I began to remember how pleasant Winter was in Florida and I started looking forward to getting back.
Although the photography in the Northeast really resonated with me this Fall, I have increasingly begun to appreciate the beauty of the landscape in Florida, and I've set myself a goal to make more photos this year down here in the Sunshine State. Some of my favorite locations for taking photos are actually quite close to home. Surprisingly, since nature appreciation is not a high priority for many Floridians, Broward County has seen fit to designate a number of "natural" areas within close driving distance. These areas usually have a paved path through them to walk on, but they are otherwise pretty much left to grow and develop as they would in the wild, or the days before so much of this region started to become overdeveloped and overbuilt. While much of the landscape in these natural areas is a simple combination of pine trees, cypress trees, palm trees, palmettos, and the like, the relationships between the plants when left wild is often beautiful and fascinating. One of my favorite ways of passing a few hours is to wander among these areas with my iPhone and explore. With the new iPhone X, which has a superb camera, making images is great fun and very rewarding. I'm glad to be back here for now, though I suspect that my wanderlust will take over soon and some trips to other parts of the country will claim my attention.
Next week is Art Week in Miami, with Art Basel claiming much of the attention, though the peripheral art fairs are also quite outstanding. I'm looking forward to visiting some of the exhibitions and seeing some world class art.
Palm Tree, Boca Raton, Florida