Wekiva Springs

We lived in Florida for about 3 years during the early '90's. It was my first real shore duty tour. I had had one previous tour of duty on shore between my 1st and 2nd submarine, but it involved 8-12 hour shifts and rotating shift work--not very conducive to family life, though 2 of our three children were born during that time. After 5 years on submarine while stationed out of Charleston, the assigment gods in Washington, D.C. smiled on me and we got to spend three years in Florida and I only had to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week (barring inspections, extra duty, training, etc.).

During that time I managed to complete a 4 year degree, take some technical classes in photography, get several articles and photographs published, and still have time to spend with my family. One of our favorite places to take the kids was Wekiva Springs State Park, just a few minutes north of Orlando.

Wekiva Springs is a beautiful park highlighted by a large spring fed pond/pool. The area immediately around this large pool is an grassy hillside dotted with picnic tables and open areas for sunbathing and games. In the hot, humid summer months, this area is filled with families eager for relief from the oppressive temperatures. The pool is quite chilly and it's a shock when you first jump into the water. It's shallow, about chest high on an adult, for the most part, with deeper areas spread around the pool. Though it has a mostly sandy bottom, the spring itself forcefully flows up from a large crack in the rocks beneath the pool. Kids love to dive to the crack, swimming against the strong current in an attempt to reach the source of the cold water.

These grounds are surrounded by the larger park with is mostly forested with many improved trails. The Wekiva River flows through this area and many families bring or rent canoes in order to explore the river and the lands surrounding it. During our time there, we saw many alligators, huge spiders, numerous turtles and fish, and too many species of birds to count.

A few years ago, Wanda and I got to travel back to Orlando for a vacation. We took the time to visit Wekiva Springs to renew our memories of the place. The photo above was taken during that trip. We have many other images we've taken on the ground there when we lived there in the '90's, but those were the days of film, so those images will have to wait until I've had a chance to scan some of those images. But, as you can seek, it's a beautiful place.

On the Lake

We lived in Charleston, South Carolina for about 5 years. During that time, I bought a small 17 foot Bayliner runabout. It had an open bow, and 85 HP outboard engine, a decent sound system and provided great fun for the family. On the weekends, we'd take the boat up to Lake Moultrie to ski, waterboard, and tube with the kids, and we'd often throw the grill in the back of the truck as well so we'd have a whole day of fun cooking out and playing on the water.

Lake Moultrie was a large man-made lake full of small islands that had a number of secluded beaches where we could anchor for a day of play. Wanda and I weren't able to get to the lake too often by ourselves, but during the last couple of years we were in Charleston, the kids started spending a couple of weeks each summer with their grandparents, and that gave us the rare opportunity to visit the lake and some of the islands alone. During those lazy summer days, we could sunbathe and swim without worrying which child was too far down the beach, too far out into the water, or getting into too much trouble. Instead, we were able to enjoy out time together and I had ample opportunity to photograph my lovely wife.

We did several photo shoots on these islands, and Wanda would often pose and sunbath nude or in very small bikinis. I certainly had no issues with that. Some of my favorite memories and photos are from those lazy days both without and with the kids.

After we left Charleston we moved to Orlando, Florida for 3 years, and the boat came in quite handy there as well, though the lakes were a bit smaller and harder to navigate and isolated and secluded islands were very difficult to find.  We did spend more time at the ocean beaches, especially Canaveral National Seashore, but the boating days were the best.

We finally sold the boat when we left Florida and moved to Connecticut since we knew we would seldom have the opportunity to boat while we lived in New England, at least not like we did in South Carolina and Florida. There are often times, however, when I wonder if I should buy another.

Window Nude - 2000

This is one of my favorite images of W. Taken with an Olympus C2000Z P&S Digital camera, it captures her slender, elegant beauty quite nicely. The setting is the corner of our living room. The windows here have a southern exposure which provides for strong backlighting during most of the day. As I recall, this was taken in the early summer of 2000 as part of a series of images we were shooting just for fun and this image was the best of many very good shots.

I'd like to say the blow out in the window behind Wanda was deliberate in order to obscure most of the house and other distracting elements behind her. The reality is that I had no ability to use a strong external strobe with this little camera (I didn't get my first digital SLR until later that year), and the little on-camera flash of the little Olympus simply couldn't balance the strong exterior light. Fortunately, despite the on-camera flash there are no harsh shadows and no red eye to mar the image.

The C2000Z was a 2 megapixel camera, so I had very limited resolution for editing this shot. Of course, in 2000, 2 megapixels was a very decent resolution for a camera. Later that year when I purchased my first DSLR, the Canon 30D, 3 megapixels was the standard. The C2000Z was a very capable camera for its time and I used it for far more than just glamour images. Check out the images below which were taken in my backyard and then at a winery later that year. The detail and the color are wonderful for a camera we would laugh at today.