What’s Up
As of 2pm on Wednesday 9 October 2024, Hurricane Milton was scheduled to make landfall somewhere between Tampa and Sarasota this evening. At the least, it is supposed to be one of the most powerful storms ever to strike Florida.
Many storm tracks show the eye of the hurricane passing directly over my home at Indian Lake Estates at 8am on Thursday morning. At best, we’ll get a ton of rain and lots of wind up to 70mph. At worst, we might have a pine tree or two come down on the house or on my newly redone pool cage. And maybe some windows blown out. Jim is riding out the storm here, and I do not believe that we are in any great danger. My new generator should kick in the moment we lose power tonight. Older daughter Jennifer is in nearby Babson Park and is nervously waiting to see what Milton has in store. I wish her and Erik the best tonight.
It was raining here when I woke at 6:00am, but quit by nine. At 11:30am I walked 1.3 miles and then swam 24 lengths in my lap pool, a bit more than 1/4 mile. Between noon and 1pm there was lots of thunder in the neighborhood and some heavy rain. Our phones lit up with Polk County tornado warnings. So far, all is fine.
In 2004, five years after I moved here, the eyes of Hurricanes Charley, Frances and Jeanne all crossed right over Indian Lake Estates. Charley brought the strongest winds, and moved quickly, not officially reducing power to Category 1 status until after passing by Polk County. When the 2004 hurricane season started, it had been 44 years since Polk County saw major damage from a hurricane. In 1960, Hurricane Donna crossed over Florida, leaving behind a swath of destruction in its path. The three storms did $29.8 billion worth of damage total across many states. I think that I lost power for almost two weeks after Charley.
Right now, I am most concerned for friends (and everyone else) living in Southwest Florida. David and Michele Pugsley in Plant City, accountant Chip Jackson in Clearwater (evacuated to Alabama), old friend Linda Robbins in Sarasota — I have no idea where she might be, Cliff Beittel and Susan, and Pat Fishburne, in Fort Myers — the moment Pat heard of the new storm, she flew to North Carolina, and John Johnson huddled up on the ninth floor of his Condo in Naples. I told John — we both attended Brooklyn Technical High School — to evacuate once the water reached the ninth floor.
I am hoping against hope at least to some degree that the storm weakens considerably. There is always the possibility of reverse storm surge in Tampa Bay as occurred with during Hurricanes Irma and Ian not long ago. All the water emptied out of the bay. Check it out here.
By 2:30pm, it was raining hard here at ILE and the wind is picking up. I hope to head down to the lake for a look see in a few minutes. By the time I finished the previous sentence the wind was ripping through the trees.
I have been hard at work with Arash Hazeghi updating The Art and Science of Photographing Birds in Flight. We should have some news to share soon.
I continue working with the v2.02 and v2.02 Sony a-1 Firmware updates and will begin work on announcing the 2025 January San Diego IPT tomorrow.
Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, I hope that you are well and safe.
Update: I added two nice images created in the rain at 5:20pm.
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This image was created on 9 October 2024 down by the lake near my home at Indian Lake Estates, FL. Seated in the front seat of my SUV, I used the BLUBB-supported Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens with the Sony FE 1.4x Teleconverter, and The One, the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera.. ISO 2000. The exposure was determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel: 1/200 second at f/5.6 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect. AWB at 3:31:45pm on rainy afternoon. Tracking: Zone/AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the high-res version. Image #1: Cattle Egret in rain |
Just In Case …
Just in case you thought I was kidding about going down to the lake in the pouring rain, I offer two of my 16 keepers from my hour-long session during which I created 435 photographs.
Just in case you don’t know me, you will now at least know that I am addicted to bird photography and that I am certifiably nuts. I would have stayed longer but my phone was screaming out tornado warnings so I headed home, had a nice dinner, and worked on these two images and added them to today’s blog post.
It has been pouring rain for several hours, that after several days of on and off rain. I have never seen so much water down by the lake as I did this afternoon. By morning, I am pretty sure that the entire North Field will look like part of the lake. It is likely that it will make the rainfall from Hurricane Ian look like a drought.
Anyhoo, as I mentioned here recently, the key to shooting from your vehicle in a hard rain is to have the driver’s side in the lee. With a strong wind from the northeast, I did my best to point the car to the northwest so that I was 90° to the rain. My lens got a bit wet, but the camera stayed perfectly dry. Best of all, I had fun.
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This image was also created on 9 October 2024 down by the lake near my home at Indian Lake Estates, FL. Seated in the front seat of my SUV, I used the BLUBB-supported Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens with the Sony FE 1.4x Teleconverter, and The One, the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera.. ISO 2500. The exposure was determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel: 1/640 second (!) at f/5.6 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect. AWB at 3:42:21pm on rainy afternoon. Tracking: Zone/AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the high-res version. Image #2: Great Egret juvenile taking flight in rain |
Beyond Lucky
I am getting much better at following my own advice: When unexpected action occurs, press and hold the shutter button. Do not attempt to change the shutter speed or the ISO or you will miss everything.
This bird took fight several times without warning. Each time it did, I fired off a sequence of images expecting nothing sharp at 1/640 second. Surprise. All but one of the images showed considerable motion blur on the head. This un-cropped image was inexplicably razor sharp on the eye. Go figure.
In any case, I am 100% positive that I could not have made either of these images had I chosen to sit safely in my office and watch baseball.
Your Call?
Which image do you like best? Why? My choice just might surprise you.
Typos
With all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors.
Love the rain shots. #2 for me. deadon focus even in the rain
Thanks, All.
I slept through the night. I just walked around the house at 6am with my iPhone flashlight; we are unscathed. We never lost power here at ILE. Jennifer did lose power at her home in nearby Babson Park.
As is often the case, the storm was pretty much a big fizzle with the usual trees and power lines down. It certainly was not the 100 year storm they were predicting. Unless you lived on the coast below Sarasota, there was not much damage. The storm surge at Tampa, St. Pete, and Clearwater was approximately “1-3 feet.” There is lots of local flooding.
with love, artie
ps: And yes, I will be heading down to the lake soon.
Good to hear you were not badly affected by the storm.
Hope the birds managed to stay in the same time zone, too.
All the best.
+1!
Be safe Artie!!! Will be thinking of you. Pls. let us know how you and your family are once the storm has passed.
Love image one for its simplicity…
To you and yours, stay safe.
Stay safe!
Artie: I’ve been following the weather reports/storm surge reports almost hourly. I don’t think Ft. Myers will have the kind of destruction we had from Ian two years ago. After I left, I had a company put sandbags at all three entrances to my home.
Yes, you are certifiably crazy taking pictures in an area threatened by tornados! I like the first image first because of the soft pink color at the top of the picture.
Be safe Artie
Artie, Susan and I are in Jacksonville with family and should be fine. Thanks for thinking of us. I checked in here just now after seeing the latest track coming right over you. Hope you have minimal impact. I mentioned to Susan on the drive north how smart your location is near the Lake Wales Ridge. Susan, who visited as a child and always wanted to retire to Sanibel, has now seemingly had enough. We know several people who barely survived Ian’s surge, and surprisingly surge and flood are more dangerous than hurricane wind. Stay dry my friend.
Stay SAFE
Thanks for the update, Art. Many hopes and prayers for no damage. Keep us informed.
BTW…Have the cranes seen the news and evacuated?