Florida Birding and Photography Festival - 2017

The annual Florida Birding and Photo Festival is held each year in St. Augustine, Florida. The actual headquarters for the festival is in Ponte Vedra Beach at the GTM Research Reserve. I chose to take several of the indoor classes with a variety of photographers. I also participated in a hike one day and a ecotour by boat on another day. The hike was at the GTM preserve but was not led by a birder so we were on our own to find birds. Along the shore by the parking lot a few small shore birds were hanging out so they added to the bird count.

Every class was excellent and taught by experienced photographers.The first class was Fast Glass for Night Photography taught by Roman Kurywczak. We learned how to expose for star photography. That is not an easy subject to shoot in Florida but hope to try it some day out west. The second class that day was taught by Joe Brady on Enhancing Landscapes with Lightroom. Another great class.

My second day at the festival started on my own with sunrise at Marineland Beach. Since my boat trip started nearby it made sense to get there early. Sunrise was not spectacular due to the lack of clouds but was still fun. The boat trip was put on by Ripple Effects Eco Tours. We had five participants plus our guide. Dolphins were abundant but birds were scarce. We did see a variety of shore birds on some sand bars near the end of the tour. We saw red knots, black bellied plovers, sanderlings, whimbrels, short billed dowitcher, ruddy turnstones, grey kingbird, great egrets, great blue egret, osprey, brown pelicans and royal terns. It was a challenge to shoot from a moving boat that was constantly rotating around the subjects. My large straw hat blew off as the boat started up to return to the marina. Looks like a trip to the beach to get another one.

The last day was a six hour class on Wildlife Photography taught by Chas Glatzner. It was another excellent class about shooting in manual mode, adjusting exposure and shutter speeds. He had some great anecdotes about his travels and photographing wildlife and birds. He included information on lenses, when to shoot on tripods, when to shoot handheld and gear choices. Well worth the three hour drive over and back in the same day.