A fair feather friend

First I want to thank all you lovely people who came by and left words of comfort and support on my previous post - they were much appreciated. I hope you'll excuse me for not having come by lately but my motivation was lacking. I'd always considered myself a fairly strong individual but Sasha's passing struck me (and my wife) particularly hard. I'm sure (or at least I've been assured) that time softens the sharp edges but for now some of the lustre has gone from the thought of going out on a photo shoot, alone. However, I still try to follow the ABCs of photography when we go out.

And so, recently we spent an afternoon on Boca Grande. The promised forecast of some sun and 'warmish' temperatures didn't materialize but I did meet an interesting fellow on the beach who had positioned himself closely behind a couple of fishermen. Unfortunately I had only taken a wide angle lens (17-40mm) vs the whole arsenal and so I had to rely on the stealth approach. You might imagine how hard that would be on a wide open beach. He seemed intent on watching the fishermen (in vain it turns out) for a scrap of fish to be thrown his way so I made it to within about 10' (3m for you metric types) of him before he decided I had encroached sufficiently on his margin of comfort. I had been taking some shots during my approach in case my next step would cause him to take flight.

At the 10' mark, however, he took a step away every time I took a step closer until he ended up standing in shallow water. And that's where he drew a 'line in the sand' apparently for when I tried to narrow the gap between us one more time he decided to leave for safer ground. I did manage to get a few shots of his getaway (which I cropped due to my focal length limitations). Check him out below.

where the 'stand-off' took place

arrivederci