Back From Florida (Cont’d)

Chapter two: I continued to meet with people to promote my photographs both as fine art prints for galleries and as a series of postcards of the area. The response was very good so have come home to scurry about and make this happen. It means another new website and most people wanting things by Memorial Day. This leaves me only about a month and I’ll be gone to Spain for a week of that. I’m really looking forward to the trip however, to a place I’ve never been before. I’m going to courier a painting back from the Guggenheim in Bilbao so will have a little extra time to shoot some images in Bilbao and in Madrid. I speak no Spanish aside from the basics we all learned in high school, but will learn how to say, “do you mind if I take your picture” and hopefully will have no problems. But back to Florida…

One of the first developments on 30A is a community called Rosemary Beach. They’re almost finished building there and the community is thick with beautiful architecture, lush plantings, beautiful colors, and the feeling of comfort and luxury. I had many images of Rosemary Beach but only included about a dozen in the slide show I took down with me, so felt the need to expand on my collection while there to give a little better representation. It’s not hard in a community like this one to find beautiful images.

Part of the reason I love this area, it’s so visually rich. I spoke with one of the development workers one morning who encouraged me to take a look at one of the pool areas (they have four). The pool is one that has the water filled right to the top so has this amazing reflective surface that appears to float in mid air. Beautiful. Not a bad place to take one’s mind off your troubles and relax for a while. A place of rejuvenation.

Rosemary Beach is a family community with lots of kids and bikes, beautiful lawns for bocci ball and outdoor movies and concerts, tennis courts, and of course, beautiful beaches.

I also drove into downtown Panama City while there to meet with someone at the Northwest Florida Visual Arts Center about exhibiting there. Panama City and Panama City Beach are very different experiences. Busy highways, high rise hotels, miniature golf and rental motor scooters, funky old motels being bought up for huge hotel developments.

Almost a Disneyland feel compared to 30A, but still rich with images. I love this kind of environment too because of the odd juxtapositions you encounter. It’s a rich contrast to 30A where controlled development and Hollywood style mansions mixed with old Florida quaintness prevail.

When I finally had to leave to return home I decided to take a little time to get off the interstate and travel a bit on Highway 11 through the Virginia countryside. It had been raining most of the way home and that morning was thick with fog which gave a richness and timelessness to the landscape.

Virginia is such a beautiful state with rolling hills and mountains, farms and creeks, redbuds and the greenest grass. A beautiful place at a beautiful time of year. I was rewarded for taking a break from the speed of the interstate with a quiet solitude of a lovely countryside. I’ll have to do that again.

All images are Copyright © George Cannon, All Rights Reserved.

Back From Florida

When I left Trumansburg a little over a week ago it was cool and Spring was struggling to appear. As I drove down I-81 through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Spring became more and more evident. The greening trees and redbuds, dogwoods and cherry trees, scattered through the landscape always make me feel like letting out a sigh of relief for Winter is truly gone. Strangely enough, when I finally reached Florida and the Gulf it was less like Spring than what I had left. The wisteria had already bloomed as usual, but a cold front had brought temperatures that didn’t get above 60 for three days. Still the sun and the white sand and rolling ocean waves bring warmth from within.

On the way down I stopped briefly in Eufaula, Alabama, a quaint little town known as the Big Bass Capital of the South on the edge of a huge reservoir (Lake Eufaula) with shaded streets and beautiful old houses along the main street through town. Every year they have a week of home tours to let the public in to see some of these beautiful places hosted by women in antebellum hoop skirts and big hats. Eufaula was obviously a southern boom town at one time. Now it’s quiet and feels very lazy, a place for taking it easy on a warm spring day.

I went to Florida this spring as a business trip instead of vacation. I went to promote my photography. Odd for someone who lives year round in upstate New York. But I’ve been working for about four years on a series of images from the Gulf near Panama City and truly love the area. I’ve been working the area along Rte. 30A from west of Panama City Beach to about San Destin. It’s been building and building with new developments along beaches with names like Inlet Beach, Rosemary Beach, Seagrove Beach, and Grayton Beach. There are still many of the old Florida homes, low concrete block with thick landscaping and cool screen porches. But much of what was vacant scrub fifteen years ago is now thick with three and four story developments with a distinct Florida architecture. This style sort of began with the birth of Seaside, a community that was written up in numerous architecture magazines as the “new Florida”, and has spread across the entire gulf coast. Seaside is famous for being the setting of the perfect town in “The Truman Show”.

I spent my first day out shooting in a couple of the state parks since it was too cold to be sunning on the beach (didn’t I say this was a business trip). Deer Lake State Park on the Gulf has an elevated walk out across the large bright white dunes this area used to be famous for and borders a large lake with dense pine and palmetto woods.

Eden Gardens State Park is what was once the estate of the William Henry Wesley family. Beautiful grounds with huge oaks dripping with Spanish moss surround the restored home with its wide porches, rocking chairs and tall windows. Open for tours, the mansion is an elegant example of old southern architecture that is reminiscent of the days of the Civil War.

I spent my next day before talking with gallery owners and shop managers, riding my bike through Alys Beach. This development is one of the newest on this stretch of 30A and one of the most striking.

The design and architecture are so elegant and beautiful, stark white, simple and carefully planned to offer amazing images with every turn and changing constantly as the sun moves through the day. The design and planning here just astound me. It’s such a visual treat.

I have a lot of images I want to post from this trip, so I’ll continue this in my next post.

All Images are Copyright © George Cannon, All Rights Reserved.

Shaking Off Winter

I’ve been getting the van ready for my Spring trip. Tires rotated, oil changed, new brakes. I had a brief time at the mall the other day while waiting for my tire rotation.

For me there are four signs of Spring’s arrival. First of course is the first Robin. Saw that. In fact there are loads of them now and they seem totally oblivious to me as I pass them walking to my car every day. The second is the first warm breezes out of the south. Not just a little warmer, but truly warm and humid with that smell of Spring and the feeling of warm water that rushes over your face. Such that you just want to stand with your jacket off and your face into the breeze and feel the texture of the warm air as it pours across your skin. That was Tuesday. Third is the Spring Peeper. They’re singing now up by the pond across the road. The last is the appearance of the first buzzard (turkey vulture). I call them buzzards because I grew up in the South so always knew them as buzzards. My daughter said she had seen a couple last week. I finally saw my first of the season Thursday. They like to congregate right behind our house and float on the updrafts out of the gorge. Buzzards are ugly birds, but very graceful fliers, and for me, my final reassurance that Spring is definitely here.

I was called for jury duty a couple of weeks ago. It means about a 45 minute drive up to Waterloo to the county courthouse. I didn’t get selected. In fact I didn’t even get interviewed. They filled the jury before they got to my name. So I’m off the hook for another four years. I did get a little time to shoot some up in Waterloo before going to the courthouse. I like Waterloo. Small town with a quiet main street, sitting on the Canal that runs across upstate. Like many upstate small towns its somewhat depressed economy means empty storefronts and closed businesses.

But Waterloo is a proud village and a place of historical significance and patriotism as the Birthplace of Memorial Day. Flags are prominent throughout the village.

With some sunny days I’ve been encouraged to take my camera out again and just ride, despite the current cost of gas. The maple tree sap is running and occasionally you’ll see some trees tapped around the wood lots. The ground is still very wet, but at least my basement is finally drying up so I know the water table is going down.

I stopped at an old empty house on Route 96 that I have passed again and again, thinking that I wanted to photograph there. The light was good in the late afternoon and I had a little time on my way home. I have always had an attraction to abandoned and empty houses and buildings. You can sort of feel the spirits of the past.

Just up the highway are the remains of what used to be the only drive-in movie in the area. It’s been defunct for years, the big screen having succumbed to wind and weather. I wandered in to see what remained of the old buildings there. Remnants of an entertainment industry that has changed with technology. Kind of sad actually. I watched many a movie at the drive-in with my first daughter asleep in the back seat.

Like 45 rpm records and eight-track tapes, black and white TV and dial phones, there are young people who will have no memory of them and people such as myself who can only remember fondly the speaker hanging on the window, the walks to the concession stand, and the warm summer air at night, watching movies under the stars.

All images Copyright © George Cannon, All Rights Reserved.