Life doesn’t always go the way you plan it,  almost 3 weeks ago we set out in our Montana 5th wheel to begin our lives as full time RV’ers. We made it to Live Oak Florida and stopped to visit Bill’s sister Vicki, she was kind enough to let us park our trailer on her 5 acre property and she hooked us up with water and electricity for a week while we got ourselves organized. Well the week went by fast and it was time to say goodbye and move a bit further south, not gonna happen, we were all set to leave and we noticed the slides on the Montana were not closing properly and the more we opened and closed them the worse it got. We made the first appointment we could get, 5 days later, then another week and a half passed before we were able to get our warranty company to approve the repair and now it will be at least another week for parts to  come in and repairs to be made. Not exactly as we had envisioned our first few weeks of life on the road, but life is best lived on life’s terms otherwise you will be disappointed most of your days.

So what is there to photograph in the Live Oak area? We found a few subjects: In this image below Bill decided to photograph this boat and palm tree as an HDR combining 3 images and then I processed it with a bit of a edge to it to add to the feel of the boat.
On our way back to Bill’s sisters house we passed this house and Bill knew he had to go back at good light and photograph it, again he chose HDR to create the image he had envisioned when he first saw the house.

Inside was just as interesting and also processed as an HDR
One last look at the house; Bill decided to use a compositional tool called framing to add additional interest to his subject, I think it worked really well, it’s my favorite image from this series.
And of course we found some wildlife to photograph as well. This barred owl was difficult to photograph as the background was very bright and the owl was in the deep shade of the forest, so I exposed for the owl, the more important element, and let the background overexpose and then toned it down a bit in post production.

We will continue to look for subjects while we are stranded in Live Oak Florida and continue to be grateful for relatives like Bill’s sister Vicki who graciously put us up while we wait on repairs. Photography is a lot like life, of course location and subject matter play their parts but your perspective is what will make or break you.

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