Andrea O'Connell Photography

This is Lauderdale-By-the-Sea on the coast of South Florida, due east of Fort Lauderdale. I grew up here – visited this pier thousands of times. Many memories and though it’s changed a lot, the aura and the feel of the place is the same, at least to me.

These “Bait Cutting” areas – little wooden tables that protrude out, providing a surface for fishermen and fisherwoman to cut bait – are all over the place. The real purpose of these table, however, from what I can see, is just a landing spot for birds to hang out and snag a bite or two for themselves.

In the image below there is also a sign that reads “Pompano Zone. It’s above and to the right of the Bait Cutting sign, in red and white. I have no idea what it means and there was no one around to ask. But I’d guess it refers to the Pompano brand of fish. Perhaps the Pompano fish frequents that spot? If that’s true, then it begs the question: Why would a Pompano type of fish swim in a particular zone and why choose that spot to swim in when it has the entire ocean?

Anyway, these photos are very experimental – my first attempt at outdoor night photography. My big challenge, I’m learning, is how to best adjust the camera settings in low light – with just a flash. There’s so much noise to contend with in low light – a crazy amount of noise. However, I’ve discovered that by converting the images to HDR the noise is somewhat more bearable. In fact, I kind of like the look and feel of the contrasted HDR.

I’m using JixPix HDR software.  (I’m about to bite the bullet and buy the Topaz bundle of software.) The Topaz software, from what I understand, has some cool bells and whistles while the JixPix, although very good software, is perhaps a bit less robust.

Below:  a cute little fellow who was so excited with the schools of fish he saw swim by: