Halloween

 

Life-sized characters are placed around Bonita Springs' Riverside Park for Halloween.

If I were more attuned to contemporary culture, maybe I would recognize them.

Many Bonita Springs stores are also decorated for Halloween. Huge skeletons are popular, but I didn't like more of my skeleton photographs, so I deleted them.

A Good Reminder

 

We had dinner at friends' house on Sunday.  We arrived at six o'clock and left at 8:57 p.m.

Fifth Avenue South

 On Monday I saw some excellent black and white photographs at Naples Art.  I showed them yesterday.

Those black and white photos got me in the mood to try some of my own.

These are white buildings with black details and white cars in front.  Didn't take much to convert it.

Shawn was waiting on a bench while his wife was shopping.  He is a retired carpenter.

Restaurants are quiet midday on Mondays.  This alley was set for dinner guests.

Sugden Theater sits between several restaurants.

The interiors of a row of stores are being demolished.

Sorry, but I didn't note the sculptor of this interesting figure.

James Prior

 Naples Art's current exhibition shows works by local artists.  A fine arts photographer, James Prior, exhibited images made on New York subways.  His exhibition is called Life Beneath the Ruins.

I always have a hard time deciding the right way to show another photographer's work.

If I show the whole work, it feels like I am appropriating it, even if I credit the photographer.

More often I will just show part of the image, which is what I have done here.  That isn't how the photographer intended to show his work, but at least it doesn't feel like I am stealing the work.

And, in a way it creates a new work.  What do you do?

Game Day

 A Naples friend dresses a skeleton to support her teams on Game Day.  Crimson-and-white with IU on Saturday for Indiana University, blue-and-white with a horseshoe on Sunday for the Indianapolis Colts.

My alma mater wasn't much of a threat in intercollegiate sports.  But, I grew up in Eastern Massachusetts so I cheer for the Boston Red Sox/Celtics/Bruins and New England Patriots.  

For college sports, I adopt teams from places I have lived: the UConn Huskies and Ohio State Buckeyes.  Ohio State's football team is ranked #1 nationally and my friend's Indiana Hoosiers are #2.  OSU and IU don't play each other this fall.  If both get to the Big Ten championship and later to the national championship game, my friend and I won't be talking for a while.

Cars and License Plates

 

I admire fancy cars, and I like clever license plates.

I wish I saw the owner.  if s/he has a big belly, it would be worth a good laugh.

Good one.

A glistening silver Bentley.  Did I wait until the attractive blonde woman was in the frame?  Maybe.

The woman from the previous photo laughed when she and I both started to photograph this white Maserati.  She said her father had just bought a Maserati.  (My father's fanciest car was a Chevy.)

Silver

 

At the place where I went for some minor service on my car.

Halloween Decorations

 In the weeks before Christmas, the Victoria Park neighborhood is well known in Naples for going all out in decorating for the season.  

This year, some homes in the Victoria Park neighborhood are beginning to decorate for  Halloween, too.

Corkscrew Swamp Miscellany

 

There are fields of alligator flag plants.

Lichen is common in Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, but this seemed like an unusual type.

Raccoon.

"Nurse logs" are fallen, decaying trees that are hosts to other forms of life.

Swamp lily.

Bromeliads.

A young alligator.

Trish is on the staff of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.  She is a retired audiologist who has a pilot's license and has flown all over the country.  

Cypress Forest

 

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary protects the largest remaining forest of old growth bald cypress trees  in the world.  Some trees are more than 500 years old.

Many of the cypress trees are wrapped by stranger figs.  Strangler figs often kill other trees, but in Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary they seem to have almost a symbiotic relationship with the cypress trees.  In hurricanes and other high wind events, the figs can help cypress trees to stand up.

A number of the biggest cypress trees have been named.  If my notes are right, this one is the Stoneman Douglas cypress.  It is named for Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, a noted journalist, writer and conservationist, best known for writing The Everglades: River of Grass.  Her 1947 book helped to change the public perception of the Everglades as a key natural asset instead of a worthless swamp.

Cypress trees have "knees," which are conical structures growing from the roots.  Some of the cypress knees in Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary are absolutely huge.  No one really knows what cypress knees are for.  Providing stability?  Helping roots get oxygen?  Who knows?

Sunflowers

 I visited Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, a 13,000 acre sanctuary operated by the National Audubon Society.  For a couple of weeks in October, Corkscrew's wet prairie is filled with fields of yellow flowers.

These are Southeastern sunflowers (Helianthus agrestis).  They are catching a lot of attention in Southwest Florida.  I have been to Corkscrew many times over the years and never saw them before.