Dead Lake is a place where the Chipola River spreads out for a few miles and forms a shallow lake that is the perfect environment for cypress trees. At some point in the distant past the river stopped flowing, which caused many cypress trees to die off, leaving the stumps you see in the picture, and giving the lake its name. In the fall the cypress trees transform into the closest thing Florida has to fall foliage. It is in a part of the Florida Panhandle that could easily be called the middle of nowhere. If you go east from Dead Lake you’ll run into swamp land, lots, and lots of swamp land. Tupelo is the word that the indigenous people of that area used for swamp, and those swamps are full of white gum tupelo trees. On the southern tip of Dead Lake you’ll find the little town of Wewahitchka, or Wewa as the locals call it. According to the last census Wewa had a population of 2,074 but given the way people in Wewa feel about the government I’m sure a bunch of them weren’t counted. Wewa is Gulf County’s largest producer of tupelo honey, and Gulf County is the nation’s largest producer. Every spring, just as the tupelo trees are starting to bloom, the beekeepers clean out their hives, put them on rafts, and float them out in the swamps. This keeps the bees from having access to any other source of pollen. The honey must be harvested quickly at the end of the tupelo trees bloom to keep the honey from being contaminated by pollen from other plants that are coming into bloom. I am not a honey expert, but I’m told tupelo honey has a higher fructose content and that it doesn’t crystalize like other honey.
She's as sweet as Tupelo honey
She's an angel of the first degree
She's as sweet as Tupelo honey
Just like honey, baby, from the bee
Van Morrison
Processed in Photoshop; textured using French Kiss Tableau Crème Fraiche and Distressed Textures Painterly Tuesday, Rich lagoon, and Daubigny.
Tags: Textured
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In February of 2016 I visited a little stretch of beach at the mouth of the Ochlockonee River called Mashes Sands. I wanted to take some shots with the sun rising over the water. When I arrived it was still a little while to first light so I took my camera and tripod and walked back down the road to a marshy area that was separated from the beach by a stand of pine trees. I was in luck because there was a bit of fog on the marsh and as first light arrived it painted some beautiful, soft colors behind the fog. As the sunrise grew near I moved down to the beach to shoot other targets. It was three years before I returned to that spot, but Hurricane Michel had completely rearranged the place. In some ways the changes made it a better place for photographers, but this spot was opened up and the trees are gone. I always take extra time when processing a shot of something that is gone. I processed this image in Photoshop over four days using at least one texture.
Tags: Textured
© All Rights Reserved
Tags: Textured
© All Rights Reserved