During the 1980s my parents retired to Florida and purchased a small home near New Smyrna Beach on Florida’s East Coast. In 1990 I began my new career as a freelance Ohio landscape photographer, writer and educator, and I often drove south at Christmas and in the early spring to spend time in the Sunshine State and escape the cold and snow in northeast Ohio. Using our family’s winter home as a base, I began to explore the landscapes of Florida as a photographer. During the 1990s, I participated in the Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count in New Smyrna Beach, where I met Clay Henderson, an environmental attorney and the President of the Florida Chapter of the Audubon Society. Clay and I became good friends, and in the mid-1990s we decided to join forces to produce an exhibit-format book on the landscapes of Florida, which was published by Browntrout Publishers in 2006.
I began my Florida landscape explorations with visits to some of the major natural areas that abound in the Sunshine State, including Everglades National Park in southwest Florida, the Florida Keys, the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge near Fort Myers, Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary north of Naples, and Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, about a 30-minute drive south of our family home in Edgewater. The photo above shows feeding flocks of American Egrets and Snowy Egrets in the shallow waters along the Black Point Wildlife Drive early in the morning.
In addition to many natural areas and preserves, Florida offers a great variety of architectural treasures, including Flagler College, shown above, which was originally the Ponce de Leon Hotel, one of several spectacular gilded age hotels built by tycoon Henry Flagler in the early 1900s. Nearby, shown below, is the Castillo de San Marcos, originally constructed by the Spanish in the late 1600s, and the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States.
From the mid-1980s through the early 2000s, I traveled more than 15,000 miles in Florida, visiting and photographing the most interesting and photogenic natural areas and preserves, historic sites, gardens, rural areas, towns and cities, culminating in the publication of The Floridas by Browntrout Publishers in 2006. My library of Florida photographs is second only to my collection of Ohio images, and I will be showcasing the highlights of my Florida photographic travels over the years at Case Western Reserve University’s Siegal Lifelong Learning Center in Beachwood on Tuesday, July 15, from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm.
The Floridas has been out of print for more than a decade, but I have a small number of new copies of the book available, and we will be conducting a raffle during my presentation – the winner will receive a new, signed copy of The Floridas. Used copies of the book are also available from Amazon.com and other online booksellers. I will also bring along copies of my recent Ohio books to share and sign.
Here is a website link to register for the slide presentation:
https://community.case.edu/siegal/rsvp_boot?id=2268476