Tarpon Springs Epiphany

  Hello, Today I traveled to Tarpon Springs, FL to witness their Epiphany celebration.  It is a big annual event in this beautiful Greek town. The following is copied from the St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral press release about the event:

   Following the Divine Liturgy and Great Blessing of the waters, Archbishop Demetrios, hierarchs, clergy, dignitaries and thousands of people will form an impressive procession to Spring Bayou, with school children in traditional costumes, choir members, Greek Folk dance groups from throughout the Tampa Bay Area. There, an invocation is recited, a young lady releases a white dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit to fly over the Bayou, an additional 105 doves will then be released celebrating the 105 years the holy spirit has bestowed upon Tarpon Springs. The Archbishop will cast a white cross into the water and some seventy-eight young men will dive for the cross, each seeking the honor of retrieving it. The retriever then kneels with the cross 

before the Archbishop for a blessing

  After a rainy night is was a cool but beautiful day. The events takes place at a park on the water that is a wonderful place to visit any day.  In the top photo you can see the string of boats the divers swim to in order to wait for the cross to be toss into the water.

  Here you can see the divers arriving. 

  Here are a few shots of the divers jumping into the water for the first time.

  They then wait for the cross to be thrown into the water by the Archbishop.

  Finally the cross is cast into the water! can you see it?  It is off to the right from the center.

  It was captured very quickly by Louis Pappas. Amazing just how fast this went!

  I took all of these photos from the across the water with my 70-300mm lens.  Therefore I was unable to take any photographs of the procession. This being the first time I attended the event I didn't know what to expect. It is a lot of fun to witness unique celebrations like this!

Sunset at Fred Howard Park

  Saturday I attended at picnic at Fred Howard Park in Tarpon Springs.  I arrived late as it seemed to be raining off and on there all day and it is a 45 minute drive for me. Its a nice drive through past farm land, horses and cows. The park itself is one of my favorites. There is the 'mainland' park and then there is a road/causeway that takes to out to a mini island with a beautiful beach which is a wonderful place to watch the sun set.
  The shot above was actually taken from the mainland. It is a view I have tried to capture every time I go but this is the first time I have been happy with the results. The clouds and the time of day gave me a beautiful quality of light.

  This photo was taken on the mini island as I call it. I love this life guard stand!  I have photographed models at this park before, but this was my first chance to get some nice photos of the place at sunset. I am going to have to just go back and spend a day for fun when the weather cools a bit it is beautiful!

I love this shot. It takes something every day, this clump of grass and turns it into something special. I used a bit of HDR toning in Photo Shop here. I like that you also see the ocean and the people walking on the beach.   It also just shows you how important composition is, not matter what you are taking a photo of.

  I am really starting to like shooting silos like this. A simple grouping of 3 palm trees yet this photo has such a wonderful mood to it!

  Earlier it really didn't look like the sunset would be all that spectacular due to the cloud cover but then just as the sun was about to fully descend for the evening a beautiful strip colors appeared between the ocean and the clouds and I was able to capture this image!  If I lived closer to the coast I think I would be checking out the sunset over the ocean every night!

Stephanie