Sunset over the Everglades – March, originally uploaded by QuakerVille.

The Everglades begins just below the sugar cane fields in Palm Beach County and runs over a hundred miles to the south where it ends up in Florida Bay just below Everglades National Park. Many people think that the entire Florida Everglades is a National Park but only a small percentage is actually owned by the Park Service. Most of the Everglades meander west of Palm Beach, Boca Raton, metro Fort Lauderdale, and past Miami before it feeds into the National Park just below and west of Homestead. Actually, thousands of square miles of Everglades feed the National Park part of the ‘Glades before it meets the National Park.

I’ve been fortunate to drive around and through much of the ‘Glades outside the Park while inside is another matter. Much, if not all, of the area outside the park is regulated by either the State of Florida or South Florida Water Management, a government agency, to manage the habitat and “hurricane proof” it against a major storm. The great hurricane of 1928 killed over 2,500 people to the north and south of Lake Okeechobee. The cause of deaths was not due to high wind destruction but from the failure of the dikes around the lake to hold the water back. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1928_Okeechobee_hurricane

In the past year or so I have spent about 20% of all weekends taking pictures somewhere along the edges or through the center of the Everglades, either in the western part of Broward or Palm Beach county or even in the National Park. The sheer beauty of the ‘Glades makes any photographer snap away at either wildlife or scenery. There is plenty of each to capture.

One spectacular place that Jo, my wife, and I seem to visit regularly is a state park called Holiday Park. It’s at the far west end of Griffin RD west of US 27 and it is beautiful. The sunset is usually spectacular from the edge of the waterway as it was the evening I captured this picture. The sun was glowing from behind the sawgrass reflecting the warmth of the evening on the shimmering alligator filled waterway. I say that because just 10 feet to the right was an 8 foot gator lazily swimming toward the far shore just out of sight.

The photograph alone is beautiful but I’ve added an extra touch of art by processing this sunset photo with a “felt tip” process using the Mediachance DAP2 software which actually re-draws the picture using techniques from artists using the media of choice.

This picture will be further processed on canvas for a hand painted look and hung on a wall. I hope you enjoy this picture as much as I enjoyed taking and processing it.

Smiling Glossy Ibis, originally uploaded by QuakerVille.

Here is my 10-10-10 contribution, a Glossy Ibis. I captured this shot in Green Cay, Palm Beach co. and rendered to a pencil drawing using Mediachance DAP2. I have included the full poster resolution so that you can check out the detailed pencil strokes. There are about 500,000 strokes to offer this detail.

As far as 10-10-10 goes I spent a good part of it in the field capturing pictures of wetland birds. There was a cool breeze offering respite in the shade. These birds are fairly rare but wonderful to watch in the wild. They are really glossy and you can see that best when their wings are fully spread as they fly from the ground. I love this shot because it shows the personality of this Ibis, large inquisitive eyes, fluffy neck feathers, clean beak – that’s unusual – and he has such a joyous face.