a Shoreline morning

This morning I went walking and photograph--snapping at a local park located { somewhat} near my home.  Best Dude bought me a new Nikon D3100  camera for Christmas, so this morning I got a chance to " practice" taking nature photographs .I grew up loving nature and this , to me, is the perfect way to spend a morning on the Gulf Coast There were very few other humans there today--it is a Florida " winter" after all!

We've always lived in rural areas and when I moved to Florida I had to adjust to having neighbors whose back door I can literally see from my own backyard{ thank goodness for privacy fences}.  Unlike western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, most houses here in Florida are built on what this rural hillbilly considers as  SMALL LOTS.  In most parts of the coastal community where I live, a half-acre lot is a " big" piece of real estate.  Although in the northern half of our county one can find lots with more acreage, here on the coast there just is not enough buildable land for big lots.

This morning reminds me of two things that my often over-stimulated autistic body & mind craves: solitude and quiet. It is nice to remove myself from the constant jabbering of everyday life---for some reason my brain cannot process too many human voices at once without feeling overwhelmed by all the sensory data. Before I was diagnosed with autism it was thought that my aversion to crowds was due to only extreme introversion.  When doctors finally diagnosed me correctly I fully understood that I do not suffer from " extreme introversion --as a matter of fact my brain processes ALL data differently than brains of most people.

Sometimes when I'm shooting nature photos & am " caught in the moment" of a beautiful image I lose some awareness of my immediate surroundings. This annoys me when this occurs.

Today I came across a particularly lovely set of tree roots. After I snapped a couple photos, I realized that my lens cap was missing. :o/ We searched everywhere but could not find the missing lens cap. Thankfully ,there is a camera-supply store in Pensacola. I plan to be more careful with the lens cap in the future and as insurance Best Dude and I will engineer a safety strap  for this small part of my camera.

It was a lovely mornng.