one day TAMPA BAY 2021

One Day Tampa Bay (ODTB) is a 24 hour community photo project to document a day in the life of Tampa Bay (Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater and everything in between). This amazing project engages photographers of all skill levels and ages. This year had 94 registered participants. I started calling it "Long Day Tampa Bay" or "All Day Tampa Bay" because I only slept four hours. 

12:08 am It begins. We picked up our ODTB paperwork that day at the Morean Arts Center where I found a great book on documentary storytelling for $1! Pretty fitting since the next day would be full of documentary storytelling. 

12:34 am Folks are getting horizontal. The alarm is set for 5am so I better try to get some sleep now.

5:43 am I love starting ODTB at a bait shop or marina. 

5:48 am 

5:49 am 

5:51 am 

6:00 am I was loving the blue lights in this guy's boat. Choosing a white balance is hard when the lighting sources are so different. If the marina looks normal the boat would be bright blue with zero detail. Adjusting the white balance lets us see the boat but now the marina is a greenish color. I could fix in Photoshop but I try not to use tricks like that for a photojournalism project like this. And I kind of like the blue/green contrast.

6:37 am At six in the morning if the fishermen aren't at the marina they're probably at Skyway Jack's. I had breakfast here but didn't make any images I liked inside the restaurant. On my way out I just had to get one of the giant chicken. I waited for a customer to enter so we could get some warmth/light to draw us in. I can practically smell the bacon!

7:01 am The weather forecast wasn't good for Saturday but I headed out to the Sunshine Skyway bridge for sunrise shots with the drone anyway. As I left Skyway Jack's I was excited to see some clear spots off to the east. I was so glad to get there early enough to catch the night lights still glowing. 

7:17 am I landed the drone to give the sun some more time to rise and began browsing the fishing pier. 

7:21 am The pier is so high that this almost looks like a drone shot of fisherfolks castnetting some bait. And this angle really shows just how long the bridge is. 

7:30 am Once the sun was up I flew another pass with the drone. 

7:35 am Took advantage of this boat wake. I was hoping for a big ship but none passed while I was there. 

7:36 am This was my favorite drone shot and one of my ten chosen submissions for the project. 

8:14 am I had a date to explore downtown with my daughter so I headed back home to regroup. I didn't go looking for wildlife this year but I snapped a few shots of this heron perched in the mangroves near the house. 

8:23 am Took Gravy for a walk and saw our neighbor and their pooch out walking. 

8:33 am Found another neighbor dipping in the pool. The sky was pretty gray from this point on.

8:39 am The goal of the project is to capture a real day in 2021. Face masks are part of our daily routine.

8:42 am This is part of our normal weekday morning routine so I was happy to bump into our friends when I happened to be home for a few moments. 

8:49 am At the fire hydrant for a meeting. 

10:01am My daughter and I headed downtown only to learn that of our planned activities were not happening - Sundial yoga and the Saturday Morning Market. So we just walked and waited to see what the city would have for us. Baby at the pier!

10:06 am It was drizzling when we arrived at the pier. These action shots would be great on a sunny day with bright blue water behind them.

10:16 am We were at that high grassy vantage point at the pier which has a great view but my attention was drawn to this lady in a bright red dress

10:31 am Cruised into the Tampa Bay Watch Discovery Center and looked for compositions that would give some context to the place. 

10:32 am The Discovery Center has a giant wave sculpture made out of plastic bottles that is lit with blue lights. 

10:49 am The pier rents fishing gear and there was a father/son taking advantage. I cropped dad out but he was close when the kid got a strong bite that bent the rod down. Fish on!

10:58 am We get so many sunny days that it's actually probably good to have one gloomy One Day Tampa Bay for variety. Use those puddles!

11:06 am The staff at Pier Teaki had some smiles to share. 

11:27 am We kind of hung out at the pier shops and observed the people cruising through. This beautiful person was absolutely glowing so I asked for her portrait. 

11:43 am My daughter took us over to The Annex to make some photos. I asked the two people at the counter if I could take their picture and they parted like the Red Sea leaving their phone-talking coworker to fend for herself. 

11:58 am I had to capture the sign before it's gone forever. The Wig Villa is one of the few storefronts that was here over 20 years ago when I moved to town.

12:00 pm Historic Crislip Arcade. 

We walked into the Crislip Arcade and I was telling my daughter about some of its history. We found ourselves next to this gentleman who began sharing his story which included running a store and living in the Crislip Arcade for 20 years! My daughter snapped this photo which I love because it shows how a photograph starts - with the camera down, talking to people, and listening. 

When we reached the end of the hallway we asked if we could take his picture and my daughter made this amazing portrait of him before we parted. 

12:17 pm Bumped into some other neighbors at The Banyan Cafe. 

12:33 pm We were driving past the Morean Arts Center and saw Beth Reynolds, who runs the photo department and ODTB. She took some photos of me and my daughter including one of us taking a photo of each other.

1:07 pm Once my daughter had enough shooting we cruised back home and I took the dog out again, this time to the woods. I should've spent more time in the forest with the soft even light. 

1:11 pm Splashing through some mangroves. 

1:13 pm Gravy gets his paws wet.

1:18 pm Pupper leads me to the light. 

2:58 pm I had the trolley pub behind me in traffic so I pulled over, knowing I could get a picture as they slowly passed. But traffic totally stopped and I was able to get right up on top of them. 

3:16 pm I went to Ferg's looking for some Rays fans but it was mostly college football. I took the underpass to the Trop and met this guy strumming his 5 string (he told me he had to choose songs that still sounded good without a D string). 

3:16 pm He said he was able to buy this Ovation guitar at a deep discount because it was a factory reject. 

3:23 pm Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of good photos at the Rays parking lot. I found this character with a sombrero and hoped to hang out and make his portrait but he was only interested in getting a group shot with the whole gang.

3:56 pm Its' never a bad idea to just stroll Central Ave. with no specific plan.

3:57 pm This is just one of those moments that appeared for one instant. I love the red shorts and yellow shoes and I also like that it shows what St. Pete is like now; active young people and not just "God's waiting room."

4:01 pm We LOVE Pizza Box and I knew I could get a view of the wood burning oven.

4:02 pm 

6:31 pm Met back up with my wife to finish out the day. I headed to the pier for the second time that day and started with a shot of the Benoist statue. My wife got a better shot and submitted hers for the project. 

6:35 pm I also wanted to document the Terry Tomalin canoe down at the pier. When you're thinking about going on an adventure but you're not sure, just remember..."Terry would go."

6:39 pm We actually had a few minutes of sunlight later in the day. We were loving this little football group. 

6:39 pm The smaller kid was younger, shorter, and slower, but he never gave up. 

6:40 pm Finding a composition that included the mom/adult was tough. As a photojournalist I love capturing moments, not just scenes. This image has a nice moment with both kids in the air and the ball landing in the one kid's hand. 

6:41 pm We saw lots of photos of this kid submitted by other shooters so he was a popular subject. It was so nice to get those water highlights and that edge light on the subject with the sun out. 

6:45 pm We saw a bunch of kids playing out on the sandbar beyond the first tide pool and I knew there would be some good reflections with the pier in the background. Since it was ODTB I took my shoes and socks off and waded out into the water with them. Again, it's important to immerse yourself in the action and not just shoot from the sidewalk 50 yards away. 

6:46 pm It was hard to choose but ultimately I selected this image as one of my ten submissions. 

6:47 pm

6:47 pm

6:51 pm

6:59 pm We kept on making our way to the end of the pier with the plan to see the sunset from the top. We encountered this beautiful person roller skating/dancing and that low sunlight was hitting her perfectly. We chatted for a minute and explained how nice the light was and asked to photograph her. By the time she started skating again a cloud had moved in and blocked that amazing sun. Still, her wonderful spirit shined through even if the sun wasn't doing the same. 

7:00 pm When I saw that sunlight hitting her this was the type of image I had in mind. The sun was blocked but the bright western sky still gave her some definition - and those awesome sunglasses were still giving those great reflections!

7:13 pm We hoped for a sunset over the city from the top of the pier. Not bad and the boat helps add some interest to the foreground. 

7:20 pm Dinner with A VIEW!

9:16 pm It's been a long day and we had some time to kill so we bellied up to the Datz bar for a drink. 

9:59 pm Off to Jannus Live for the Seranation concert. COVID cancelled live music for over a year so we wanted to capture people out enjoying it this year. Bonus: Seranation is a local band. 

10:22 pm I was able to score a press pass that got me up on the stage for some closer shots. 

10:23 pm 

10:30 pm 

10:33 pm This is one of my favorite concert photos from that night; I just wish he was still wearing his sunglasses!

11:15 pm We left Jannus before the show was over to make it to The Floridian Social Club before midnight. We passed through this crazy LED light that felt like a glowing spotlight. We waited for some interesting characters to walk through it but I ended up asking a bystander if he would pose for us. This was his immediate response. 

11:15 pm We paused for a minute (18 seconds according to my camera clock haha) to allow some people to walk past. I noticed the bike and some of the background so I moved back to get a wider angle. I let him know I was ready and he just went into this awesome pose. In the end, I feel this image is a little too busy compared to the first one which really lets the subject be the main focus.

11:34 pm Finally made it to The Floridian and we just hung out a minute to soak everything in. I noticed the bartender had some interesting light going on so I pointed my camera at him and waited for a good moment like mixing a drink or something. He noticed me and just smiled which ended up being perfect. 

11:37 pm Downstairs is pretty crowded so we headed upstairs. I could've spent ten minutes playing with these lights but the clock was ticking so I snapped a quick one as my wife walked up. 

11:38 pm I love walking around with a real camera and a lanyard/badge around my neck. Everyone just assumes you're some official photographer. We heard noise behind us and saw a big group of folks cheersing so I pulled my old wedding trick and just held my camera up above everyone. I quickly removed my lens hood and turned my flash on and got a great image of a sight that we didn't see a lot of over the last year and a half. 

11:57 pm Nothing too exciting about this photo; just wanted to prove I was shooting right up until midnight. Time to head home and get some rest!! Another ODTB is in the books!