Category : Florida

Florida runs from about twenty-five degrees north to thirty-one, and that range does more to photographs here than anything else. At Miami the June noon sun climbs to within two degrees of straight overhead — the highest in this guide — which puts eyes in shadow and foreheads in light and leaves no position on open ground that fixes it. Even at the winter solstice the noon sun in south Florida still reaches about forty degrees, higher than a New England midsummer evening.

Days barely vary, from around ten and a half hours to thirteen and three-quarters, so there is no long northern evening; and because the sun descends steeply at these latitudes, civil twilight runs a little over twenty minutes against thirty-five or more further north. The low light is short and it ends abruptly.

Three practical facts govern almost every venue on this page. First, orientation: the Gulf coast faces west and takes the sunset over water, while the Atlantic coast faces east and gives its sun-over-water frame to dawn, with the evening beach lit by afterglow instead. Reversing that plan between coasts is the commonest error in Florida work. Second, the species decide the shade. Live oak, banyan, sea grape and tropical fruit trees hold dense evergreen canopies that block almost everything and give reliable soft light at any hour; a palm frond is a row of stiff parallel blades and throws a hard slatted stripe that is unusable on a face.

Broadleaf is cover, palm is background. Third, the wet season from May to October brings dew points in the mid-twenties Celsius — haze rather than fog, which strips contrast at distance — and the daily convergence storm, formed where sea breezes from both coasts collide over the peninsula and lift the air. That mechanism is why Florida records more lightning than any other state, and why a named covered alternative is a requirement rather than a courtesy between June and September. It also creates the state's most specific technical hazard: a lens carried from an air-conditioned room into that air fogs instantly and takes ten to twenty minutes to clear.

Two bodies, one of which stays outside, is the only real answer. The good season here is winter, which is the reverse of almost everywhere else in this guide.