Cocoa Beach Boardwalk
A sun-soaked boardwalk leads over the dunes and to the sand at Lori Wilson Park in Cocoa Beach, Florida.
I love these boardwalks at Cocoa Beach. If you have been around here much, you probably know that, as they have been featured many times before, especially in older posts that are now in the Burnsland Archives section. I like how the lines of the boardwalk lead your eyes to the beach, even in this one does have a sideways jog at the end. I like the excitement of knowing the beach is just up ahead. And I like hearing the sounds of the beach getting closer as you walk. A photo captures some of that, but not all of it, although it does help to bring back the memories.
If we keep going to Cocoa Beach, and I assume that we will, I will keep posting photos of these boardwalks. No apologies.
By the way, this was from our July 2024 visit, in case you were wondering. Or even if you were not wondering.
Bearing Our Burdens
As you may know, the purpose of the boardwalks such as the one pictured above is to carry us over the delicate sand dunes that protect the rest of the land from the ocean waves. If those boardwalks were not there, it would be quite difficult to get to the beach. They help us over.
Similarly, we have a God who helps us. He “bears our burdens”, which is to say that he helps us get through difficult circumstances, and through good circumstances, too. As the boardwalk helps us get over difficult terrain, God helps us get through the difficulties of life.
It is a great blessing to be able to turn all our troubles over to God in prayer, knowing that he helps us through it all. Don’t overlook that blessing!
Blessed be the Lord! Day after day he bears our burdens; God is our salvation. - Psalm 68:19 CSB
About the Photo
Confession: I spent way too much time on this photo. I wanted it to have a somewhat unique look, and I spent lots of time trying to achieve that. I eventually got frustrated and put it aside for a while, came back to it with a few simple edits, and was much happier with the final version, which is what you see here.
One element that remained through all of the changes is that I used two “exposures” from the same Raw file. One was a normal exposure, and one was darker to simulate being underexposed. The reason for this is that the boardwalk itself looked washed out (too bright) from the overhead sun. So using layer masks, I brushed in the boardwalk from the underexposed version, leaving everything else from the normal version. The boards of the boardwalk still look bright, especially at the far end from where I was standing, but it is much better than how it looked originally. I used to do things like that all of the time, in the old HDR photo days, but I have gotten away from it over the last several years. There are still good uses for it sometimes, however.
Photo: A single Raw exposure, processed in Darktable.
Camera: Sony Alpha A7 II
Lens: Rokinon 35mm f/1.8
ISO: ISO-100
Shutter Speed: 1/3200 sec.
Aperture: f/1.8
Focal length: 35mm
Date: July 24, 2024
Location: Cocoa Beach, Florida
