Finally.  The daily South Florida afternoon rains finally let up Friday afternoon for awhile so I could get these final images – one week after the wall was completed.  Even after we had left the previous Friday, there was still a lot of detail added that I wanted to document.  Of course, coming out after the rain meant not only mud, but also swarms of gnats.  I don’t mind the mud, but gnats in your mouth and eyes are bit much.  Still, you do what you have to do.

Note:  If you’re on a dial-up, go grab a sandwich and come back.  I’ve included over 50 photos of the Whaling Wall 99 in this, the last post on the topic.  It will take awhile to load.

Since this is a photography blog, let me start off by stating that all of these images were taken with a Canon 17-40mm f/4L USM.  I love wide angle lenses and the way that they let you play with your subject.

Which briefly leads me to two topics:  lens perspective and lines.

The surface of a wall, not accounting for irregularities and textures, is two-dimensional.  A flat surface is a flat surface.  If you keep the camera on a parallel plane to the flat surface, you will photograph pretty much what lies before the camera.  I’ve seen a number of pictures of this wall, and apart from the angled perspective, “I’m going to fit as much of the wall into one photo” shots (heck, I’ve taken a few of those, too), they’re mostly pretty much on the same plane as the wall.  And that’s okay – but it’s not the only way.  Move the camera off that plane, where some objects are closer to the lens than others, and you can begin to creatively alter the image.  Add in a super wide angle with a close focusing distance and you can really begin to play.

The wall onto which Wyland chose to paint is very cool because it has a grid of lines chiseled into it – a checkerboard pattern, if you will, that extends the full breadth and height of the wall and whose crisscrosses are parallel to the wall’s edges.  The cool thing about lines is that you not only see them in a photograph, you feel them as well.  For instance, both vertical and horizontal lines impart a feeling of rest and order.  Diagonal lines, on the other hand, impart a feeling of tension or action.  Since action is what this wall is all about, why not use the lines to help create that feeling?

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This is last in a series of eight posts that document the daily progress of this wall.  If you have linked directly to this post, be sure to click here to view the posts detailing the wall’s progress and development.

As a last note, I would like to thank the City of North Lauderdale for making this happen.  It is through the City’s leaders’ generosity and dedication to helping the environment that this project came to pass.

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The reef scenes on the wall are truly spectacular.

 

This coral is a rare species (presently unknown to me).

 

This starfish was a late addition.

 

Here’s a new guy on the scene.  A moray eel.  I can’t think of a sea creature more creepy than a moray eel. 

 

Nice teeth.

 

More coral, courtesy of Deano Cook.

 

Turtles, turtles everywhere.

 

A close-up of the turtle’s head.

 

This little yellow fish looks like he’s checking out the scene.

 

You have to love these guys.  They always seem to look ticked off about something.

 

 

A close-up of one some of the less animate species on the wall.

 

Three fish on their way somewhere.

 

Probably following these guys.  This shark must have already eaten today.

 

A close-up of Dr. Guy Harvey’s signature.

 

Detail of one of the sharks.

 

Not sure of the species, but this fish is very impressive – and pretty big.

 

I need to bone up on my fish species.  Not sure of this one either, but the size of it makes me think grouper.

 

Manta rays peacefully gliding through the water.

 

This leatherback turtle is huge, probably measuring about 10 feet.  

 

Notice the detail and work put into this image.

 

I’ll just lump these together as billfish seeing how I can never tell a swordfish from a sailfish apart.

 

A close-up of the side of the (okay, I’ll guess) sailfish.

 

Okay, I cheated.  This is a photo that I took the previous week, but I really like it.  Notice how the marlin’s eye almost looks three-dimensional.

 

These two guys are almost a mirror image of each other.

 

Dolphins.  Two of the thirteen on the wall.

 

There are even a few pelicans.  I wish these were a little more colorful, but you can’t have everything.

 

Detail of some of the mangroves.

 

 

Barracuda.  We’ve been able to trace this guy’s start from only a white tracing.

 

Not sure of what this fish is.  Maybe another barracuda.  His mouth was already protruding a bit to give him a sense of perspective, but I helped it along a little, too.  Still, it’s not too far off from the original.

 

And here’s another.. no wait.  It’s the same fish as the one above.  Change the camera angle and you can change the resulting picture.  Photographs can lie.

 

Some more mangroves.

 

 

A very large tiger shark.

 

 

And a close-up of the choppers.

 

Manatee mother and calf.

 

Another manatee swimming past some mangrove roots.

 

A blackup, still sans tip.  Maybe it’s a reef shark.

 

Another manatee and calf.

 

 

Various creatures.

 

 

Some rays.  If you’ve never had a chance to feed and pet a ray, you’re missing out.  They’re very cool creatures – and cousins to sharks.

 

A close-up of one of these rays.  The detail that went into these is amazing, especially when you know that most of this was done with a paint sprayer.

 

Speaking of sharks, here’s our resident hammerhead.

 

The back-end of the hammerhead, showing the effort and detail that went into it.

 

Of course, not everything has to have that much detail.  These fish are so far off in the distance that they have lost their detail.

 

Turtles, turtles…

 

 

Here’s, umm, a fish.

 

 

This guy looks like a relative to the one above.  Fish eggs (could be amphibian, too) are pictured in the mangrove roots.

 

 

Tarpon.

 

BIG tarpon.

 

Fish and reef.

 

 

A distant dolphin in the setting sun.  

 

Two more dolphin.

 

 

Deano Cook’s signature.  The first to go up of all the contributing artists.

 

Again, I have no idea what kind of fish this is, but he’s in front of some brain coral and a few other species that I don’t know.  Time to buy a book.

 

And finally, Wyland’s signature.  The very last thing to be applied to the wall (except for the clear coat) and the very last photo in this series.