Florida has changed dramatically during my six decades as a resident. I grew up to believe that you are not a real Floridian until you’ve killed a big snake with a garden shovel. I often long for the pristine natural areas and rural country roads abundant in my childhood memories. Now old and full of both time and nostalgia, I decided to hit the backroads to see how much of real Florida still exists.
The trips led me to creating Florida Landscape photos with a nostalgic twist. Each image is shot with a hand-built diorama in the foreground featuring 1960’s era cars and highway billboards. I attempt to give the viewer the feeling I had as a seven year old-looking out the back window of the station wagon during pre-Disney family vacations.
The highway billboards of this decade lured motorists to witness animal shows with oversized reptiles, sea shells and helpings of pecan pie. Roadside stands sold citrus perfume, boiled peanuts, and stuffed alligator heads–in short, anything a first-time tourist would purchase .
“Finding Florida’ began for me as a nostalgia project and became a history lesson.
My images are created entirely “in-camera”. I set up a tripod and shoot a hand-built diorama carried to the location and balanced on a step ladder.
The camera’s wide-angle lens placed inches from the subject does the work to seamlessly weave together foreground and background. This technique, called forced perspective, is how early cinematographers made Godzilla and King Kong seem larger than life.
When I began the project, I wondered, “How much of Old Florida still exists?” I am a year in, and still discovering hidden gems all over the state.
I am having a blast navigating across the peninsula to chase old Florida fruit stands, family run attractions, historic downtowns and untamed wilderness. I am also learning sad truths about the state’s history. So many of the beaches, parks, restaurants, hotels, attractions I photographed were segregated until the very end of the 1960’s. As a child, I was unaware, that if, my family were black, they would be turned away from all of these places, and any resistance would risk a run-in with a small town Florida Sheriff.
The natural environment of Florida at the time, was absolute wilderness broken only by farms. Since then, overwhelming population growth and development has changed most every horizon. Thankfully, by driving and exploring, the center of the state, one can still find sweeping panoramas of open lands and Cypress canopied rivers and springs. I am eager to capture and learn more about this dynamic period of change in Florida. My goal is to create an art exhibit that people will find enjoyable, not just for the camera trickery, or the nostalgic toy cars, but a small window into Florida’s past. Bob Gibson, July 2024.
Blue Cypress Lake/
Spoonbill Junction
The headlights illuminate a hard packed gravel road throwing dust in every direction. The sky is pitched black and full of stars. There are no lights for hundreds of miles around. You slow down almost to a stop through with each patch of ground fog as you know canals chock full of XXL gators drops off each shoulder. Up ahead locals are floating their prized bass boat by lantern and car lights. You drive beyond into the darkness until The road ends. You have arrived at “Spoonbill Junction” a peninsula of shell rock. The stars fade. The pre-dawn “blue hour” reveals
Mangrove island rookery chock-full of Roseatte Spoonbills, Great Herons, Egrets.
The sun rises behind you, bathing the white and crimson birds in warm orange light. They fly gracefully just above their reflection in the glassy
River, directly toward the camera. Flaring their eight foot wing span they gently set down feet from your lens for easy close-ups. For this reason,
I call this secret spot, “Spoonbill Junction”.
After an unforgettable morning, you motor home. The car looks like a powdered donut, but you have trekked to a special place and witnessed the heart of wild Florida.
Sharks at Dawn, Juno Beach
During the months of June and July, the Atlantic Ocean near Juno Beach goes to sleep. Before the sun rises, its surface appears as a sheet of grey glass extending from the sand to the eastern horizon.
As the sun begins to rise, the glass is broken by fields of rippling baitfishes. From the end of the pier, fishermen and spectators take in a view that turns from serene to explosive flashes when a school of Bonita (small tuna like fishes) rushes in from the Gulf Stream.
Fishermen cry out “Boneys!” “Quick grab the poles!”
Suddenly the sound of screaming reels signal that every pole on the pier is connected to a 20 pound torpedo. The Bonita’s first run is its fastest and longest—straight out to sea for 200 yards, often a mere moment before the spool is empty and line breaks.
The Bonita’s second run is sideways, creating a havoc of crossed lines. And, then, just when fights are about to break out, A massive
Dorsal fin rises from the deep and speeds into the fray.
A grizzled veteran with a long pole curses, “I’ve got a shark”
All the crossed lines are forgotten and a communal drill goes into effect until a dozen teenagers snag the monster hammerhead with
Leaded hooks on boat line, fish is landed on the beach and carried to the back of a truck.
“Hooked on Live Bait”
Live Bait makes the difference between fishing and CATCHING. My Dad loved to fish with artificial lures. He loved the process of browsing for a new “magical” lure at Lott’s Tackle Shop near our home. The owner, George Lott was cut from the same cloth as my Dad–a depression era kid who learned to become an entrepreneur and earn a living by being clever and putting in twelve hour days. He and my Dad got along famously. Both never turned off their super salesmen personalities. “What are they biting on, George” my Dad would ask with a big smile knowing he had just opened his wallet to a real pro.
“Everything, said George Lott. “Especially the heavy Crocodile spoons in the surf. The fish hit them so hard, they break your line, so you need to have three or four!”
I did not share my Dad’s fishing strategy, and I did not have his wallet.
After school I learned to catch fish consistently with live bait. Just by laying on the concrete seawall and bending over the water, a kid could reach down and scoop up a handful of Sea Bugs. Hooked through the back, tossed right in, they drove the mangrove snapper crazy, and sometimes even a dinner plate sized Sheepshead. The lesson was clear, use the live bait that fish are feeding on!
So instead of paying for artificial lures with my lawn mowing money, I saved for a cast net and practiced throwing it over the back lawn until it landed in a perfect circle. My mother was worried I would lose a tooth by the common net throwing method, so George Lott showed me a special Non-teeth damaging casting method.
Next trip to the beach with my Dad, he caught a Bluefish on his first cast of the new Crockodile Spoon and was quite taken with himself while I struggled spinning and tossing a forty pound ball of net and lead weights. Just when the shoulders were about to give up, the net came in shining with flipping fish. I filled a deep pail of seawater with robust little Menhaden and hooked the largest through the hard part of its nose. At that point, just catching the bait, I had the best day of fishing ever. By now, I got to bait up my pole and throw. The cast arched over the incoming waves into a smooth area of sea–a deep spot unbroken by action–until the exact moment the Menhaden slapped the surface! Twenty minutes of fighting a huge fish, reveal a good eating Snook–so big that took two people to drag up the beach. Live bait became my Mantra. It’s the way to spot a local versus a visiting fisherman.
The local always has a Cast Net in hand, and a loop of line in his teeth.
This vintage Carvel Ice Cream stand in West Palm Beach Florida shot in the daytime did not do justice to the subject
until Adobe Lightroom came to the rescue to turn it into night.
We arrived at Silver Springs, and towel changed in the parking lot and ran with excitement to the water.
Our South Florida ocean swims did not prepare us for the shock of frigid spring water.
We did the Australian Crawl like Johnny Weismuller. In the clear as a pool water, we saw giant freshwater fish schooling in the vibrant grass flats, then when the bottom dropped away to fifteen feet, we felt “suspended in air” directly over the —wondrous lapis azul spring vents surrounded by “silver” abalone bottom reflecting the sun in every direction.
Glass bottom boats plied the deeper Magnitude One vent and Silver River beyond the swimming area. A total of 30 springs, a history of Tarzan, Sea Hunt and Creature from the Black Lagoon, and a reptile show added to the wonder and mystery.
As I said at the beginning. This excercise began as an art project and became a history lesson.
Here is the sad truth of Florida’s history. The year was 1965, and it would be another four years before
Florida’s “greatest attraction” ceased to be restricted to “whites only”
Just outside the entrance, the Springs owners advertised “Paradise Park—for the exclusive enjoyment of colored folk”.
Decades later, this fact seems unbelievable. Imagine a black family attempting to vacation in Florida in the 1960’s. Most of the hotels, restaurants, public beaches and attractions were off-limits. Enforcement by local lawmen at the best included personal harrassment, at worst, often ibeatings, imprisionment and lynching. Like millions of white visitors at the time, my family didn’t notice or question. This haunts me to this day.
Cassadega Spiritualist Camp
In the early 70’s, I
drove (as a Halloween prank) with a carload of friends to attend a “message service” in nearby Cassadega Florida. The experience led me to return. “Mediums” and “Spritualists” (I’m not sure of the exact difference) tell people’s fortunes or communicate with their departed loved ones and do so for money. I won’t judge. I earned a living in advertising —an equally dubious career path.
I set up on the corner of the main drag under the shade of a magnificent Florida Oak and oriented the diorama to match the streetscape. Immediately, the book store owner who was also
A medium , spiritualist or both, came out to question my intent.
“Good afternoon,” he said, “May I ask what you are doing?”
I wanted to be respectful but couldn’t resist replying,
“I think you know already”
I then explain how I built the historically accurate sign and only with his permission would I continue setting up shot a picture.
As I worked and he watched, we became fast friends on this spirit plane. Just when things couldn’t get better, they did. A female medium, spiritualist or both stopped by to chat. She was draped with layers of transparent scarves that flowed in the breeze.
“Need help?” She asked.
“Yes!
“Walk toward me looking straight ahead like a ghost ( I caught myself from saying zombie)
This is my recreation of the Nomad “Factory” in Hypoluxo, Florida circa 1968.