Photography by Amy Howard

I believe I took this picture of the full moon with a sea oat in the foreground from the beach deck at The Reef restaurant.

I took this picture of a praying mantis on the back porch of my house in Turtle Shores, Ponte Vedra Beach, overlooking the Guana River marsh. I took two pictures, then a week later I found the mantis dead and took that picture. The three pictures were named IMG_2256.JPG, IMG_2258.JPG, and IMG_2265.JPG, taken with my iPhone 5.

A rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral and I was able to see it from the bayfront in St. Augustine. In the video, I tell someone that NASA had launched it, but I bet it was Space X.

From my back porch in Turtle Shores, I saw a female deer hopping through the tall marsh grass toward the houses. She kept stopping. Then I saw a baby deer trying to follow her, but the grass was much taller for him. I was really worried about him. The mother went back toward the river and I couldn't see if the baby was able to keep up with her because the grass was taller out there. I took a series of seven pictures but couldn't ever get them both in the same shot. One of the pictures was too blurry and I deleted it. The file names were P1000051.JPG through P1000057.JPG.

Sunrise at a boardwalk in Ponte Vedra Beach in 2016. I can't tell which boardwalk it is. This photo was on my Google Photos from my cell phone in 2016. I used it for the homepage background of PaperlessPonteVedra.com and also the first business cards of PPV. The foreground consists of dark green coastal strand plants, including saw palmetto, scrub oak, and sea oats. The background shows a glassy Atlantic ocean with clean wave lines and a massive sunrise reflecting on the water.

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Collection of photographs I took to list Maquay for rentals. I pulled them together in a Google album. 2017-02-21_howard_dr_maquay (1).jpg" 2017-02-21_howard_dr_maquay (2).jpg" 2017-02-22-howard_dr_maquay (1).jpg" 2017-02-22-howard_dr_maquay (2).jpg" 2017-11-11_howard_dr_maquay.jpg" 2017-11-15_howard_dr_maquay.jpeg" 2017-11-15_howard_dr_maquay.jpg" 2017-11-18_howard_dr_maquay (1).jpg" 2017-11-18_howard_dr_maquay (2).jpg" 2017-11-25_howard_dr_maquay.jpg" 2017-12-09_howard_dr_maquay.jpg" 2017-12-10_howard_dr_maquay.jpg" 2017-12-12_howard_dr_maquay (1).jpg" 2017-12-12_howard_dr_maquay (2).jpg" 2017-12-16_howard_dr_maquay.jpg" 2017-12-16_howard_dr_maquay.mp4" 2017-12-19_howard_dr_maquay (1).jpg" 2017-12-19_howard_dr_maquay (2).jpg" 2017-12-19_howard_dr_maquay (3).jpg" 2017-12-20_howard_dr_maquay.jpg" 2017-12-21_howard_dr_maquay.jpg" 2017-12-25_howard_dr_maquay.jpg" 2017-12-28_howard_dr_maquay (1).mp4" 2017-12-28_howard_dr_maquay (2).mp4" 2017-12-28_howard_dr_maquay (3).mp4" 2018-04-10_howard_dr_maquay (1).jpg" 2018-04-10_howard_dr_maquay (2).jpg" 2018-04-10_howard_dr_maquay (3).jpg" 2018-04-10_howard_dr_maquay (4).jpg" 2018-04-11_howard_dr_maquay.jpg" 2018-04-19_howard_dr_maquay.mp4" 2018-04-22_howard_dr_maquay.jpg"

Academic-looking selfie of Amy at Belleza with white cotton blouse and angled short bob haircut.

On my PPV website, I wanted to show what it's like to take your office work outside in nature. I wanted to show it is possible and easy. I took my laptop, cell phone, and lunch to the GTM Reserve. I hiked the one-mile yellow trail and sat at the picnic table at the end of the trail, which sits in the shade of oak trees and overlooks the Tolomato River. I worked there for about two hours. My cell phone got full signal at the river. I used the wifi hotspot function on my phone to get my laptop on the internet. Or maybe I used tether? A couple of hikers and bicyclists came by, but mostly I had the place to myself. I even took a nap. A roseate spoonbill flew by, but I couldn't make it out in the video clip. I took five still-shots and 40 videos, ranging from 10:50am to 1:47pm. I also took five screenshots to show the wifi connection. Other tags: palm, Guana, digital, paperless

I staged this picture to show how easy it is to work outside in nature with digital technology. I filmed and photographed my way to the picnic table at the end of Yellow Trail at GTM Reserve. The cellular signal was strong at the Tolomato River/Intracoastal Waterway, and I was able to tether my laptop to my phone's cell service and work for a couple of hours at that picnic table. I took a photograph to remember and prove how easy it is to work outside. I used this photograph on my Paperless Ponte Vedra home page to show how nature and digital life blend perfectly in Ponte Vedra. A roseate spoonbill flew by that day, but I can't see it in my pictures.

On my way home from SPVCA, I saw two dead raccoons lying on the side of A1A within eyesight of each other. I pulled over and took two pictures in case I wanted to use them on PPV.

I was driving home on a Tuesday evening as the sun was setting over Guana Reserve. The sky was so beautiful that I pulled over at Six Mile Landing and filmed it. Video length: 4:24. I extracted a photo from it and used it as the featured image for Nature in Ponte Vedra on my Paperless Ponte Vedra website. Additional tags: sunset, marsh, palm

Lead ranger Zach Lepera invited me to watch and film he and Jenna Xander as they caught and processed a pygmy rattlesnake for Jenna's research project. She was studying the spread of a parasite that is coming (I think) from Burmese pythons in south Florida, perhaps transmitted by bird feces. The parasite grows inside a snake's mouth and throat. This is deadly for a small snake like pygmy rattlesnakes. I had photographed a pygmy rattlesnake on the front porch not long before the day they found this one. I had to get back in the visitor center when visitors arrive, so I handed the phone to someone else to finish filming. There are three videos in all. I keep a copy of them on FDEP OneDrive in a folder named 'Live animals shared', which is shared with Zach and a couple other rangers. Includes: native firebush

I took this picture of the sun setting over the Guana River at 6:30 on a Tuesday evening. It must have been a special event for me to be there at night. It's a great view of the river at high tide and the pine trees in silhouette on the skyline. Saw palmetto bushes line the brick patio in the forefront, and the salt marsh grass is green along the water line.

I saw this septic pump truck on my way to work. I pictured floaters in the toilet. I compared that vision to my own reality. My brown bananas plunge right down the toilet. No clumps. No floaters. I immediately diagnosed all of that guy's customers with poor dietary habits.

I took these seven pictures of my lunch on the picnic table at GTM

I bought a tube of concealer from Dollar Stop. Following a gay guy's makeup advise on YouTube, I paint the dark circles under my eyes with a makeup brush, as well as the redness around my nose, and any other blemishes. One pea-sized dab is sufficient to clean up my skin tone. One tube lasts me nearly a year. This is a picture of my hand holding the tube and brush.

Apparently, I saw this coachwhip on 7/19/2024 and 7/30/2024. I seem to remember walking up on him laying on the fakahatchee grass one day. Another day, I was weeding the president's garden and noticed him watching me.

I accidentally photographed this moth with the video setting. It is less than one second, but several frames to choose from. I think it was taken in the front flower bed at SPVCA because another video at the same time shows dune sunflowers and Fakahatchee grass tangled together. I used this image as the featured image on my PPV article, "SPVCA Native Garden Club", published 9/2/2024.

Also a video filename: PXL_20240725_171414519.mp4 I persuaded Dori to model for me with the taxidermized bobcat at GTM.

While photographing plants at SPVCA, I turned around and saw this coachwhip watching me. I was able to get three videos of it before it darted out of sight.

I pieced together this graphic in Gimp using a Google Maps background of Florida, a web copy of Wedelia, and my own photo of the Ponce de Leon statue at GTM North beach. I used it as the featured image in my Paperless Ponte Vedra article, "Invasive Plants in Ponte Vedra", following my 9/1/2024 article in the SPVCA newsletter, "War on Wedelia".

I visited Guana Dam before work one morning. At 7:18 a.m., I caught the moon dropping down into the trees. I used this photo to illustrate Sandy Tull's article on 10/24/2024, Caring for Creation. The photo includes palm trees, Muhly grass, Spartina marsh grass, and scrub oak. https://paperlesspontevedra.com/caring-for-creation/

This came on an email forwarded from Sue Olsen. It was a trigger for me so I kept a screenshot of it and started a Skinny at Heart blog post titled, "Gaslighting Happiness.

I took this picture while walking around the hospital Greg was at. Someone had created a landscape arrangement with oyster shells around a tree. I added it to my PPV post 'Native garden design ideas'.

I got a dental scan from Great Expressions.

Four photos at a yard next to the synagogue across from Ponte Vedra library, plus two photos in the SPVCA parking lot. I took these photos for my article on Dollar Weed.

I took this photo to identify the context of the documents I scanned inside this binder.

I took this photo on my way to work at Guana Reserve. These plants were at the entrance to GTM and show a nice collection of key plants, including dune sunflowers, saw palmetto, and cabbage palms. I used it as the thumbnail for the Plants card on my Nature page on PPV.

I took this series of pictures at the SPVCA clubhouse on Easter Sunday after church. I was weeding the coontie beds. I also filmed a caterpillar in the coontie. I also made a table-top arrangement with coonties in a glass vase. I took pictures of the vase in the kitchen and on the back patio with the inscribed tiles, including Muldowneys and Allmens.

I have an app on my phone called Seek by iNaturalist. It allows me to point my camera at a plant or animal, then compares it to the iNaturalist database and tries to identify it. I can click to capture the photo if I want to. When I capture the photo, Seek creates a folder on my phone called Seek and titles the pictures with the prefix mrousavy-, followed by some long number. There is no date stamp in the file name. Here is an example of a picture taken 10/24/2024: mrousavy-755774332299645900.jpg

I took this photograph of a red bay tree for my SPVCA article on that tree, dated 7-1-2025. The tree and another nearby were covered in vines which I removed, and Jan Smith helped me on the second tree. Ely Brooks confirmed this is a red bay. I used Gimp to isolate the red bay tree from the shrubs around it by desaturating and blurring the background. I also erased the electric poles in the background. I named the modified copy 2025-06-13_red_bay-isolated.jpg. I had tried ChatGPT, but it looked fake and too zoomed in.

Muscadine grape splattered on the hood of my Toyota Corolla because I park under the grapevine at GTM.

I wonder if these buds will become grapes, and if these bugs are the Ambrosia beetle. These were taken at SPVCA in the northeast corner.

I practiced and filmed this skit to perform at the GTM staff Christmas party if Josie decides to perform one of her songs there. I based it on this rendition: https://youtu.be/yE0YCJ3r-Bo?si=mgVhusUW8WNW432h

The dry erase board for updating sea turtle nest counts in the GTM exhibit hall.

A wooden box with plexiglass front displaying ping pong balls to simulate sea turtle eggs. The lid is a sheet of Styrofoam with beach sand glued to it. The lid was broken and part fell into the box, so I always covered the hole with a laminated guide to sea turtle tracks.

I caught a Huntsman spider at GTM and put it under a glass bowl to study it. Then ranger. Jim noticed a German cockroach on the wall in the office. I caught that and put it in the bowl with the Huntsman. I was hoping to catch a video of a Huntsman spider catching and eating a roach. I hoped it would inspire people feel better about once and spiders. However, roach ran around in the bowl for half a day while the Huntsman spider did nothing but clean itself and occasionally kick away the Cockroach. I was going to delete the video because it was fruitless. But then I got the idea to use the whole scene as a voiceover opportunity. The camera shut down when my phone battery went out. The longest segment of the video is 1 hour long, but in fact the Cockroach and Huntsman were in there until I closed up the building and left work at 4:00 p.m. at that time, I took them out to the back patio and opened the bowl and they both went their separate ways. The video file was 17 GB. It filled up my phone. But my SSD drive is also full. I decided to store this big file from the specter hard drive until I can get it edited and reduced. I put it in the GTM folder on my hard drive. Use this entry for a voiceover script.

I weeded out extraneous pics.

I put the originals in AWS Deep Archive to retain meta data.

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I made .webp copies for the JIO page on PPV WordPress.

I made .avif copies for my SSD drive.

 

 

I was co-lead with Jeff Finnan on the GTM Guided Hike today. Jeff brought fresh sourdough bread  he had made for the guides. From left to right:

Jeff Finnan

Suzanne Carusillo

Spencer Baba

Amy Howard

Paul Yonally

Spencer's sister, Susan, and her husband had joined the hike as guests. Along with the other guests, it was a great group and we had a great time. Susan wanted a picture of us guides. While she was at it, I asked her to take another with my phone as well.

This photo is taken at the pavillion at the GTM trailhead.

I cropped the photo to make a bio picture for North Guana Outpost's website, which Gail Ingalls had asked for by 2/10/2026.