What this is
Everything worth shooting near you, and when.
A free index of every photographic opportunity within two hours of Central Florida — 37 recurring seasons and everything the week has actually turned up — with the months each one runs, the conditions that fire it, how far it is, whether you can fly a drone there, and which of them your own glass can reach.
- 01
Say where you shoot from
Everything is measured from a real two-hour drive on real roads, not a circle on a map. Out of the box that is the middle of Central Florida; sign in and it is your own driveway, which changes every departure time on the site.
- 02
Say what is in your bag
Every shoot here states the glass it wants — 400mm at f/6.3 or faster, say. Type your lenses into the box on the front page and it tells you plainly which ones you can reach and which you cannot. No account needed; your kit stays in the address bar. If nothing you own reaches a shot, it says so rather than naming a lens you would have to go and buy.
- 03
Narrow it the way you actually decide
By subject — wildlife, night skies, water, weather, events, blooms. By how far you will drive. By whether you can legally fly a drone there. Or just search it: type manatee, or new moon, or 600mm.
- 04
Pick your horizon
By year shows which months matter and gives no dates, because most of this is decided by weather and a date would be a guess. By month adds the dates the moon and the tide can actually name. By week shows only what the forecast has resolved. The further out you look, the less anyone can honestly promise, and the site changes what it claims accordingly.
- 05
Then leave on time
The number that actually moves you is leave by: golden hour at that spot, minus the drive, minus setup. A dawn subject is measured against the morning light, not the evening. Nothing else here tells you that, and it is the only line that gets you out of the door.
And if you want it to come to you
A sheet, sorted by what there is time to do
Sunday morning, one email: everything worth going out for, in three lanes. Shoot this week is conditions met and light inside the week. Book it now is a shoot that is later but a reservation that closes today — a dark-sky campsite on a new-moon weekend goes in weeks before the night itself. Worth knowing about is everything else that is coming.
A word between Sundays
A weekly email cannot catch something that opens on a Wednesday. When a shoot is both firing and inside thirty-six hours, an alert goes out at 7am with the leave by time in the subject line. Deliberately rare — most mornings you hear nothing, which is the point.
It learns what you actually drive for
Mark a row keeper or skip and next week is fitted to you. Something you have shot before is not disqualified, but something you have not, in a season that rarely opens, earns its way up. Anything past the distance you are willing to travel is left off entirely.
And if you want to know whether to trust it
Where it comes from
Eighteen live sources, once a week: tide predictions, river gauges, coastal water temperature, bird and wildlife sightings, weather and air quality, space weather, red-tide samples, campsite availability, rocket launches, orbital passes, tropical systems, and local event calendars. Sunrise, moonrise, eclipses and the position of the Milky Way core are computed here rather than fetched.
What it refuses to claim
A subject being in season is not evidence its trigger fired. If the moon is wrong or the front never arrived, this says watch, not go, and names what is missing. A source that returns nothing because nothing is happening is reported differently from one that is broken — a red-tide feed with no red tide is working perfectly.
What it does not do
It does not sell you anything, rank venues by who pays, or track where you shoot. There is no map vendor: the coastline and the drive-time shape are files in the repository, so nobody outside this site learns where you go. The whole index is public and always will be — signing in only adds your kit, your driveway and what you have already shot.