Skyshadow Photography: Hometown Brooksville

The Dade Massacre Reenactment actually takes place just down the road from Brooksville in Bushnell, Florida, but it's close enough. Getting photographs that are more than just documentation of the costumes and paraphernalia of the period is tough but I think these two shots work pretty well.

Dade Massacre
Bushnell, Florida
2015-01-04 (77)

Dade Massacre
Bushnell, Florida
2015-01-04 (117)

Brooksville, Florida, is the quintessential Florida hometown. The rain was forecast to begin slacking off and I had been wanting to get some shots of the city at night. What better time to do it than after a rain during the Christmas Holidays when all the lights are in full spectacle and the reflections are spectacular! Here are a few "hometown" images for you, all from in and around Brooksville, Florida, beginning Christmas Eve 2014.

Street scenes

Brooksville, Florida
2014-12-24 (24)

Brooksville, Florida
2014-12-24 (67)

Brooksville, Florida
2014-12-24 (61)

Brooksville, Florida
2014-12-24 (82)

Brooksville, Florida
2014-12-24 (73)

Brooksville, Florida
2014-12-24 (57)

The Hernando County Courthouse

The Courthouse in Hernando County is a beautiful example of old Florida county-seat architecture. It has memorials for the men and women who fought in two of the country's wars and were from this rural little county, a day's ride by horseback north of Tampa Bay. One is for the veterans of the Vietnam War, an unpopular war of historically questionable purpose. It lists every known veteran from Hernando County who served. The other is for those who fought in the Civil War. It is a statue of a young man standing, holding his rifle at rest and gazing, perhaps, into the future. Its inscription reads:

Erected by the

Brooksville Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy

Chapter 71 June 3, 1918

"Love makes memory eternal"

In 1918, surely the warriors these women were memorializing were their fathers, brothers and husbands. Neither of these wars were fought for purposes we today would consider honorable enough to waste the thousands of lives that were. Yet, those who served during those sad times did so bravely because their country asked them to. For that reason alone, we should not lay upon their shoulders the burdens of their country's mistakes and failings. They deserve every honor we might say, erect, or inscribe that reminds us of and thanks them for their sacrifices.