Vacation in Ft Myers

Last week Holly and her family went on vacation and took me along. I had a tough time getting the days off from work but was able to enjoy the majority of the long weekend in Ft. Myers. I took all my camera gear but honestly didn't use it as much as I might have normally. I was mostly relaxing. I had two goals; to capture some images of everyone enjoying vacation, and get some video to edit. Let's see how I did...

I shot video with my GoPro most of the weekend but I did get my DSLR out to shoot around. This was a spot between the cabins in Silver Sands Villas. It's a great place and just like everywhere in Ft Myers, it has some colorful schemes.

I'm still not 100% sure what this all means but I thought it looked cool.

I did a lot of low light shooting with my DSLR. This was taken just after sunset at the tiki bar which became our hangout spot the entire time we weren't at the beach.

Here's another shot of the tiki bar and the tables we mostly occupied.

While sitting at the tiki bar, I turned and noticed how bright the moon was and realized it was the SuperMoon.

These are apparently called frangipani. They're really cool flowers and there were several trees in the pool area. This image was just after sunset as well.

This wind chime looking item was by the entrance and in view from our hangout location. I took a few shots and this one works for me as the fence behind it was illuminated by a cars headlights.

I was looking for the odd shot or the photo that was hidden from plain sight. I saw this pack of cigarettes by the Christmas lights that adorned the bar and thought it looked cool. I got some flak for taking this image but after some processing, I think it looks kind of cool.

We spent pretty much the next day at the beach. This was our setup and the only group picture I got at the beach. We had gone back to the room to make sandwiches for lunch and I decided to take my camera to the beach. Again I had been filming video with my GoPro all day, more on that later.

 I thought this inflatable dolphin looked funny sitting on shore alone.

Again looking for the unseen image, I saw Holly's sandals and took this shot. I ended up cropping it a little wider because the 3:2 ratio wasn't working for me.

This might be my favorite shot of the set. It's the beach umbrella pole with Holly out of focus in the background. The photo could have been made better maybe if Holly's head was in the frame but I still think it works. It wasn't setup I just saw it and snapped away.

As previously mentioned, after the beach, we'd head back to the pool area to hangout for the rest of the night. Here we are just hanging out before I started making dinner.

We each had one night to make dinner. The first night was lasagna made by Lina. I made fajitas the second night which turned out quite nice. The third night was burgers and hotdogs. Sorry, no pictures.

This is always a fun picture. Kids jumping into a pool. Or anyone for that matter. It didn't happen too much but I got one.

The most popular game of the weekend was Uno. It was played a lot. Always fun.

Erik and Katie wearing their glowcaps. It was very dark here so the color is losing quality but it's still acceptable for me as part of the story.

Before heading off to bed the second night, I saw Elin taking a picture of Nick in the water with her iphone and he sure did look cool floating there. I'm glad I shot this as well because this is another of my favorites.

We were up and at the beach early-ish the next day because we had plans to go parasailing. I had never been but I'm up for anything. These photos were shot by the parasailing team on the boat. He shot 291 pictures and I sorted through and kept 58. As you can see, I'm wearing a GoPro on my head which I'll show more of in a bit.

He definitely took more pictures of me and Nick than Holly and Katie but I just now realized it might have been because he was fascinated by my GoPro. Doesn't make sense otherwise.

Parasailing in Ft Myers Beach (Unedited)

This is the full video of us parasailing from my GoPro.

After parasailing and spending a few hours baking on the beach, even under umbrella shade, we decided to go for a walk down the main street to the shops or whatever was down there. It was brutally hot and I was sweating like... something that sweats a lot.

After the brutal heat, a storm rolled through sending us to our rooms for a while. After the storm cleared, we met back up for dinner and I spotted Nick with his happy face eating cereal at the bar.

Katie was collecting some of the frangipani flowers and floating them in a bowl of water. It looked cool. She placed it on the table next to my chair and I took this photo. Arrangement by Katie.

After dinner, there was more Uno being played. I climbed the stairs to another villa and shot this looking down. This is another one of my favorites.

Erik and Kaite playing in the pool. I shot this at 17 mm trying to get the really wide look. If I had a fisheye, I might have tried that. The GoPro doesn't like the dark and it was quite dark here.

The next day was my last day there since I had to work on Monday when everyone else left. We had plans to rent jetskis and possibly get the dogs on a paddleboard. We waited for the jetski because there was a big storm rolling in and they didn't want to drop more skis in the water. We rode for 30 out of the 45 we had them for. I rode with Nick and Holly rode with Katie. I was tired. Holding on the the jetski as it got up to speed was hard on my hands but it sure felt good to go fast. The jetski got up to 65 km/h which I thought was quite fast for a rental. We fell but it was all good. I definitely need practice driving one. I wore my GoPro on my head as well.

Ft Myers Vacation

The edited vacation video consists of video exclusively from my GoPro. As I was editing, I realized most of the footage is of the dogs swimming. In the edit, I included a lot of jetski footage mostly because I thought it looked cool and fast. 

We had a great time and I enjoyed editing and sharing these photos and videos.

As usual, check the full sets on Flickr:

Ft Myers Vacation

Parasailing in Ft Myers

Father's Day Gift

My dad turned 70 on Thursday. I got him a card, a really sappy one but he likes those. As you might have known, it was also Father's Day on Sunday. I decided to gift my dad a trip to St Augustine so he can go to Sunday Mass at The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Augustine. I knew he'd appreciate it because he likes the history and is religious.

We arrived just in time for the 11 AM Mass. He told Holly and I that we can walk around while he was in Mass so we did just that.

We walked all the way down St George Street when I saw this clock. This was what brought my camera out of the bag.

After Mass, my dad asked that I take a picture of him with the Felix Varela Statue. Felix Varela was a Cuban born priest that lived and died in St Augustine in the 1700's. My dad's High School was named after Varela so he's always had an interest. Also, yes, my dad was happy here.

This is more my style of shot. Once I got the posed photo, he turned to read the plaque and I started shooting.

Walking down Cathedral Pl, we saw this dude playing the banjo all alone. He was playing for himself because it was barely audible. I thought it looked cool and would make for a cool black and white. I did a lot of processing to this to get the look I wanted.

We had lunch at La Herencia Cafe. It was highly recommended and now I will highly recommend the Media Noche. It was great. I had the Frita (The Cuban Hamburger) and it was pretty good too but definitely go for the Midnight Sandwich. About this picture. It was highly back lit but I was able to recover enough in the shadows to make a decent shot.

The Cafe had a bunch of these little model houses hanging on the walls. I have seen these before. My uncle has a few in his house. I particularly enjoyed these in the corner behind where my dad was sitting. It was a little nook by the window so there wasn't much space to back up. Even at 17mm, I couldn't get a wide enough shot to get straight on.

After lunch, we walked around a bit. My dad and Holly were checking out some items displayed at the shop window directly across the narrow street where La Herencia Cafe is located. I like the colors and though originally composed with them closer to the center of the image, it didn't work for me as much as this cropped version.

Here's a view of the narrow street I mentioned in the previous photo. Also, my dad pointing at something. Shot at 17mm so the image is distorted a bit. His hand is not that large.

The park had some interesting trees. I don't know much about trees but these look quite old and given the history of St Augustine, I think it's a safe bet to make.

Before leaving, my dad wanted to go back to the store in the Basilica to look for a book. We also took the opportunity to walk around and shoot a few images.

I waited about 5 minutes or so for the couple that was in here lighting candles to clear out.

The color on this stained glass was nice. I couldn't quite capture what I wanted with this shot though.

Holly actually recommended this angle before we left. I think it works nicely. The white balance was all over the place.

This is a close up of the altar. I can't help but think it's slightly off axis. Although it's lined up. I think it has to do with the wide angle it was shot at.

The final shot as my dad leaves the empty Cathedral Basilica. I really like this image. I almost don't even mind the distorted ceiling beams.

At the end of the day, my dad had a great time and was appreciative of the gift which is the most important thing. I also had a good time. We had a nice lunch and found bought some nice sugar cookies.

Check out the full set over on the Flickr: St Augustine for Father's Day

Sampling at Lake Oneida

This weekend Holly asked if I'd help her gather her experiment samples from Lake Oneida and that I take some photos for her to use. When we arrived, her experiment had been tampered with. The pvc pipe she had placed in the water with fertilizer had been removed and placed on the bank.

My camera wasn't unpacked yet before she put the pvc pipe back in the water but I took a photo of the flag as is stood for evidence. You can see the pipe in the top right.

She went on to gather her samples and I tried capturing some images without getting in the water.

I tried from the other side. There was less room to work but I thought a different perspective might be good.

For yet another angle, I backed up and got a wide shot. This one in particular was more of a test shot since I didn't want to get her backside but it might work since she's actually gathering samples here.

Here she started turning around and there is more of a side shot which I think looks better.

And finally a shot as she walks back away from the lake.

This flying insect was on her knee and it was supposedly harmless but later she found a bump in the area (coincidence?). This was shot as close as I could get with my Sigma 17-50 at 50mm and then cropped a good bit in Lr.

Here's a side shot of the bugger.

I wanted to get a shot of the eyes. I was shooting at f4.0 but I haven't done much macro work so I forget how shallow the depth of field gets when zoomed in and close to the subject. You can see clearly how the focus is on its back instead of the eyes.

A final shot of little fish eating dead skin off a foot.


As usual, check the photos on Flickr here.