Vacation part 2 - St Augustine

We arrived from Louisiana on Monday and we started looking into plans to Niagara Falls but passports and last minute prices were too high. My mom decided to come up to North Florida and stay in St Augustine for a few nights. We found a nice hotel called La Fiesta Ocean Inn.

The first night, we drove 10 minutes to the historic district to check it out.

We took some of the obligatory photos. At night without light, it was difficult to expose properly. I clearly didn't see the light correctly on this one since I'm shooting from the wrong side. In daylight, I often shoot with backlight but can't do it at night in such darkness.

I turned to the correct side here but unfortunately missed focus.

The columns of the Basilica or something. I was refreshed to see lots of light.

Walking down George St. 

I tried capturing some texture. I stretched the RAW file pretty far on this one.

I couldn't take this image as far because there was less light on the subjects.

The second night, we had dinner at Holly's house to meet her parents. Afterward we went to friendship fountain to see some of Jacksonville. When we arrived, we heard a large and loud congregation of frogs mating. Of course Holly was drawn to them..

She found these two going at it. I had her shine a flashlight while I shot this. The flashlight worked better since it was too dark to focus.

We let the frogs do their thing for a while and moved along to the fountain. Here's my mom and David.

I could never go downtown and not take a shot of the skyline.

The next day was our sightseeing day in St Augustine. We all slept in but got out there just in time for the mid-day sun. This shot almost looks HDR but it's just the awesomeness of RAW.

At the same location as above, I focused on Holly much closer to me.

At the end of George St, was this chrome Mercedes. Apparently it belongs to one of the art gallery owners.

Speaking of art galleries, here are mom and hubby enjoying some art.

It wasn't difficult to get photos of David taking photos.

While David was off taking photos of the Bridge of Lions, I saw Holly sitting at the base of this statue. I was at another angle but there was a big ugly truck behind her so we shifted and got one of my favorite images from the trip.

A little behind the scene feel to this one. 

Horse and carriage on the road. I cropped this one for two reasons. I wanted the horse to be the main focus and because I didn't get the full carriage so I felt the wide crop fit better.

We got a nice storm but it rolled through quickly. Unfortunately it left lingering dark clouds when we got to the Castillo San Marco. I like this portrait of my mom and David.

I handed my camera off to David to shoot me and Holly. I cropped it to get us off to the left side since we were originally composed in the middle of the frame. We look decent and in focus. The rare shot of us together. 

And they complain about me always taking pictures... :-)

I took this of Holly not knowing I'd like it so much later when I edited it. Sure it's not the best composed or posed shot and the background might even be argued that it's distracting but I like her expression.

I turned the camera to the other side where my mom was standing and got one of her. 

When I turn again, I see David popping his head up. Funny stuff.

Part two of the vacation continued where part one left off. This phase was slightly more relaxed being at the beach and not having much scheduled and although I wanted to and still want to see Niagara Falls at some point, I'm glad we did this. 

Total vacation time was 11 days, including the highly recommended post vacation, vacation at home. We drove over 1500 miles and had good time with family.

Check out full sets on Flickr: St Augustine Vacation

Miami Heat vs Chicago Bulls 4/14/2013

The Miami Heat second round playoff tickets went on sale yesterday. The first game is Monday so I won't be able to go even if I had some tickets magically appear. However, the event prompted me to share my experience from a few weeks ago when I went to a game.

We drove down to Miami Saturday morning and arrived in the early evening. We drove down to South Beach for dinner. We walked around and decided to eat at this place, which I don't know what it's called.

View from nameless eatery

The meals were good: 

After dinner we walked around and found a huge stage setup on the beach with music. It turned out there was a Gay Pride Parade the next day and this was the pregame. We had to check it out so we went in and got some pictures and a video. It was quite dark though so the results weren't great.

Gay Pride Event

We didn't stay long. We walked around for a while and I shot some photos. We found an artist selling really nice pieces made of palm.. leaves? Anyway, he had a dog that was pretty cool.

Dog

Mc Alpin Hotel

End Homelessness parking meter

On Sunday we drove down to the American Airlines Arena and walked over to Bayside for some breakfast/lunch. We had an expensive burger that wasn't all that good but it did the trick. We walked back to the AAArena and waited for my uncle who was meeting us there. When he arrived, we rushed in and were walking across the arena while the National Anthem was sung. We got to our seats just in time to watch the player introductions.

The game was fun. My uncle was shown on the big screen during one of the timeouts. Fortunately, I was recording the only video I shot all day on my phone at the time. Unfortunately, I got excited and didn't record the big screen.

Heat Game

I couldn't take my camera so I don't have any photos other than this one of the American Airlines Arena from the parking lot.