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

Vacation part 1 - Louisiana

My nephew was playing in the southwest regional Pony league championship in Louisiana. I was excited to shoot some photos but things didn't turn out exactly as any of us had hoped. The tournament was a bust. My nephews team was outplayed and the weather was uncooperative to say the least. Nevertheless, we had fun and I did get some photos. Here is the story.

On the first day in Lafayette, my nephew was supposed to play two games but they only played one. I arrived after the game they played so I met them at the hotel afterward where I saw my mom's husband in his Speedo. He tried to hide but I was too quick on the shutter. Though that might not be a good thing in this instance.

The second day was all waiting. We were supposed to play two or three games but we got postponed and left pending so we couldn't even drive to New Orleans like we wanted. I snapped this photo of my niece.

We finally got the call that the game would be played at 8pm but it was raining by the time we arrived at the field. We were walking to the car to get the chairs before the game finally started and found this crawfish in the pathway. I mean it's Louisiana but there was no water other than rain puddles nearby.

The game finally got underway at 10pm. They were going to play the loser bracket through the night because they postponed the games so much. This was the first picture I got to shoot once we setup. My nephew on third just before being brought home. I didn't have my settings dialed yet.

This is the starting pitcher. We made friends with his mom throughout the weekend and I tried to get a few shots for her. It wasn't his best outing apparently but the game was still in range when they took him out. 4-2.

The opposing pitcher was pitching well. 

On my nephews next at bat, I went to the visitors side to get some shots head on. He struck out but it was a decent at bat.

After my nephews strike out, I thought to get some crowd shots. It was really dark so I switched to the Sigma 17-50mm f2.8. I was able to get a few shots that I liked.

My niece was enjoying the game...video game.

My nephew was up to bat again so I turned my focus back to the game. I changed back to my Sigma 50-200mm f4-5.6. My nephew got a surprise bunt and was able to get a sneaky base hit. Unfortunately, as you can note in the background, the score was out of reach. With the exception of this and a few other hustle plays, the kids were not into the game and didn't want to win.

After the tournament, we drove through New Orleans on the way back home. We parked in the French Quarter and walked to what turned out to be the Mississippi River. I got this photo of the group checking out the river.

Walking through the Riverside Marketplace, we found this giant crawfish.

There was a nice fountain in the shade so we hung out a bit there. I took this quick photo of my mom and her husband.

Not quite what I was expecting as live music entertainment in New Orleans but at least it was something. We didn't stay long because it was so hot and we had a long drive home.

Holly trying on some masks. I like how sharp this photo turned out.

On a brief stop at a gas station before reaching our hotel in Alabama for the night, my mom's husband wandered off and found these mushrooms. I tried getting a little creative with the photo.

Just beyond the mushrooms, there was a nice view down the hill and I tried to get a portrait of my niece and nephew but it was near impossible. This was the best I could manage.

Okay, this is just scary.

But not as scary as this. We shared a room to save some money and my mom and her hubby fell asleep massaging each others feet.

That was it for part one of my vacation. As previously mentioned, everything may not have gone as expected but we had fun and got to see a part of our country we hadn't seen before. My sister drove back home to south Florida with my mom before my mom drove back to north Florida for part two of our vacation which I'll post on a different post.

As always, check out the full sets on Flickr

LA Trip

LA Pony League Championships

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