San Salvador 2

The diving has been great so far. Lots of fish, reef sharks, coral, sponges, lobsters, and more. We've been lucky to get great, calm weather. A few days before we arrived it was too windy to dive. The temperature is warm but not insufferably hot. Shelley's dive gear showed up the next day so she only had to use rental gear for one morning. My only complaint is that the bugs are eating me alive and I look like I have the measles. Unfortunately I seem to have got much more sensitive to insect bites in the last few years. Oh well, a small price to pay.













View all 58 photos as a slideshow or overview

San Salvador 1

Our flights from Miami to Nassau to San Salvador went smoothly, other than Shelley's bag containing all her diving gear got bumped from our flight because the plane was too full.

We're staying at Riding Rock - a small dive oriented place. We lucked out and there are only two other guests this week. If we'd come last week there were 37 people here! Diving with a small group is a lot more pleasant.

The weather is pleasantly warm but not too hot. Riding Rock is simple but nice. And they have the essential wifi :-)



We're facing west so we get the sunsets.





I have a new underwater photography setup - a housing for the RX100 and a strobe (flash). The RX100 almost has too many settings for underwater. On the first dive I pressed the wrong button and ended up taking three duplicates of every shot. By the second and third dives I was getting a little better at it. I always hate spending too much time fiddling with the camera when I could be looking at everything, but I also love getting good photos.







See all 22 photos as a slideshow or as thumbnails

Miami

We spent two nights in Miami, partly to have a cushion in case we missed a train connection. We've never stayed in Miami before so we picked a hotel by location (close to the aquarium), size (small), and character (art theme). When we arrived at Hotel Urbano a painting class had taken over the restaurant. The hotel isn't really near anything, but it's a nice small hotel - we liked it.

We knew in advance that the Miami Seaquarium was more of a "theme park" but we still figured we'd check it out. We had a bit of a struggle figuring out how to catch the bus, but eventually managed it.

Not for the first time, I had fun taking photos of some of the birds and lizards that were unofficial residents. There were herons, ibis, and egrets hanging around scrounging.









See all 15 photos as a slideshow or overview

See also Shelley's blog post

Glimpses of Savannah

Between the train and the rain I haven't taken many photographs yet on this trip. So it was good to wander around Savannah and take a few. Our train was 3 1/2 hours late getting in but we weren't on a schedule so it was no big deal.

I like the historic part of Savannah with its many squares, old buildings and houses, and trees with their spanish moss. We arrived along with colder weather but it was still a lot better than up north and there were even a few flowers hanging on. My big camera was still packed so these were taken with the RX100.





We like to think of ourselves as expert travellers but we still mess up on occasion. We had been busy organizing what to do during our extra day in Savannah and had booked a rental car so we could explore the area. Then when we checked into the hotel they only had us booked for one night. I was in the middle of arranging a second night when we realized that our train was booked for the next day. So we cancelled the second night at the hotel and the rental car. And went back and checked the rest of our bookings. We're not sure how we both ended up thinking we had an extra day. At least we caught it before we missed a connection!



We stayed at The Planters Inn again, had lunch at Goose Feathers, coffee at Gallery Espresso, and supper at The Saphire Grill - all good choices if you find yourself in Savannah.

Next stop, Miami and then San Salvador island in the Bahamas for scuba diving.

See all 12 photos as a slideshow or overview

Montreal

We stopped for a couple of nights in Montreal to break up our journey, staying again at Auberge du Vieux Port. We went to the Biodome in the morning and then to Notre Dame in the afternoon. It was raining off and on so we didn't wander around as much as we might have, but it's still nice to be in the old port. Tomorrow we continue our journey, heading south on Amtrak to Schenectady, NY.





View all 14 photos as slideshow or overview

Toronto old & new

On our way to Montreal we had a brief stopover to change trains in Toronto. Walking back to the station from a nearby Starbucks, I was struck by the contrast between this old stone church amongst all the gleaming glass skyscrapers.

Another Winter Morning

More iPhone photos from walking to work. It felt bitterly cold this morning.  -15c will feel balmy after -30c, but after the summer is another story. Once more I was freezing the hand holding the iPhone, which made me a little nervous because it would be easy to drop it with numb fingers. As usual, it does a pretty good job for a phone.









I've seen the rabbits around and they are turning color to match the snow. But they haven't been sitting still long enough to be photographed.

Winter Wonderland

We're heading to the Bahamas in a few days to scuba dive and I was hoping we'd escape before the snow arrived. No such luck! All the trees and bushes were stacked with snow and I was the first one down the path along the river since the snow so I had to take a few photos. My iPhone was closer to the top of my pack than my camera so I figured I'd use it for a change.

No more lunch by the pond for a while!

The Ends of the Day

This time of year it's not hard to work from sun up to sun down.

Print of the Week

I like the contrast of the green leaves and the red ladybug. And the low side light highlighting the texture of the leaf and casting the ladybug's shadow.

This was from one of my first outings with the new RX100 at the community garden just near our house. There were lots of ladybugs around. Apparently they congregate in the fall as they look for spots to overwinter.

The RX100 doesn't focus quite as close as I'd like so this is cropped a fair bit, but it has plenty of resolution for that, even for a large print. The focus is slightly back from the eyes, where I'd like it, but pretty good for handheld automatic focus.

See also other Print of the Week posts

Print of the Week

I haven't printed many abstract images so I thought I'd give this one a try. As you may have gathered, I like water and reflections and color :-) This is from my Prince Rupert Harbour set.



I actually ended up hanging it upside down since I liked it better with the dark part at the bottom. What do you think?

These kinds of images remind me of my father. He took a trip out to BC one time (possibly for a photography workshop?) and came home with some lovely reflection photographs. He would have enjoyed being able to make large color prints so easily.

See also other Print of the Week posts

Print of the Week

14" x 20" on Exhibition Fiber

This is a split toned black and white conversion. The original image didn't have much color to begin with - a little blue in the sky, and a little warmer wood and early light. (The truth is, if the original image has much color I have a hard time giving it up!)

Here's the original untouched image (i.e. just default raw processing):

Considering I was shooting straight into the sun, the camera did a pretty good job on the exposure.

Here's the image after adjustments, but without the tint:

It's ok, but I liked the warmer feel of the original so I used the Split Toning in Lightroom and applied a similar tone to the highlights (leaving the shadows untinted).

As you can see I recovered some of the highlights, and lightened the shadows. I debated whether to make the far riverbank black, or to lighten it up even more. I decided to leave it dark but with a few details visible.

Although I've never obsessed over resolution, it's nice to have my "pocket" camera have enough resolution to comfortably make large prints like this.

As always, if anyone is interested in prints of any of my photos, let me know.

This is from my recent More Fall Colors set (not that the fall colors are visible in this one)

See also other Print of the Week posts

More Fall Colors

More photos of the fall colors, mostly taken walking to work. We've had lots of sunny days to enjoy the autumn. I find the colors amazing, but really hard to capture, so I keep trying :-)








The morning view from my home office window.

These were all taken with the RX100 on automatic. (Although I closed the aperture to F11 for the office view to enhance the starburst effect.) I find it a bit small and the controls fiddly, especially with gloves on cold mornings. But I'm quite happy with the results.

See all 13 photos as overview or slideshow.

Fall Colors

Some random photos from the last week or so, taken with the new RX100 on the way to and from work. I love the fall colors, but its hard to capture the true feeling of them.







See all 13 photos as an overview or a slideshow.

River Kayak and Geese

We got out Sunday for probably the last kayak of the summer. It was a beautiful sunny day and the fall colors were wonderful. There were lots of Canada geese around, congregating for their trip south. I love how there are special words for groups of different kinds of birds. Geese on the ground are a "gaggle", when in flight a "skein", "wedge", or "team", and when flying close together they are a "plump". As usual, Shelley was very patient as I dawdled along taking pictures. The current was fairly strong and when I'd stop to take photos I'd drift back downstream and have to paddle like crazy to catch up.

(click to view larger)








View a slideshow of 22 photos or an overview.

See also: Shelley's post

PS. I've widened my blog layout to allow for bigger inline photos. Let me know if you have any problems with it.