inspired photography with just enough perspective
The other day I took the ferry to North Vancouver. Along the way the Canadian coast guard were taking their fast hover craft out for a spin. The size of it is impressive, and even more so when it flys by. I was lucky enough to have my camera handy and was able to grab a few shots as they passed on the starboard side. If I had to guess, I’d say they we’re having a little fun, at least it looked that way.
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On the first day of my stay at this hotel I was sitting in the lobby and noticed the whole staff walk across the lobby and through a door into what appeared another room. It seemed apparent they were heading into a staff meeting. As I sat there I saw several people walk in and out of the meeting. From the amount of people I guessed it was an important meeting. Curiosity got the best of me and as I headed to the elevator I took a quick peak inside. In fact it was a stairwell which the afternoon shift was using to get to their assigned floors. I may not be the sharpest tack in the drawer, but at least I’m easily amused. This is the stairwell at the Casa Monica hotel in St. Augustine, Florida.
Follow link to purchase a limited edition print of this photo.
This particular shot was taken at night, and as normally the case with these I press the button and the camera starts about its work which can take a minute or two. I’ll usually just daydream or look the other way and wait for the clicking to stop. Right after I pressed the button on this I heard a woman yell and I immediately thought I was doing something wrong, perhaps taking pictures of someone’s private Cherry Blossoms? I had no idea. It turns out there was a man walking a dog and the dog was, well, answering the call of nature on this grass in front of the lady’s house and she was yelling at the man. The dog was oblivious, the man was embarrassed, and the lady continued to yell. So while all this was going on I was stuck there waiting for my camera to finish this HDR exposure. Let’s just say it was a long sixty seconds after which I quickly picked up my camera and tripod and headed off. (Note to self: always carry poop bags when walking my own dogs).
Sunsets are complicated, you never know what you’re going to get and of course no two are ever the same. On this day I resolved to learn about sunsets by staying in one place before, during and after the sunset to see what range of colors I might see. This is a composition of that study and after nearly forty five minutes in the same place taking dozens of photos, I can honestly say I’m not sure what I learned. Nevertheless, it was good fun and easy on my legs.
North Vancouver city hall and civic center are designed with a minimalist theme that evokes the modern designs of someplace in Scandinavia. To get here I crossed the Vancouver Harbour in a ferry and trekked up the hill for about a kilometer or so. Turning around I had a panoramic view of Vancouver across the bay and jagged rocky peaks at my back, it’s hard to imagine a more scenic location in a cosmopolitain setting. These are my impressions of the architecture at the North Vancouver city hall.
I almost ruined our mini-vacation by booking a hotel room about 90 miles away from our destination. It was a good thing I checked out the drive using the hotel address on Google maps the day before we left. When reality sunk in I begged and pleaded my way into the last hotel room at our original destination. Not knowing the town I didn’t know what to expect, however this is the first thing we saw when we approached the check-in desk. I came back to take this photo early the next day when the lobby was empty. This is the lobby of the Casa Monica in St. Augustine, Florida.
This is what happens when you focus the lens in the wrong direction. Actually, at the base of this building is a colorful sculpture that I was determined to capture, but instead focused up as I was captivated by this building. (Hey, I’m from a small town.) My mind wanders from time to time, and sometimes I just gotta go with it. You know, that whole right brain, left brain thing…
In Florida where I live it seems that a lot of small banks have been purchased by big Canadian banks. They’ll put up a new sign and logo which I then recognize as Canadian. Other than the new logo, the buildings are fairly nondescript as many local banks tend to be. However, when I walked by the same bank on a busy street in Vancouver, well, there’s something to look at. In any case, here’s to the architecture of Canadian banks…, in Canada.
It was with these words that our guide (an upperclassman two weeks away from graduation) introduced us to the dining hall at Flagler College, a four year liberal arts school with the distinction of having some of the most impressive architecture in Florida. The college was built as the Ponce de Leon hotel for the well to do back in the gilded era. Imagine eating your tacos before class surrounded by priceless Tiffany widows and fourteen carrot gold chandeliers. From the looks on some of the faces at lunch when we dropped in, they couldn’t have cared less.
In the last few days the Cherry Blossoms in Vancouver have been in full riot mode. It’s really the most amazing thing to see, not just the Cherry Blossoms but the residents of Vancouver looking at the Cherry Blossoms. Silly me, I thought I could just go out and take a few photographs, but as it turns out it seemed that I was only one of about a half million people doing the same thing. There are surely millions of photos of the Cherry Blossoms taken in the last three days. I pointed the camera up in order to get the blossoms without the people taking pictures of the blossoms and in this small way I claimed these Cherry Blossoms as my own, …that is until the next ten people took the same shot.
