This guy was sitting in a three-piece suit on a hot day, seemingly oblivious to everything around him. I don’t know if he was posing or just practicing the art of Zen pipe smoking.
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A cool character on a hot Barcelona day
Nevertheless, he seemed content to ignore anyone who stopped to look. It was his clothing more than the pipe that struck me. It was hot and humid, he appeared way over-dressed.
There are loads of street performers up and down La Rambla, which made me think he was posing, yet he wasn’t collecting money. Now that I think of it, he probably works at one of the boutique hotels and was just taking a smoke break. Mystery solved.
This scene is typical among the towns of Spain. In particular, this is in Lloret de Mar along the Catalonian coast.
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A night scene in Catalonia
These types of street scenes are a favorite of mine because they convey a nightlife ambiance. I take photos like this by using a high ISO, (in this case, 2000), and a low f-stop, (in this case, 2.8). That combination allows picture taking as though it was daylight. Granted, I do post-processing to get the look I’m after – painterly is a word that describes this type of treatment.
We stayed in Lloret de Mar on our first day of vacation. It’s a little over an hour from Barcelona airport and is an excellent way to decompress from an all-night flight. And, because the body clock was on North American time, it was easy to stay up late and get these scenes, despite the lack of sleep.
The big banks in Canada have done quite well. I know that because I see them everywhere in the United States.
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A Bank of Montreal building in Vancouver, BC
This image is from downtown Vancouver, BC. It’s another one of the photos that I’ve reprocessed. Below is the first image from about six years ago. Boy, I miss that Nikon 14-24mm lens. I think the Sony version is next on my list.
Here is another version I posted about six years ago.
The distortion of the monochrome image is very close to how it appeared in-camera. In the color image, I corrected the tilt in Photoshop so that it is less warped. I’m not aiming for realism, rather the architecture and the visual elements like reflections. The sense of confusion is what I’m going for here if that makes any sense.
The Platypod is a mini holder for the camera that allows you to get these low angles. If nothing else that provides a different perspective.
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The crew washes the deck on the Symphony of the Seas
The crew of our ship would wash the decks with hoses each morning. Because I have a habit of waking up before dawn, I’d see them and then use the Platypod to take photos like this. I guess we can call these types of shots low angle studies.
There are a lot of things to take pictures of on a ship, but after a while, I was wracking my brain for something new. Once I discovered this little trick, I made a ton of these studies. Eventually, it got old, and so the next time I go on a cruise, I’ll be looking for something else to keep me interested.
On a typical evening at Bayfront Park in Sarasota, people are walking along a scenic path or merely sitting on a bench. Given the view, can’t say that I blame them.
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Bayfront Park in Sarasota
Sometimes I come here to take sunset photos; other times I prefer to take pictures of people watching the sunset. I’m not sure which I like more, it depends on my mood I suppose.
This is street photography, even though it’s in a park. The idea is to freeze a moment in time to preserve the essence of movement, place, and people. Street scenes are studies; they take something fluid and solidify to be examined in detail later. In scenes like this, I see things that were not apparent at the time. I think there is value in that, like maybe an appreciation for the multitude and beauty of things unnoticed.
In one sense, the scene of children on the beach is timeless, it could have been taken a hundred years ago. However, the landscape might have changed quite a bit.
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Lands End in San Francisco
Mechanically speaking, beaches are the act of erosion. The beach here probably looked quite different a hundred years ago. Because changes happen slowly, we don’t notice much of it. But take a picture of anything year after year, and we begin to see changes.
With technology, and from this point forward, we are recording the transformation of our landscapes accurately. Assuming we’re around in a couple thousand years, we should have a high-resolution time-lapse recording of all the changes. That should be pretty awesome to watch because it will show the changes that span a human lifetime in just a few seconds. Then, maybe, we will have an appreciation for just how dynamic the changes on our planet really are.
This is a section of the Riverwalk in Bradenton. I’m not sure why people wake up before dawn on the weekend and come here. Nevertheless, there we were.
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Predawn along the river in Bradenton
Come to think of it, there are always people here, at any time of day. It’s just one of those places people like to hang out. I’m surprised there aren’t more restaurants here.
Often, I operate with a sleep deficit. I should stay in bed on the weekend to catch up a little. But it’s also the perfect time to get out and take these kinds of photos. I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when I die.
Crossing the North Atlantic in a straight line, each morning you could watch the sunrise from the stern of the ship. Without this constant, there is little else for orientation.
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Watching the sunrise from the stern of the ship
Admittedly, getting up early on vacation to watch the sunrise sounds insane. But crossing the ocean on a ship leaves plenty of time to nap throughout the day. Trust me; sleep is not a problem.
Likewise, in the evening you could see the sunset from the bow, but, at that time it seems you’re always busy getting ready for one thing or another. So early mornings and late evenings are the best time to take pictures on a cruise ship. And that, my fellow travelers, is your cruise ship tip of the day.
It might be an understatement to say it was raining cats and dogs in Malaga. But that’s of little consequence when you traveled over four thousand miles to get here.
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It was raining cats and dogs in Malaga Spain.
I was determined to go out, come hell or high water. The universe obliged and gave me high water. I wore jeans, a light rain shell and got utterly soaked. The bus pass in my pocket was unreadable and plastered flat against my iPhone. When I showed it to the driver, she seemed more worried about my phone than the pass. Thankfully, iPhones are water resistant these days.
Speaking of which, I’ve read a lot about how the Sony a7RM3 is “water resistant,” so I decided to put it to the test. Imagine standing under a sprinkler. A little moisture got onto the lens mount, and the camera started giving me error warnings; however the camera and lens continued to operate, and I didn’t lose any shots. The camera got soaking wet. When I got back to the ship, I let it dry for a few hours, and it was perfectly fine. I suspect a tighter lens fit of a pro-grade GM lens would have eliminated that issue, but I was using the consumer grade 85mm f1.8, which I love as a lightweight travel lens.
All in all, I had a blast and, it was a good test of equipment and perhaps, my own craziness.
