I snapped a picture of some houses on Paradise Island. These are not just any houses, but I’m no name-dropper, so I’ll leave it at that.
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The tip of Paradise Island in Nassau
It’s always fun to look at these fancy houses. But honestly, if I lived in one and tour boats motored by every day, it might lose some of its allure. Nevertheless, it’s not a problem I expect to have soon.
Paradise Island in Nassau is where The Atlantis resort is. Except for a few houses, it’s mostly resorts, timeshares, and a golf course. It’s a fun place to visit, and having a home here is just for that, to visit once in a while.
I was on a tour boat when I snapped this row of houses in Nassau. It was my first time to the Bahamas and it pretty much lived up to expectations. At least as far as what I saw on the tour, which included some amazing waterfront homes.
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Houses in Nassau that we saw while on a tour of the island
Our tour took us to a beach where we sat under umbrellas and watched the waves. I know that sounds great, and it was, but I’m from Florida and I get that at home. Since then I decided to visit places unlike where I live.
Nonetheless, what I saw is still quite nice. We took a last minute weekend cruise and this was the destination. The Bahamas are very close to Florida yet a different country all together. In that respect it’s something fun to explore without needing an airline ticket.
After the tour we walked around town and took a taxi to a famous fish house for some proper Caribbean food. And that is something we don’t get much of at home.
I took this with the new lens that I purchased from Sony. It’s a 85mm and I shot it wide open at f1.8. I’ve been missing this focal length since switching from Nikon several years ago. I could have purchased one earlier but for one reason or another never got around to it. I’m glad I waited because from what I can tell this new version performs identical to lenses three times it’s price. The first time I used it was on a trip to the Bahamas. As we were walking through the shops and alleyways I took a few shots to see what it could do.
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The New Lens – taken with the Sony FE 85mm 1.8
Yesterday I wrote about how street photograph allows us to study a scene later. As for myself, I miss a lot of little details when I’m in the scene. I think we all do that, its natural. If three people walk into a place, each will see something different, like the three blind men and an elephant story. Maybe it’s wired into our DNA that we scan for predators which prevents us from seeing everything clearly.
This is where photography can play a role. It gives us a second chance to go back and see what was really going on. When I compare a photo to what I thought was going on it’s usually different to one degree or another.
Each type of lens allows us to record the same scene from a different perspective. Stand in one spot and aim the camera using a telephoto lens. Then aim it at the same spot with a wide-angle lens. Each capture will create a very different image.
Since each focal length creates a different perspective, choosing one allow us to go back later and see what we missed from that perspective. And of course there are infinite possibilities.
I think I’ve analyzed the hell out of that for now, but hey, that’s just how my brain works sometimes. Maybe I could just sum up the whole subject by saying that I’m digging the world at 85mm.
Last week we stopped in the Bahamas on a weekend cruise from Miami. The harbor master tower is the first thing you see at dock. I think it was built before the ships got so big. I took this from a lower deck but you could look down on it from the upper decks and our ship was one of the smaller in port that day.
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Harbour Master Tower in Nassau Bahamas
This continues on a theme of minimalism. Actually I’ve been on this theme for a while but I don’t always publish the images. I do little studies, with lampposts, trees and buildings, shooting up to simplify the composition. Simplification is the gateway to minimalism; it also accentuates unique qualities of a thing or place.
This image creates an illusion of height, yet the building is no more than a few stories high and there are rooftops just below the frame. But because of how this is composed we imagine it much higher. Minimalism evokes imagination, which in-turn transcends realism.
Since I’m always on the lookout for these I’ll likely put together a book at some point. I get ideas from looking at works of other photographers. One whom I follow on Instagram is Sebastian Weiss. Check him out at the link here https://www.instagram.com/le_blanc/
This kind of view is way of looking at the world that is focused on the isolation of something unique. I think we see beauty when we notice uniqueness. It’s all around and all we need to do is narrow our view until we recognize it; at least that my current theory.
