The Back Lot: March, Week 5

"Wood and Webs"
Canon Powershot A4000
f/3
1/60
ISO 250
1/18/2013, 4:25 pm
Provo, Utah

The Back Lot: March, Week 4

Distressed inn sign
Canon Powershot A4000
f/3
1/60
ISO100
1/18/13, 4:31 pm
Provo, UT

The Back Lot: March, Weeks 1, 2, and 3

So I'm playing catch up.  How in the world did it get to be the 3rd Sunday in March?!  I had a hard time deciding what my theme for the month would be, thus the lack of posts the past 2 weeks.  But after looking through my pictures, I decided on one.  What I have to say about one of the pictures, I have to say about them all.  These are all from a single 30 minute outing one day after work.  And I'd like to add that it was a very cold day, probably only in the teens.  I work at a film studio, and like any good film studio, we have a back lot.  The back lot is a portion of the property that has permanent buildings that can be cleaned up and dressed up whenever needed.  There are so many great little details on all of the buildings.  They all have a lot of character, so it's fun to go look back there, and even more fun to take pictures.  I can't wait until it's warm and the trees aren't so dead looking.  The place has a whole different feel in the spring and summer.

detail from a barn
Canon Powershot A4000
f/3
1/60
ISO400
1/15/13, 4:26 pm
Provo, Utah

"Hanging On"
Canon Powershot A4000
f/3.5
1/100
ISO100
1/15/13, 4:16 pm
Provo, Utah

fancy doorknob detail

Canon Powershot A4000
f/3
1/60
ISO160
1/15/13, 4:32 pm
Provo, Utah

The Tropics: February, Week 4

It's the last week of February already!  I can't believe it.  So, here is one last picture from my cruise.  Port 4 was on Grand Cayman.  It was pretty spectacular.  I didn't take a lot of picture that I loved, but this one will suffice for this week.

"Beachfront Property"
Canon SX40 HS
f/4
1/1250
ISO100
1/25/13
George Town, Grand Cayman, BWI

I took this picture from the patio of the restaurant where I ate that afternoon.  The restaurant is named Rackam's, and I'm still drooling over the fish and chips that I ate there.  I would go back just to eat that again.  Anyhow, there is some lucky person that owns the house just out of frame on the right, and they have a pretty good view if you ask me.

Confession: This picture represents a first for me.  It's the first time that I had to remove unwanted elements using Photoshop.  I generally avoid doing that, but the beer ads just didn't do much for this picture.  For a first time, I don't think it looks too bad.

The Tropics: February, Week 3

The next stop on the cruise was Roatan, an island of the coast of Honduras.  It rained for about 95% of the day.  We were lucky enough to be on the ziplines during the only non-rainy minutes of the day.  After arriving back at Mahogany Bay, I whipped out the big camera and started taking pictures.  One thing I love about the tropics is the amazing variety of flowers that I obviously don't get to see at home.  So here's one of the shots I captured on that rainy day on Roatan.

"Raindrops on Ginger"
Canon SX40 HS
f/4
1/320
ISO400
1/24/2013
Mahogany Bay, Roatan, Honduras

Get it? Raindrops on ginger?  Like "Raindrops on roses"?  Yep, the flowers were definitely one of my favorite things about Roatan.  The rain, eh, I could do without, although it really did make for some cool pictures of the flowers.

I did a little research and found that this flower is Alpinia Zerumbet, more commonly known as the shell ginger.  I overheard a lady saying that it is a type of ginger, otherwise I never would have figured it out.  I think it's much prettier before it blooms, but that's just me.  What do you think?

Some thoughts about photography

So here's a thought that I want to share.  I'm not really using my blog now as a means to share my thoughts, but this one is particularly pertinent to my little adventure in photography.  I follow Pictureline on that one social media site that we all know about, and from time to time, they share guest posts from their regular website.  I don't read all of them, just the ones that catch my attention.  I saw one today that did.  You can read the whole article here, but here below is the part that struck me.

 I remembered a conversation I had with my grandmother. We were talking about her and my grandfather’s love for photography and how I was just starting to really get interested in it as well. We were walking on the beach one winter morning near her house in Door County, WI. It was a chilly morning, but the air was so still it didn’t feel very cold. While talking about nature and life, she told me that once she started taking pictures, she looked at everything she experienced in the world differently. She took time to notice the light and beauty of things more than she had before and that she really enjoyed that feeling.

I feel exactly the same as this guy's grandmother!  Since I've started really taking a lot of pictures, I notice the world around me a lot more.  I notice the clouds and lighting and landscapes and people and little details of things.  I notice angles of buildings and shadows cast by street lights and reflections of the sky in little puddles on the sidewalk.  I look for the character in the streets I'm driving on, thinking how I could attempt to capture it if I only had my camera on me.  I want to take my camera everywhere, just to capture the little things that strike me throughout the day.

I just now decided that my foray into photography can be likened to Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice.  At the very end, he and Elizabeth are talking, and she asks him when he first started to love her.  This is what he says.

"I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation.  It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I HAD begun."

That's how I feel about photography.  I don't know when I started to love it or when it started to change the way I view the world around me.  I was in the middle before I realized that it was changing me.  That's all I really wanted to say, I guess.  I know that at least one person feels the same way, even if it's some random grandma in Wisconsin, and it's nice to know I'm not alone.

The Tropics: February, Week 2

This week's photos come to you from Costa Maya.  I've been there twice now, and it has poured rain both times.  I don't have the best impression of the place because of that, but that wasn't going to stop me from taking pictures!  In fact, the rain kinda helped keep random people out of my pics, which always makes me happy.  Everyone was ducking for cover from the rain while I was out snapping away to my heart's content.

Untitled

Canon SX40 HS

f/4.5

1/640

ISO200

1/23/13

Costa Maya, Mexico

This one is hands-down my favorite picture from Costa Maya.  I got a lot of really good ones, but I just love how this lady is just peeking out from between these bright pink columns.  I think she might have been a shop  owner looking out for customers.  As I mentioned, it was really rainy that day, otherwise, there would have been a lot more people milling about, and I never would have captured this shot.  I love how all of the colors in these ports were so vibrant!  It just makes the places seem so exotic and foreign to anything that I get to see here at home.  Here at home, you would never see this color of pink as anything other than an accent color.  Or the shoes of about half of the girls getting married these days (P.S. that's not original any more, hon).  But that is neither here nor there.  The point is that I love the bright colors adorning the exteriors of all of the shops in these ports.

"On Duty"

Canon SX40 HS

f/4.5

1/25

ISO100

1/23/13

Costa Maya, Mexico

And for good measure, here's a bonus picture.  I saw this soldier standing guard with his dog and just loved the look of them.  Not knowing how he would react to me taking pictures of him, I had to wait until he was turned away from me, although I liked the look of his profile or a straight-on shot better.  But I didn't want to be thrown into Mexican army prison or something horrible like that on vacation, so I had to settle for this.  I'm kinda surprised at how sharp this picture turned out, considering what a slow shutter speed I had.  Sometimes I amaze even myself.  Again, you can see here what bright paint they use to paint everything down there.  It makes even the rainiest of days seem a little less dreary.