164: Sunset

Sunset from one of the forts in old San Juan

163: Cabo San Rojo

Cabo San Rojo lighthouse. I experimen- ted a bit in photoshop with this picture to give it a slightly darker feel and really try and bring out the textures in the ground and the clouds. Hope you like it!

162: Dancing!

At one of the old forts in Old San Juan, once a week they put a demon- stration of of their traditional dances and music. It's lots of fun, and the dancers are very exuberant, and have beautiful costumes. These are a few that I took that I liked. They have live muscians as well, which is very neat. It included a singer, a Spanish guitar, a smaller guitar (I forgot the name) and one section also had live drummers.

161: Old San Juan

These pictures are also from Old San Juan. They are taken outside the remains of the old wall that goes around the old city. In the top picture, the little turret-like thing is where the Spanish guards would keep watch for enemy ships, and would attack from there as well. They were tiny little things, as the men were much smaller back then. This is why eating your fruits and vegetables and getting enough calcium is important!

160: San Juan

First, a thanks to Alfresco for not only keeping up his excellent PAD, but for using the same numbering system I do so I know what number to use on my posts when I take a hiatus!

This is a picture from Old San Juan in Puerto Rico. This is ths site of the original pier where in the 16th century the Spanish officials used to diusembark from their ships and enter into the city.

Since I made this blog an upload a picture a day, you will be seeing lots of pictures from Puerto Rico, California, and a few from Baja California as well in the next week or two.


Bonus picture! This placed in the top ten (whoohoo!!!!!!) at DPChallenge in the Beatles Challenge. Completely unexpected, but absolutely thrilling, none the less!

150: My New Pet

So I am back home after a fabulous week in Puerto Rico, but I leave tomorrow again for a week and a half.

I've started processing the pictures, but there are a lot, and I'm also trying to catch upon some projects I started before I left.

We got in two dives off the southwest coast of the island. We rented all the equipment except for the shortie wetsuits and our masks. We completely lucked out. The first dive shop we went to was full and sent us to another shop. That shop was doing shallow dives, and recommened a different shop down the road. This shop was associated with a fancy resort right on the coast. So we called them and they said no problem, show up at 7.30am. We get there, and find out they were only expecting four people (my boyfriend and I inclusive). Only one of the other guys showed up, so there were only three of us on the dive boat! The one that was full had 13 divers (if they all showed up).

Some very nice stuff to see, with a couple of nurse sharks, some HUGE crabs, lots of fish, corals and sponges, and what I would love to have as my new pet. I'm holding a sea cucmber that the dive master said I could touch. If I recall correctly, some cucumbers have irritants on their skins. Anyways, for those who dive, you know they always say don't touch anything if you don't know what it is. However, since the dive master said I could, I did. He (it?) was nice and squishy, and slimy, too!

This picture was taken with a canon powershot A70 in an underwater casing by my boyfriend.

Now back on hiatus until June 9th or 19th

Hiatus

So I'm heading out of this city this weekend, and then I'm heading out of the country on Monday. When I get back, I turn around and head out of the country again. So, this blog is going on a hiatus until June 9 or 10 depending on when I can get through my pictures. If I can, I'll post pictures between my out of coutnry visits, but I can't make any guarantees as I'll also be doing mundane thigns like laundry

Cheers and enjoy the beginning of summer! Hope the weather improves while I'm gone...

139: SUN

So I came out of the basement and I looked out the window and I was practically blinded by the sun that mysteriously appeared after being hidden for well over a week. A truely crappy, snapshot picture of my neighbors terrace, but you can see light! Anyways, it's suppose to rain again tomorrow.

Blah. I thought May was the month for flowers, not showers

138: Liam II

I visited a friend of mine today, and we had a nice lunch and spent time talking and palying with her beautiful son, Liam. I've posted his picture before, so you may reocgnize him.

He's changed so much just since the last time I saw him. He's only about 27 months, and speaking full sentences and telling me what all the different cars in his train set carry (like coal)

This is pretty much straight out of the camera. It has been rainy and dreary for over a week now up here in Montreal. Yech

137: Challenge Outtake

Once

again

a

silly

long

post

in

case

you

accidently

stumbled

upon

this

and

are

voting

on

a

current

DPC

Challenge

136: Perspective

Detail from the churhc I was at this Saturday.

135: Untitled

I apologize for the terrible colour casting. I fiddled around with it and got fed up with trying to correct it.

Her expression cracks me up. She was passing around little tissues at the wedding I was at yesterday. I can't tell if this is determination or a pout.

Some PP and a run through neat image since it was a low light situation

134: Ewwww!

Wedding Dress: Some money
Church: More money
Suit: More money
Bouquets: Money

Kids going ewwwww on your wedding day: Priceless

I apologize for the crappy crop. I'm revamping my workflow, and doing the cropping at the end which means I often forget to do it and am to lazy to go back and fix it.

Click for a larger view!

133: Ominous

Well, not really ominous. It's another from my river study series that got a brutal pounding of post processing. It was a gllomy, overcast day, so the clouds were interesting looking. Still getting used to the heavy PP stuff, so this is close to what I wanted. Gotta practice!

Click for a larger view

132: The Road to Nirvana

More ladybugs. I had originally found four, so that's what you see here. Had bad backlighting as you can see, so I apologize for that. This was more an exercise in DOF and composition more than anything.

Yes, the wine was good as well :-)

131: Ladybugs Know Best

So while sweeping up in the country, I came across a bunch of ladybugs. Yes they were already dead, so I can honestly say no bugs were harmed in the making of this picture.

This is inspired by a few photos over at DPC that involved gluing dead bugs and taking fun photos and leaving everybody wondering how they got the bugs to cooperate like that.

Anyways, you can't tell, but two of the bugs are missing their heads. I found them like that! I swear!

The wine was really good, too. I nice Italian wine that my boyfriend has reviewed on his wine blog. Link is on the right.

Click the picture for a larger view

130: Toronto Skyline

Yah Blogger is working now! CN Tower in all it's glory, the Rogers centre where the LEafs play (I think) and Lake Ontario!

I'm heading out of town to dial up land for a few days. I'll be back on the weekend to update. The full Toronto gallery can be seen here if you feel inclined to check it out. They are pictures from the DPC GTG on MAy 6. Great to meet a bunch fellow photographers, joke around and take pictures.

129: Sail Away

Beautiful boat that was cruising through the harbor in Toronto.

I'm not nautically inclined, so I know nothing about what type of boat this is, but I thought it was neat

128: Wide Angle

So one of the fun things about these get togethers is seeing what other lens (or is it lenses) people have, and trying them out. This is my lens, but I had the opportunities and time to really try my wide angle fish eye out.

The interesting thing about my fish eye is that there is not that much distortion. This shot has very little distortion compared tos ome fish eyes shots I've seen. But it does make great 'from the bottom up' shots.

And just because I feel like it, another bottom up fisheye shot


I checked on a fellow PAD blog and noticed I was off by one on the numbering of the posts, so that is why there is a random gap in the numbering

126: En Route

I am not so hot at bird shots. I got one decent one in NY because they are accustomed to humans and fly away. Now I understand why everyone who shoots wildlife loves those (heavy) 500mm lens.

Not a greta shot, but I like the opposite way the wings are, and the shadows in the water.