Jim Larson Photography

I promised a few underwater shots to end out the trip report, so here they are. Nothing really special here, but just shooting in a new environment is kind of interesting. Boy, do I ever have a lot to learn about shooting underwater.

The camera used was an Olympus 1030SW which is a very small digital camera that can withstand the water pressure down to 30 feet. I only had it down to 3 feet or so, as we were just snorkeling.

All of the photos and the video were shot at Princess Cays in the Bahamas. See you all during our next adventure. Where that is… who knows.

Click here to watch a short underwater video

Today was a day to play in the sun. The ship anchored off the shores of Princess Cays in the Bahamas. From there, all that wanted to come ashore were ferried in via the ship’s tenders. They were busy all day long running people back and forth.

The colors in the Caribbean water are fantastically beautiful. The water is crystal clear and the white sands make the water turn a very nice turquoise. The sky was fairly clear today which lead to some great photo opportunities. The first one shown at the right was a good overview of what could be seen today.

I like to look around a lot while I am out shooting. The second shot was what I saw when I looked down at the sand just after a wave took away most of some footprints. I like the contrast between the fresh footprint and the ones that were just washed away. It is interesting how the wave washed away everything around the footprint more than the footprint itself. My guess is that the sand was more compressed under the footprint, making it harder to wash away.

The last photo shows the ship at anchor being framed by some palm trees. The sun is directly behind one of the trees giving an interesting effect.

Well, our vacation is nearing its end. We are steaming back to Fort Lauderdale tonight and will be disembarking the ship at 7:30 in the morning.

I will be doing one more post that will show some of the underwater shots I took while snorkeling. They will probably not show up until late Sunday.

Thanks for sticking around and watching our adventure unfold.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Turkey was on the menu here, along with all the other daily foods, such as crab, lobster, steak, chicken, et cetera.

Today was a day at sea as we head towards the last island on our voyage. Since there was no island time today, I got up early and walked the ship looking for interesting patterns, some pretty abstract and some not. Every night, the decks are cleared off and the cleaning crew comes out and gets everything all spiffy for the following day. After this is done, they get the chairs and tables back in place so it is ready for their guests the following morning. The first photo shows all the lounge chairs lined up ready for the lounging vacationers.

This evening was also a great time to shoot the sunset. The clouds were pretty much gone from the sky, but there was a haze on the horizon giving the sky a very nice color.

I took several shots, but this particular one really stood out to me. When the sun just touched the horizon, you could see what appeared to be a reflection of part of the sun off the water, but it was not there 5 second earlier and was not there 5 seconds later. It was just one of those special gift shots that I get ever once in a while. The atmosphere does some very interesting things to the sun when it crosses the horizon due to the refraction of the bright light.

See you tomorrow from Princess Cays in the Bahamas.

Cozumel is a very nice place to visit. The people are very gracious and helpful to the visitors of their island. The ship came up along side the pier at about 8AM this morning, making it very easy for people to leave the ship at will for their various excursions.
Our main excursion for today was to see the Mayan ruins of San Gervasio. Our guide was very knowledgeable of the subject, being of Mayan descent herself. The first photo today was taken during a rain squall on the grounds of the Mayan ruins. I slowed the shutter speed down to 1/30 of a second to streak the raindrops falling from the sky.
After we returned from our excursion we toured part of the city that had been rebuilt after hurricane Wilma. It was very pretty and colorful as shown in the second photo. The colors were very vibrant every where we looked. We climbed some stairs and looked outside the wall of this part of the city and saw some of the devastation from the hurricane. What a mess it was, but what a nice job these people are doing in the restoration project.
We had a great Mexican lunch on the patio of one of the many restaurants on the island. The last photo shows a view of our ship (along with a second cruise ship) being framed by the palm tree and umbrella, capturing the beautiful Caribbean feel.
Tomorrow we will have a day on the water as we head for Princess Cays.

On day 4 of our Caribbean cruse we were able to put our feet on dry land. It was a very pleasant morning as we approached the anchorage on Grand Cayman. The ship was firmly anchored to the harbor bottom and the tenders were unloaded from the ship in order to take several thousand people to the shore. We were amazed at how efficient this process really is. So efficient in fact that after our first snorkeling excursion we went back to the ship to get cleaned up, then went back to the island to see some on-land sites.

As we got a few hundred yards from the ship (on our second trip), I took the first photo as seen at the right I added a circular polarizing filter to the front of the lens. This really helps bring out the deep blue color of the sky and contrasts it with the clouds.

Once on land we visited many shops, one of which sold these charming bamboo wind chimes as shown in the second photo. It’s fun to get in close to the subject so that there is no question as to what the subject is.

The last photo is a close-up of a pirate statue which is the sign for a (you guessed it), a pirate shop. They sold all kinds of pirate costumes and other booty.

The subject tomorrow will be from Cozumel, an island about 10 miles off of the main Mexican coast.

Well, so much for “jamm’n in the streets” of Jamaica.  The weather was still not being very cooperative this morning.  About 20 minutes prior to our arrival in Jamaica, the captain came on the intercom and said that due to the high winds (sustained 35 knots with gusts of over 50 knots) we were not going to be able to dock in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.  We were looking forward to spending some time there, but appreciated the captain’s experience and his duty for the safety of his cargo (us).  He said we approached close enough that he could see that even in the harbor things were still rock’n and roll’n.  We later found out that another ship yesterday and one after ours today also aborted the approach due to safety reasons.

The first photo today shows Jamaica in the distance with the left (port) end of the ship’s bridge in the upper corner.

With the change in plans, the people in charge of entertainment were scrambling to give everyone other opportunities for things to do.  We had plenty to do and were never bored.

The second photo shows an empty theater that is in the bow of the ship which takes up 2 decks.  We watched an incredible Broadway production in a now packed theater and the performance was awesome.

Tomorrow the plan is to anchor in a harbor in the Grand Caymans where we will put on our snorkels, masks and fins and look at things in a world all of their own.

Day 2 of our cruise was used as a travel day. It is a long way from Fort Lauderdale to Ocho Rios in Jamaica, roughly a little more than 700 miles. Since we would not be seeing land for a while, there were many ship activities that occupied our time. One that was very interesting was a demonstration of fruit carving. It was amazing to see how quickly the artists were able to complete their creation. Some of their results are shown in the first photo.

When there were no activities in the piazza, music was performed by some very talented musicians. One such musician was the lady pianist shown in the second photograph. The piazza area of the ship is very elegant with great acoustics for music.

The third photograph showed that it was not a very pleasant day as far as the weather was concerned. The day was pretty much overcast, but the unpleasantness was due to the very strong wind coming from about a 45 degree angle off the bow. How strong is strong? Well, how about gale force winds? Yes, the wind topped 50 knots many times throughout the day and was above 45 knots for the majority of the day. Wind that is 50 knots or above is considered gale force.

Winds this strong given a chance to blow across thousands of miles of the Atlantic ocean create some pretty impressive waves. My guess is that they were in the neighborhood of 8 to 10 feet in height. Kelli thought that they were more like 25 feet, but that may have been her stomach talking. With the ship traveling at 19 knots, every time it would hit one of these waves it would create some tremendous spray off the bow as it cut through the ocean. There were several times that the spray from the waves would be over our heads when we were standing on deck 6 of the ship.

The last photo is one that proves that I was on the vacation. I normally do not make it to that end of the camera very often, but my wife was kind enough to take this one. She even kept the horizon level which is very important when you are shooting the ocean.

See you all tomorrow as I share some photos from Ocho Rios as we go “jamm’n in the streets mon.”

Welcome aboard the Ruby Princess. Those were the words we heard as we started our Caribbean cruise vacation. Over the next week I plan on showing you some images as we journey through a part of the world much warmer than home this time of year.

We started our journey in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where we boarded the new cruise ship, the Ruby Princess. This is only her 3rd voyage and everything is still looking very nice. The Ruby Princess is 951 feet long and 118 feet wide. Our stateroom is on deck 15 which is way above the waterline.

The first shot today is looking back from the top deck, toward the very large movie screen. They present feature length movies and informational videos at various times throughout the day. We were still at the dock waiting for our 5PM departure.

The second shot is looking up the Florida coast, just as we left the harbor at Fort Lauderdale.

Stay tuned for some day 2 photos of our voyage.

Earlier this year, several of us from where I work were given the opportunity to spend a few days in Chicago.  One of the things we were able to do while there was to attend a Cubs game.  It was the first time I had ever attended a major league baseball game and I had a blast.  Of course I took my camera to get a few shots.

The lighting was interesting after the sun went down, as the field was quite bright, but the stands were very dark.  A situation like this would fool a light meter if I did not pay attention to what was happening.

To get the correct exposure I put the camera in manual mode and zoomed in on the field, adjusting the camera for the “field” exposure.  When I zoomed back out to compose the shot the light meter in the camera said I did not have enough light.  That was okay, as I knew what I wanted to see in the final image.

Next time you have high contract lighting situations, try a trick like this and see what you come up with.

Keep on shooting!

While visiting some dear friends of our a few months ago, I was able to capture some images of their cat. No flash was used, so it was pretty tolerant of my shooting.

I was near a large window with indirect and very soft light. This type of light is excellent for portraits.  I shot many images, some with the whole body, others up close like this one.

Try shooting a variety and see what you like the best.

The white fur caused my light meter to not register exactly what was there, causing the image to be slightly underexposed.  This was fixed in my editing program to make it just as bright as I remember it to be.

Keep on shooting!