private island

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Always looking for new framing ideas, this one was taken right after I finished eating breakfast on the Renaissance Aruba Resort and Casino’s private island. Luckily my camera goes everywhere I go while traveling. But the private island is great. It’s just a quick boat ride from our hotel and you could literally spend the whole day here. Theres a great restaurant where they serve you wayyy too much bread and on the other side of the island you can play and interact with flamingos.

Almost immediately after we got off the boat onto the private island, it started to downpour rain. We ran to shelter and figured we would wait it out by eating breakfest. Thank goodness for Caribbean weather because the rain did not last long at all. By the time we ordered our food, the rain had basically stopped. I walked closer to the edge of the restaurant to capture this view. You would never have known that it was raining just by looking at it.

And that hammock looks so inviting.

My girlfriends and I ended up spending all morning here taking a million and one pictures. Sad to see another summer go but summer 2018 was a BLAST. I’m so glad I was able to spend some time out in the sun and on the beach. I feel like it’s been a while since I had taken such a relaxing vacation where most of the day was spent not doing anything at all. So if you’re looking for a great place to visit with great weather, I’d highly recommend Aruba.

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/5000th of a second and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens handheld. Shhhh… I didn’t even bring a tripod on this trip 🙂 That’s just how relaxing it was.

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Before I left to Aruba, I mentioned the fact that I was really looking forward to seeing the flamingos on Flamingo Beach. And I’m so glad we had the opportunity to see them. To be honest, they were a little smaller than I thought they would be and there wasn’t as many but that didn’t stop me from following them around everywhere to capture their every move. LOL.

They were so fun to watch. Their little habits like stomping on the ground to get food and even biting themselves even while walking was so interesting to see. I think the funniest part was when they would get in the outdoor shower and wait for someone to pull the chain down so they can get fresh water. These flamingos are definietly not wild. There was even a little gum ball machine that had flamingo food that you could pay and feed them, but I was not trying to do that. I think that would be getting a little too close to the birds. My friend was trying to pose for a picture with one and she probably got a little too close. The flamingo actually bit her! She laughed about it while she was backing away and said that it felt like a little pinch but nuh-uh. No way would you ever find me that close to a bird. Even if they’re pretty and pink. Birds are birds. 

You can see in the background there are a few rain clouds. It did rain for a bit while we were in Aruba. It went away in about 20 minutes but it gave us a nice break from the constant sun. I think it worked out well though because I love the tones that it created in this image. 

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/6400th of a second ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens. PS you’re going to be seeing a lot of the 70-200mm in my Aruba images. It had way too much fun with that lens.