tourist

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So this ends the week long look back at my adventures with my friend, Sue. If you haven’t been following along, she has been one of my best friends for forever and is moving to Austin, Texas this week. I’m grateful she asked me to take the long drive down to Texas with her so we can spend a little more time together but also I get to check out Austin since I’ve never really been to Texas before.

It’s crazy because looking back at our first cross country road trip, Spain, Maine, and now this image from St John, I’ve realized we’ve done so much together. And this doesn’t even scratch the surface. We’ve been on plenty of girls trips and have spent so much time just adventuring around the Washington DC metro area. I’ll miss her lots but I also know it won’t be for too long before I see her again.

This image is of St John Virgin Island. It’s funny because this was our first ever vacation together and probably one of my favorites. I mean how can it not be? I’m all about that island life. LOL. I remember the exact moment I took this too. We were actually staying on St Thomas, took a ferry to St John and then a bus took us to the local beaches from there. Fortunately the bus stopped at some beautiful places along the way for us to take pictures. I leaned over Sue to take this image but I’m pretty sure that she’s used to me doing stuff like that by now. Not much longer after I took this pic, we were down on that beach laying out 🙂 Sounds perfect right about now.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/640th sec at ISO 80 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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I remember exactly how this moment happened. My friend Sue and I spent our first morning in Oranjestad walking around the city to explore. We’re both earlier risers so we were doing it to kill time until the rest of our friends woke up so we could all go to the beach together.

Walking around the capital city made me realize just how peaceful, colorful and safe Aruba really is. We were walking around so early in the morning that none of the stores had opened and we looked like the only tourist around. No one bothered us or even said a word. I loved how there were so many locals hanging around just sitting on the benches, soaking in the sun. The only place that was open was The Pastechi House which had some amazingly fresh Pastechis. And when I say fresh, I mean they grew the spinach behind the store!

So after a quick breakfest, Sue and I continued to wonder. I had my 70-200mm lens on most of the time while I was shooting the colorful buildings when I saw this green one across the street from us. I was really drawn to it because I noticed how there were little plants growing out of the roof. I don’t think it was supposed to do that but I thought it made for an interesting play on color. I started photographing it when Sue told me there was someone over there waiting for me to finish taking pictures. I brought my camera down and waved my hand in the universal sign of “Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t see you, you may pass.” LOL. But as I was giving him the hand signal I thought about how great it would be to include him in this image. So here he is rushing by so I could continue taking pictures. But I really like how everything lined up. My favorite is the reflection in the car window. It’s so subtle but I think it really adds the image.

After he passed he continued to walk slowly on his way 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/1000th of a second at ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm lens.

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I love New York. My friends ask me why I go so much, but there’s something about the city where you can be so anonymous and free to be who are that I love so much. Every turn is something new and exciting to see and you can never be bored. There’s a million and one things to do in the city and even more to eat. Which is probably reason #2 why I love going. The food is the bommmmmmb.

Over the weekend, Andrew and I took a short trip to the city. It was cold but so awesome to see all the christmas decorations and lights. We put our name down for dinner at an Italian restaurant and had an hour to kill so we figured we’d walk to Rockafeller Center to check out the Christmas Tree. You know that pre-dinner walk so you can fit more food into your belly? Anyways… Holy cow going on a Saturday night is not a good idea. It was so crowded, you could barely move. So once we made our way out of the crowd we somehow found ourselves on this closed off street in front of the Radio City Music Hall. I have no idea how I was able to get no people in this shot but I did. If you look at either side of the sidewalks you can see some people walking by but it really doesn’t depict just how many people were actually there. I don’t know how to express just how many people were there and how amazed I am for not getting any of them in this image. LOL. *pats self on back*

My camera settings for this image F4.0 at 1/13th of a second at ISO 1250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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On the same day that I was looking down at times square, I was also looking up. I took this image about 30 minutes before that other one from the rooftop bar and I was actually on solid ground for this one. HAHA.

I’ve always wanted an image like this from times square. The buildings are just so massive all around you that I knew there was a way. For some reason, I’ve found it really difficult to capture in the past. I guess all I needed were just some dark cloudy skies and birds flying above me all at the right moment. Patiences is obviously key in photography. But I really like this image because it just feels like a big hug from the buildings. Everyone all at once, “awwwww”.

Without my 16-35mm wide angle lens, I would not have been able to capture all of it. But now that I’m looking at the image again, I wish I would have gotten lower to capture it. If I was kneeling down on the ground, I think I would have been able to capture much more of the buildings on the edges and maybe would have been able to fill in some of the spaces in between? Who knows. Either way, I’m happy with the way this one turned out. There was a fair amount of lens correcting that went into this. I also like how the cloudy skies give the buildings a mood of darkness. Usually when you visit times square, all you see are the lights. It’s like a totally different view.

Which makes me think, if I didn’t tell you that this was times square, would you have been able to guess the location?

My camera settings for this image are F/8 at 1/60th of a second ISO 400.

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I took so many pictures on this road trip. There are so many beautiful sights in this country. It’s a little difficult to figure out where to really begin. So, here’s one of the major highlights that happened at the very end of our trip when we arrived in San Diego, California. Before leaving on our road trip, we had a couple of activities in mind for San Diego. That all went out the window as soon as we arrived. We were so tired from the travels that our main objective was to just ‘chill’. No plans, nothing to do but relax and enjoy the beach town. Our first stop on the only full day that we were there was to a farmers market to pick up some breakfast. The farmers markets change locations everyday so luckily we were there for the one in La Jolla. The food is always so good at these farmers markets since they’re so fresh. I loved it. Green juice was callin’ my name.

Once we were full, we walked over to La Jolla Cove in hopes to just sit on the beach and lay out. That too went out the window once we saw the seals and sea lions hanging out on the rocks. There must of be at least 20 of them! Daddy sea lions, Mama sea lions, and the cutest of them all- BABY SEA LIONS!!!! OMG we were freaking out. I’d never seen so many of them at one time.  What started out as a casual walk around the cove ended up being 3 hours with these animals. I loved every minute of it. It was so fun to just watch them sleep, fight, play, and walk around. I’m not sure who squealed more, the sea lions or me.

Stay classy, San Diego.

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You wouldn’t be able to tell from this image, but there were tons of people out. All these school field trips, buses of tourists, and just people who wanted to see the sights at the Tidal Basin. So it was difficult for me to find my own little corner to shoot, but I did it! The secret is to figure out where all these people were coming in and exiting from. Its usually the same area, so I just walked on the opposite side of the memorial and BOOM. Clicky-click city.

This was during sunset but the weather had been calling for on and off showers all day. Music to my ears! So I went out, not really expecting much but the clouds were so dramatic that it was so easy and fun to shoot. I love how the steps of the Jefferson Memorial create a leading line to the Washington Monument. Also the tree on the right creates the perfect compliment for framing to the columns. But my absolute favorite part of the image is the distorted reflection of the Monument on the steps. So cool and interesting to look at. Who knew the marble was THAT reflective.

My camera settings on this image were f/5.6 at 10 seconds. I used my ND filter to slow down the exposure which is really showcased in the movement of the clouds. Good thing it didn’t rain for the rest of the night. I was having a ball with this sky. Also shooting at a long exposure can really blur out some of the people in the image. I think I’ll try for a slightly shorter exposure next time and experiment with the people. Kinda similar to this image I took in New York City at Grand Central Terminal a couple of weeks ago. Yea… that might be kind of interesting.