One of the things my family did when we visited Hawaii recently was to visit Pearl Harbor. One of the exhibits that is now located at Pearl Harbor is the USS Missouri. The image above was taken during a tour of the USS Missouri. Most of the lower decks of the ship are still off limits, but you can go through most of the upper levels. This picture shows a phone from the bridge area of the ship. I have a thing for old technology and I just liked the look of the thing.

This picture was taken in Hawaii on the island of Oahu at a place called the Pali Lookout. The site overlooks the 985 foot cliffs of the Koolau Mountain Range and has a special place in Hawaiian history. It was here in 1795 that King Kamehameha and his warriors defeated the Oahu armies by sending them over cliffs to claim victor and ultimately unite the Hawaiian Islands. The site does provide an incredible view off to the north on Oahu’s windward side. The lookout sits in a gap in the volcanic mountains and channels the trade winds which blow across the islands, turning the area into something akin to a wind tunnel. The wind was so strong the day I was there that I was afraid that the wind would rip the glasses off of my face and send them into the valley below.

My family and I are taking a vacation in Hawaii and we arranged to make a day trip to the island of Hawaii (we’re staying on Oahu) so we could visit Volcano National Park and see some other sites. One of the places we visited was the black sand beach at Punalu`u`. We arrived late in the afternoon so the lighting was nice, but still very bright. The combination of black sand, volcanic rock and bright sky made for difficult exposures. Fortunately things weren’t too bad when I was able to shoot away from the sun. Punalu`u is a fantastic location and trying to shoot it made me appreciate the challenges of creating a great landscape image. Trying to come up with the right combination of exposure, proper f-stop, etc. is something I’ve never really been good at. With this shot I tried to capture the look of the area with it’s dark rock, interesting vegetation and wonderful surf.

Last Christmas, my family and I took a Caribbean cruise which included a stop on St. Martaan. The island has a new port area designed to hold the numerous cruise ships which visit the island. I believe when we visited there must have been 5 or 6 ships in port. From the port area you can take a water taxi in to the main town. When you get off of the taxi you are immediately confronted with all sorts of things to buy. I took this picture of a small shop because I really liked the look of the candy advertisements agains the bright yellow siding of the building. There is no ‘before’ picture this time because this image came straight out of the camera.

It’s spring break time and unfortunately I’ll be stuck in Michigan with our wonderful early spring weather. However, I have my old photographs to warm me up including this one taken on a spring break a couple of years ago in North Myrtle Beach, S.C. Unlike yesterday’s image taken at the same location, today’s image is a bit more cheery.

Browsing through my Lightroom catalog this morning I came across this shot I took in North Myrtle Beach, SC in 2008. What caught my eye was the fog layer in this shot and I was suddenly inspired to work on this image. The thing I like most about this image is the way the new building is seen rising above the fog. The murky nature of the weather combined with the construction in the background made me think of a more industrial scene rather than a beach scene. As such, I processed the image to increase the murkiness.

Here’s something different, an image in color! I’ve had this post sitting in draft stage for some time and I finally decided to publish it. No reason for the delay, it just got ignored for some reason. The picture was taken while my family was on on vacation in Puerto Rico last year. It shows one of the two forts in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico known as ‘El Morro’ officially named ‘Fort San Felipe del Morro’ When I took the shot there was a boy sitting on the grass and I thought he added a bit of interest to the shot. Unfortunately I think he’s a bit too small to really have much impact on the picture, particularly in a smaller image.

This shot was taken in St. Thomas, USVI on a recent trip. One of the things I was hoping to find was some brightly color boat which would make for an interesting picture. Didn’t find any of those. Instead, what I got was this gritty looking thing. The light was pretty bright and flat but I decided to take the shot anyway just for fun. When I looked through the days shots I wasn’t thrilled with what I had taken, so I decided to work on images that I liked better. After making another pass through those shots I decided to see what could be done with this image. I liked the gritty texture of the boat, especially the way the paint is all chipped and faded. I thought it might be nice to try adding some additional texture to the image through some image overlays.

I took this shot as we walked through one of the alleyways. I liked the strong light on the sign and the shadow it cast on the wall. I also liked the way the sun brought out the texture of the wall. For some reason when I took the shot I decided to shoot it wide. I had a 28-300mm lens on my camera and this shot was taken at 40mm. When I was processing it, however, I decided that the wide shot didn’t really capture the intent that I had when I took it. I was drawn to the signage and the shadows and the wide angle shot didn’t work. In processing, I reworked the crop to focus more on the sign and its shadow.

The island of St. Maarten/St. Martin is an interesting place. Half the island is Dutch, half is French. While visiting there my wife and I took a bus tour around the island which started in Phillipsburg on the Dutch side, and travelled to Marigot, the capital of the French side, and back again. Travel between the two sides is seamless, no more complicated than traveling from one state to another in the US. This shot was taken in an open air market near the waterfront in the town of Marigot. The woman who was running the booth had a large collection of herbs and spices in these bags. It was getting later in the day and I think she was starting to pack up by taking the signs out of the bags which identified the contents. I managed to get this shot before she took these out.