Category Archives: People

Architecture, Cultural, Travel

Casco Viejo – Day 2

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Day two began like any other, feeding birds (and ourselves) on the back deck and walking Aven to school. Upon returning home we retooled, dropped the car and Ed off at the Smithsonian offices and jumped into a taxi that took us to Casco Viejo, the original Panama City.

And again, these were all taken with my Lumix GX-8 and 14-150 mm lens.

The city is full of history, old, colonial buildings, a 500 year old church and many vendors, shops, cafes and construction. There is a big push to revitalize the area and the efforts are creating beautiful, colorful colonial architecture just WAITING to be photographed!

I was intrigued with the concept of something as old as the Casco Viejo neighborhood being mixed with something as new as the high rises of Panama City.

 

This is a door to an old dungeon that has been renovated. This whole area is now up-to-date shops.

I love the texture and color of this wall, and the lone bench.

Architecture itself interests me. I love the design, patterns and texture of buildings.

And COLOR!! I LOVE color!! In this image I was caught by the bright red fencing against the light blue of the building and the grey skies.

Doors and windows are another favorite. The detail of colonial buildings is always so fascinating to me.

And here, the juxtaposition of old next to new or at least revitalized.

We walked by this building in the midst of reconstruction and noticed a dude up against the wall. We entered the building to find our workers working and laughing at the fact that we found their “friend” so funny.

The inside of that building was quite colorful. It looks abandoned to me but just to the left were 4-5 construction workers doing their jobs.

More color. To the left is a building under construction while already revitalized buildings with great color are next to it. The corrugated metal that looks like a balcony is used to prevent construction materials from landing on folks below on the sidewalks.

Markets are one of my favorite places to shoot while traveling. They provide such great color and patterns.

License plates were a popular tourist item for sale.

This gentleman was entertaining folks form his bench near the market.

Molas, the official handicraft from Panama, are created with several pieces of cloth by the Kuna (Guna) People. These are the same indigenous people whose islands we visit later in the week.

Hats were also for sale…everywhere.

Awesome English translation.

We stopped at this brewery for a cold one. La Rana Dorada…The Golden Frog, named after an endangered amphibian.

We took a walk on this amazing trail that follows the highway on a bridge out into Panama Bay and around Casco Viejo. It’s like a green way with paths for biking, walking, running, plenty of park benches and greenery.

…and wildlife!

I love the simplicity of this image as well as the randomness of needing to put a palm tree in a pot on the sidewalk outside of a two-tone building.

  This is a cart of a guy we passed on the way to the path over the water. Not sure  he was selling or just collecting.

Kids are kids are kids, no matter the country. These boys, I’m assuming brothers, are holding the door, not letting the girls out. And there’s big brother, complete with ear buds, not paying the slightest attention.

Urban art also catches my eye. These paintings were hanging on the side of a building.

This mask was outside a restaurant.

I also love transportation. These kids were playing in the street alongside moving cars!!

These cars were parked, I’m assuming for rent. Aren’t they CUTE?!?

And bicycles. I love bikes. Heck, who am I kidding, I love shooting EVERYTHING!

We ended the day with a drink and appetizers at this rooftop bar. This is a mural of a Guna woman.

Stay tuned! Next week you’ll get the rescue story of Papaya the parrot!

 

Architecture, People, Travel

Panama Canal-Day 1

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I’ve tossed around several ideas of how to go about sharing the trip to Panama and what I’ve come up with is this…you will just have to relive it with me on a day to day basis. I will begin with our first day. The tourist highlight? the Panama Canal. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Our day began in this amazing home, ours is on the right.  We were awakened by the seven-year-old in the house as he was excited that we would be walking him to school.

After breakfast I grabbed my Lumix GX-8 with 28-150 mm lens and off we went.  The houses were all very similar, white, on stilts and very airy. What made them different were the colors of their trim and the garage doors.

Our friend Dorea, my wife Ellen and I had left before the boy. It motivates him more when we head out first. It didn’t take long, though, to hear footsteps pounding the pavement behind me. I glanced back and quickly switched my shutter speed to 60 knowing I wanted to try to grab a panning shot of him and the neighbor dog. He borrows the dog sometimes.

I caught this sweet shot of the three of them heading off to school. I love the challenge of capturing moments that are not posed, but life, as it happens.

Aven caught the “school bus” at the corner. Really, a friend was riding by taking his own kids to school and let him hop on. I was really glad I had brought my camera along. These shots are precious.

This is one of the outside walls of his school. Yes, there are crocodiles in the area. But they’re little.

In hind sight it’s interesting that this is another mural on the school wall. I have a baby parrot rescue story to share with you later.

Once we dropped the boy off at school Dorea took us on a stroll around the small, scientific community of Gamboa. The walk didn’t take long and what was cool about it was that it’s is right along the canal where large ships pass by, larger than any building in town.

Ellen, Dorea and Ruby, the dog, walking along a palm lined avenue heading home after our walk around town.

The tropics is certainly a great place to see unique plants. And with those plants come interesting seed pods. No idea what this fluffy seed is but it was COOL!

Waiting for the bus to take us to the Mira Flores Locks on the canal I spied this pedestrian crossing sign. Check out the booty!

We were quite proud of ourselves when we made it from Gamboa to the bus stop for the locks. We exited our ride and became a little concerned when we saw this sign. We had to cross a bridge to get where we were going and it was suggested that we stop on that bridge and see if we could find any reptiles. Sadly, we didn’t see one.

This is the sign on the side of some sort of large barrel or container as we headed to the viewing area and museum of the Mira Flores Locks.

The floors on the left side of the image are viewing platforms for the locks below. We spent about three hours going through the museum and waiting for a boat or ship to come through but no luck.

The locks were quiet but in this image it is interesting to see the different levels of water.

So we had a beer and, WHA-LA!! Boats came!!

We were told the locks had  “rush hours” from  9-11 a.m. and 3-5 p.m.  Almost right on cue there was sudden activity down below. On the viewing stands people were gathering as an announcement came over the loud speaker letting people know they could see the locks in action. The boats are on the far side, two catamarans side by side, two smaller sailboats side by side and a barge in the back being pushed by a tug boat.

This is a closer view of the barge. You can see the tugboat behind it and to the sides are four little “cars” on tracks that the barge is tied to. These cars escort the larger boats through the locks.

As we were leaving a large cruise ship showed up. We didn’t stay to watch it but it was cool seeing it makes its way down the canal.

It was fun to shoot such a unique place and well worth the time to hang out and learn about it’s history. It’s fascinating. We were also turned on to an extremely good book about the canal…The Silver People. It’s a young adult book written in verse but very moving, if you’re interested.

 

Architecture, Cultural, Travel

Sights of Santa Fe

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Santa Fe is a great town to visit and if you go…BRING YOUR CAMERA! You never know what interesting things you might find.

These first few images were taken on Canyon Road, a street loaded with great old stucco homes and many artisan shops. This great stone wall had this beautiful blue gate in it. I turned the wall black and white for effect.

What’s a trip to Santa Fe without  pictures of ristras?  I like the spacing between them.

Inside one of the stores were these great cowboy boots. I love patterns, whether they are found in nature or man made, I love them.

This was a great building in the neighborhood of our VRBO place. The stucco makes for soft lines but I especially like the layers of the building.

Again, more patterns. A stack of blankets in a local market was perfect. These are the kind of images that make great notecards.

Someone once asked if I could make this into a 3’x6′ image for their living room above their couch. At the time I had no idea how to do that but I was really flattered. I love the shadows and the lines. It’s a very simple image and again, great for notecards.

This one was shot on the square. It was, literally, just a basket of crayons I walked by that they had out for kids to color with. I love the all the bright colors.

And last, but not least, I asked this man if he minded if I shot his jewelry. He said sure. It belonged to his father. The turquoise necklace is so big and heavy looking. I love the layers of decor.

Celebrations, Cultural, People, Uncategorized

The Women’s March~Flagstaff

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I just want to begin this post stating that this is NOT a political statement. I am hoping to convey how much fun it is to shoot an event, be it a demonstration, protest, festival or whatever. This just happened to be a demonstration.

It was January 20th, a Saturday and the day after Trump’s inauguration. My wife and I were meeting friends downtown (I live in Flagstaff, AZ for those who don’t know) for coffee and tea
before heading to our City Hall to join, what we later learned, was the largest post inauguration demonstration…ever.

As we approached the intersection of Route 66 and Humphrey’s, and witnessed an impressive amount of people, I could feel my adrenaline begin to pump. Pumping partly because of the undeniable energy in the crowd and partly because I was looking at a thing of visual beauty just WAITING for me to capture it. I bid farewell to my cohorts and told them “I’m going shooting, I’ll catch up with you later.”

I disappeared into the crowd with my Lumix GX8 and a 14-150 (28-300 equivalent) lens. There was 21 inches of snow on the ground and more falling from the clouds but that seemed to deter no one. I wound my way through the crowd, running into friends and acquaintances and eventually finding myself atop a snow mound. From there I could see the whole crowd and it was big.

Whether you are a trump supporter or not I hope you take away from these images the idea that people are fun to shoot. They are passionate, creative, colorful and make for great subjects. Event shooting is something I really enjoy. Being turned loose in a location to ramble, meet, greet, search for images and shoot, is my idea of a fun time.

The local Samba drum corp came out and added some great rythms.

       

Do it Yourself, Family, Outdoors, Winter

Neighborhood Luge Run

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In January Flagstaff got hammered with three winter storms in a row. Schools shut down for three days (Friday, Monday and Tuesday) which shows the severity…it was a five day storm. Piled up snow, high winds and icy roads caused the city
of Flagstaff to shut down early on Monday. By the afternoon the Mall was closing as well as banks and restaurants. NAU and Coconino Community College closed early as well.

So now we’re home, with our 11 year old granddaughter and a lot of snow. She has a friend down the street whose dad is quite industrious. She disappeared for a while as my wife and I pulled out the snow blower and shovels. After the work was done we went to check it out and here is
what we found: a tunnel, a cave, a walk way so as not to destroy the run and, the crowning jewel, a sled run that began above the cave and ran down into the roadside ditch to the neighbors house. It. Was. Awesome.
After making a run myself I ran back to the house to grab, you guessed it, MY CAMERA!! I came back to document the impressive feat. Below are some images from the day with the settings listed below. It was dark, cloudy and beginning to get foggy. On my camera (the Lumix GX8) continuous shooting is at my fingertips. That’s how I followed the sledders as they bolted down the hill.

I set the camera to a high ISO (800) as it was late in the afternoon pretty cloudy and dark out, even with the snow. I knew I wanted to stop the action of the sledders so I needed a high shutter speed as well. This I set at 250. It was fun shooting the action until I lost the light. What a great time the kids had.

Family, Outdoors, Travel

Jail Trail, Cottonwood

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Here are a few images from a fun little biking trail in Cottonwood. We took our 11-year -old granddaughter and she did just fine. These were taken in the middle of January, on Martin Luther King weekend.

Standing by the Verde River in high water.

At the end of Main Street in Old Town Cottonwood is a parking lot with a rustic old jail, now a tea house, on the corner. From that parking lot you have access to the Jail Trail. It begins as a wide, urban path and is quite a pleasant ride. It quickly adjoins the Verde River and follows it to Riverfront Park, about two miles away. There were a few rocky stretches but for the most part it was an easy ride.

From Riverfront Park we were able to access Dead Horse State Park, just over the bridge, and ride on their roads and trails as well. Dead

Horse allows access to much more challenging trails but for us, on this trip, the easier Jail Trail was perfect.

Heading out from the parking lot in Old Town Cottonwood.

The pictures were taken with my Canon S120, a little point and shoot that shoots RAW. I love this camera for it’s compact size and ease of use. I can carry it in my pocket and pull it out in a moment’s notice. For me it’s quicker to use than a phone camera. The most important thing is just to have a camera with you…and USE it!

These images will wind up in our granddaughter’s end of the year photo journal, which we give her on her birthday in April. It’s really fun to watch her go through it and reminisce about her adventures with her Yayas (grandmothers).

Riding under the bridge that we would eventually ride on to Dead Horse State Park.
Here you can see the river in the distance and the debris from high water flow wrapped around the tree trunks.
A nice mellow, smooth stretch of the trail.
This is a trail in Dead Horse State Park. We had to turn around because the river was too high and covered the trail just beyond this point.

 

Family, Outdoors, Winter

Snow Day!

I am a teacher. I live in Flagstaff, AZ and we average 100 inches of snow a year. Snow days are one of those nice little “teacher perks” you get here in the North Land, and it gives me an excuse to shoot. Below are some images of a snow day we had last January with information on how I shot them.

Photographing them can be tricky, especially if it is still snowing. I suggest waiting for it to stop. You then have to decide what it is you want to capture because there are many choices. You could shoot the “snow chores” (shoveling, snow blowing, car clearing, etc) or you could shoot snow play (building snowmen, snow forts or sled ramps). There’s always the activities (snow shoeing, sledding, cross country skiing, downhill skiing or boarding) or just  neighborhood activity.

On this day I went with the neighborhood activity. The following images were captured with my Canon S120 point and shoot. I threw it in my pocket  to have it nearby and pulled it out as I wandered the neighborhood. The ISO was set at 400 with an f/stop between 2.8-4.0. These settings allowed for ample light given the changing light conditions with the bright white of the snow and on and off sun. The shutter speed set itself in the 2000 range which meant I didn’t have to worry about blurry photos due to movement.

Once the driveway was cleared our granddaughter went down the street to build a snow fort with a neighbor boy.  When they were finished I was invited down to take a look. They had quite the space  inside.

This is just a small “around the house” shoot I did on a snow day from school. If the big cameras seem to much then grab a small one and have it in your pocket, cell phones are great for that these days, and shoot! There are SO many wonderful images to capture around you. This article is to show that you don’t have to go very far away to find them and that you don’t even need a big fancy camera.