Basic Photography Workshop

by Amanda on January 13, 2012

Beginner Photography and Camera Seminar Houston

Basic Photography Workshop Houston

Since meeting up with several girls at the Htown Blogger Hotties meetups, I’ve seen several people ask for help with their cameras, especially right after Christmas from all those lucky enough to have Santa bring them a dSLR.  I will state a big disclaimer that “I AM NOT A PRO!” and just a hobbyist who loves photography and is willing to help others get started.  I don’t take the best photos & don’t have all the answers, but I know enough to get most people successfully started using their fancy camera.

I will be getting together with several other Houston bloggers for a very casual photography workshop & seminar on Tuesday January 31st at 7PM.  I’ll cover the basics of photography (mechanics, exposure, reading a light meter, aperture, shutter speed), talk a little about equipment (bodies, lenses, filters, accessories), briefly cover some post-processing and editing (Lightroom, Photoshop, backing-up, sharing online).  I don’t intend this to be very detailed or in-depth, just an overview & a starter course.  I’ll have a few handouts, be sharing lots resources & examples, and give everybody time to play & learn with their camera.

Bring your cameras, dig out your manual/guide, write down your questions & get ready to learn!  I shot Nikon, so I am much more familiar with how to run a Nikon camera, but we should be able to figure out most issues on Canon’s or other brands.  I’d love to have a Canon expert come & present with me!

Email me for more details about the location or to join us at Click. The Good News

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: January meet-up for the Htown blogger hotties is coming soon.

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Rincon Puerto Rico

by Amanda on January 27, 2012

After touring the caves, we kept driving west and our destination was the beach town of Rincon.  Supposedly there is excellent diving and surfing on this part of the island, but we were there to do neither of those things.

First order of business was to get lunch+drinks, so we stopped at the first place we found that had waterside dining.  The surf must have been unusually calm that day as the waves were tiny & the dark clouds overhead threatened to chase us under cover during lunch.

After lunch, we donned our swimsuits & walked around the corner to a public beach.  The sand here was lovely & I always enjoy when there are trees adjacent to the shoreline to provide some shade.

We tossed down our towels & this was the last view I had before taking a quick nap.  I

Honestly, Rincon wasn’t exactly what I expected.  I know most of this was failure to plan & research on our part, and maybe we just missed the worthwhile things to see.  The beach was beautiful, but not really worth driving across the island in my opinion.

This was a very quiet area, lots of families, ideal (at least on this day) for snorkeling.  The water was a bit cold when you first took the plunge, but we quickly warmed up and I was having a blast chasing little fish all around.

The last two photos are just some of the randomness that we encountered on the many miles of roads we covered in Puerto Rico.  This was a full boy scout troop hiking down a main highway, loaded up with all their gear, accompanied by a chase vehicle.  Now, I think it’s great they are doing this, but middle of the road seems a bit dangerous for this activity.

There must be some type of community service day where everybody -repaints the roadways & curbs.  For at least 5 miles, we saw hundreds of people out painting curbs & concrete median barriers yellow and green.   The strange thing is that almost every single one of them was using a baby stroller to push around huge buckets of paint.  So totally random…

It’s not too late to sign up for the photography workshop next Tuesday!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: The ability to occasionally work from home is awesome.

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Festival de las Máscaras

by Amanda on January 26, 2012

The Festival de las Máscaras in Hatillo will go down as by far one of the most bizarre things we have ever seen.  Early on Tuesday morning, as we were headed out to explore the caves, we turned down the road and witnessed this commotion.  A large & VERY loud parade of people on decorated cars & many  more walking along side.  They had sirens & loud music, everybody wore the brightest clothing they could find any every shade of neon, and they were all carrying shaving cream to spray passing cars.

Each “float” had a theme- most based on some type of character or cartoon.  I didn’t want to be too obvious taking photos as they were already a bit drunk (at 9AM) and a little unruly.  Young people, old people, kids all running around & hanging on to these modified carts and Jeeps with loud engines & endless sirens wailing.

Now I was frantically googling on my iPhone trying to figure out what the heck was going on in this town.  They had a police escort & we were just happy to go along our merry way without getting sprayed or harassed by anybody.

It wasn’t until we were headed back that evening from Rincon that we got stuck on the highway in a HUGE traffic jam.  Apparently the main event was that evening & hundreds of these floats were all parading up and down the streets (over curbs, through medians) to get to the park where the party was happening.

We sat in traffic, trying to get through this intersection, surrounded by cops & partiers for almost 45 minutes that night.  I thought about getting out to look around but H warned me the lady in the car next to us had a can of spray & was eyeing me awfully mischievously.   I didn’t take any night photos, but every single car had a swirling flash strobe on it like the one above & they still had the sirens going full blast as they’d rev their engines.

Looking at some of the other photos I can find online, it looks like a really neat festival, but I was a little nervous being caught off guard in the middle of it.

The best I can figure is this is some type of 3 Kings celebration always held on the 28th & they really go for the Mardi Gras crossed with a Carnival party with elaborate costumes, parades, tons of drinking & general festivities.  The best explanation I could find is on this Flickr page, but I’d love to know more about the party- you can tell they spend all year preparing for it.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Staying home tonight after being out all week!

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Rio Camuy Cave Park

by Amanda on January 25, 2012

So using my favorite little reference book, the Eyewitness Top 10 Puerto Rico Guide, we decided we wanted to check out the Rio Camuy Caves on day since it is the largest in the western hemisphere.  It was generally on our way to the west coast, so it was the first stop on Wednesday morning.   We took a little tram car down, down, down for about 5 minutes to get to the entrance to the caves.

The caves are massive- there’s no way to do justice with my camera, even the wide angle, to the size and awesomeness of the caves.  Photographing in the dark also proved quite challenging.   The walkways are easily to navigate, but wearing sneakers is recommended.

We were given a headset at the start of the tour (English or Spanish options) that explained various facts about the cave at selected points on the tour.

We arrived  about an hour after they opened & still had to wait about an hour to go down, but the line got crazy long after we’d been waiting for a while.  It was a neat experience, but I certainly wouldn’t wait 2+ hours to do a 1 hour tour as there was traffic backed up at the ticket office, the parking lot, and off the main road.

Only a small portion of the cave is open to the public, but we walked from one (east?) entrance to the other end.  The Camuy River still runs below the caves & they can get flooded during heavy rains.

We spent most of our time in Clara Cave, checking out the incredible stalactite and stalagmite formations that have been created by the limestone over tens of thousands of years.

A very cool tour & we are glad we went- never been to anything like it before, but we were so happy we’d arrived early.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: There’s a really big storm headed towards Houston today & I love a great thunder and lightening show.

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Ponce Puerto Rico

by Amanda on January 24, 2012

On our 2nd full day in Puerto Rico, we set out to explore the island.  H read some great things about Ponce- both the town & the beach, so we set out on a mini-adventure to go to the South side of the island.

So  the island is only about 30 miles north-south, so we didn’t think it would be a big deal to drive to the South coast.  There’s a lovely toll road that cuts through the center, but it still ended up being about 60 total miles & took us about 2 hours each way since the roads cut through some very large & winding mountains. It was a beautiful drive, but more time than I really wanted to spend in the car.

The little town of Ponce is very quaint- the typical older town square, with fountains and a church, surrounded by trees and gorgeous old buildings.

We enjoyed getting out to stretch our legs after the car ride & loved seeing all the variety of colors & architecture.

The main attraction in Ponce, according to the guidebook, was this beautiful old Catholic church.  Noon services were going on while we were there, so we didn’t get to check out the inside. Yes, I realize how awful dirty my camera was on this trip- I don’t know how I am getting so much dust on the sensor or  lenses.

Literally backed up to the church was this red & black building.  I was confused about what could be so close to the church, but it turns out it was a fire museum- dedicated to a large fire in the town many years ago.  We walked up and down a large pedestrian mall area, checking out shops & looking for a place to grab lunch, but we couldn’t find any restaurants that looked good.

So we quickly headed out of town and went in search of the beach.  We were armed with maps, an iPhone & followed the signs to Ponce beach.  Unfortunately, we could never find it.  We ended up in the port & unless the beach was on the other side of the port, I have no idea….

Luckily, there was a resort Hilton right around the corner, so we decided to duck in there to hit up their bar for lunch & afternoon drinks before crashing on their beach.  I took very few photos of Ponce beach- mostly because I was ready for a nap after lunch & generally unimpressed after we’d driven all morning to get there.  It was very windy & soon our drinks were full of sand after our nap.  We walked up & down the beach just checking things out, but I feel like we must have been at the wrong “nice beach in Ponce”.

Don’t forget- the camera & photography workshop is 1 week from today!  Come join us!

Beginner Photography and Camera Seminar Houston

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I’m making all sorts of little changes around the blog & very excited about them!

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SS: Possible

January 23, 2012

Sunday Scribblings #303 PossibleThink big!  What is possible?

These last few months have really taught me that ANYTHING is possible.  I’ve been places and through things I never could have imagined in my wildest or worst dreams.  Looking … Read the rest

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