Santo Domingo - Park Bench Nap

On January 11th, 2008, we took a day trip from Punta Cana to the capital city of the Dominican Republic - Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo is a vibrant city with a population of approximately 3 million people. The main tourist attraction is the colonial city and it is believed that it also the site of Christopher Columbus's tomb.

Once we were finished the main part of our tour we were given about an hour to explore the area and shop. While we were walking down the main shopping street we came upon this man asleep on a park bench and I couldn't resist the photo opportunity.

While the original is in color, I converted this image to B&W in photoshop as I thought it captured the old world feel of the Colonial city and made for a more dramatic image of this man asleep on the bench.

Lens: Tamron 18-200mm handheld at 102mm

f/5.6 at 1/20th of a second

ISO 100

Punta Cana Photos - Gift Shop Boys

So now that I've been back from Punta Cana for a few weeks and my tan has all but faded, I decided it was time to start processing my photos from the trip and talk a little about each one here.

For today's photo I chose this one of two boys hanging out at one of the many gift shops that we stopped at on our various tours. On this particular day we were returning from a great day of Scuba Diving on Catalina Island. It was around 5:30 in the evening and we stopped at a roadside gift shop to shop, visit the bathroom and grab snack. As we came out of the store, my wife noticed these two boys leaning up against the front window.

Now seeing kids hanging outside the tourist stops isn't unusual but what struck me most about these boys was that the one on the right was wearing a t-shirt that said "Life begins at Hooters" I thought it was quite amusing that here we were in the Dominican Republic, and here was this boy of around 10 years of age wearing a Hooters t-shirt. Ah, the great spread of capitalism and American "Culture".

Lens: Tamron 18-200mm handheld at 67mm

f/10 at 1/50th of a second

ISO 100

Video Mash Up from Northern California Trip

This is a little mash up of some of the photos from our trip to Northern California. I used a great little service called Animoto to create this video. You can upload your photos from a variety of online photo sharing services such as Flickr and Photobucket, select your music and then Animoto goes to work producing a custom video. Once you've created your video, you can embed it on your website or post it to a variety of blogs and social networks such as Facebook, etc. Visit www.animoto.com for more information.

Inside Alcatraz

Sarah and I just got back from a trip to San Francisco and Northern California. While walking through Alcatraz I managed to get this great shot looking at the cell blocks through a hole in the visitation area. I only wish I could have taken this photo while the prison was empty although the addition of some people in the scene does add some interest.

Camera settings were as follows:
Canon Rebel XT
Tamron 18-200 XTi Lens

Focal Length: 18mm a f/3.5

ISO: 200