Tag Archives: Travel Photography

Before the Cruise

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We went on a cruise after New Years.  Before the cruise, I took a day to go out in Galveston. My original intent was to visit some places looking for birds, but that didn’t work well, as there were few birds around.  I drove down to the harbor knowing there were always pelicans at the marina.  When I got there, I saw The Elissa had her sails up.  It appeared that there was some function on board. The Carnival Triumph was also there, and the two of them juxtaposed made for an interesting study.

From Sail to Steamand

Sailing Old and New

Afterwards, I went back to looking for birds. but that didn’t last too long.  As I was driving down Harborside, I noticed a marina I had never seen before by UTMB. It is apparently a place where the commercial fishing boats dock, and normally, they are out fishing, but on this day they were all docked.

The Fishing Fleet 1

St. Charles Trolley Car

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I said one of my goals was to get a good picture of a New Orleans Trolley Car.  Here it is.

St. Charles Trolley

I am really happy with the way it came out.  While on the train coming home, I was watching a video and there was a small commercial for Topaz Impressions software plugin. It transforms images to make them look like impressionist paintings.  It turns out there are two similar packages, and I downloaded both and played with them. Here is what I got.

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It creates an interesting image, but it is almost insulting to real impressionist artists. To actually create impressionist art takes a great deal of skill and work. So, I am somewhat torn about this/

 

New Orleans 2

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I had to attend the LMCA meeting in New Orleans. This time Debbie came with me and we took the train.  That was a great experience.  It is so much better than flying or driving, although it does take a little longer. Because the train only runs each way three times a week, we had to go a day early, but that was great because it gave me a whole day to take pictures.  I had two goals – a good trolley picture, and a picture of Preservation Hall. I got those an a couple more.

Preservation Hall

Dr. Zombie's House of Voodoo 1

Cafe' Du Monde 1

I am going to discuss the Trolley pic in another post.

Dickens on The Strand 2014

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As always, we went to Dickens on The Strand. It has been interesting watching things change.  Although there were no major changes this year, there were a few things that have changed some.  There has been an increase in Steampunk related costumes (although how they relate to Victorian England I am not quite sure) and a decrease in Pirate related costumes. Here are a couple pics of the two

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We joined the Galveston Historic Foundation.  That allowed us access to view the parades from a balcony on The Strand.  So, the pics of the parade were a little different this year.

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Lone Star Rally 2014

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We went to Galveston last weekend for the Lone Star Rally.  We went to a new area along Seawall first and spent quite a bit of time there.  They have moved one of the stages there and that is the location for the custom bike sown. As in the past, there is a serious obsession with skulls.

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It tried to sprinkle a little, and the result was a pretty good rainbow.

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We then went downtown.  By the time we got there, the crowds were overwhelming, but we walked around.  I could not get as many shots of people as I have gotten in past years.   We were there late enough that the Triumph was leaving, and I got a nice shot of it.

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And a nice shot of Mechanic St. with the sun going down.

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Chicago

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When I was in High School, we hosted a foreign exchange student from Germany for a year.  Over the years, he kept in touch with us.  He has recently retired and wanted to come back and visit again.  So last weekend, I went to Chicago were we all visited.  Chicago was beautiful (as odd as that may seem).  The trees were spectacular.

Fall Colors

On Saturday, we went into the city. This was a fountain in the courtyard of the Chicago Art Institute.

Art Institute Fountain

We went to Grant Park. This is a shot of Buckingham Fountain.

Buckingham Fountain

One of the newest attractions is “The Bean” in Millennium Park.  This is a highly polished chrome sculpture shaped like a bean.  Everything reflects off its surface.  Here is a picture of “The Bean.”

The Bean

We went on a fantastic boat tour on the Chicago River where we could see all the various Chicago Architecture.  Towards the end of the tour, we went out to the mouth of the river and turned around.  Looking back, you can see the who skyline, and it was really quite impressive.

Chicago Skyline

Double Helix

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The Heart of Texas Professional Photographer’s Guild holds monthly competitions.  For August, the theme for one of the competitions was “Around in Circles.” Bryant Stanton is a local artist who works in metal and glass.  He was commissioned to do a chandelier and a sculpture for the new Science Building at the Community College.  His sculpture was in interpretation of the Double Helix.  I decided to work that up as my entry for the competition.  This was my final product, and it won the competition.

Double Helix

Canada Cruise

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We took another cruise last week.  This one left from Montreal and went to Quebec City, Charlottetown, P.E.I., Halifax, N.S., Bar Harbor, ME, and Boston MA. This is a lighthouse in the harbor outside of Bar Harbor.

Bar Harbor Lighthouse

There were several really interesting places, but while we were in Halifax we went to “Peggy’s Cove.”  I had never heard of it, but it turns out to be a place where many photographers have made some really good images.  Peggy’s Cove is a small fishing village with probably not more than 20 houses.  We were told the lighthouse there is the most photographed lighthouse in the world. When we got there, a piper was standing in full Scottish regalia.  The picture I took had dozens of other people in it, but I managed to remove them in photoshop.

The lone piper stands in front of the Peggy's Cove Lighthouse.