rvrPhotos

Japan, March 2009

rvrtravels — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 19:01:23 +0000

Spent two weeks in Japan in 2009…

Giant Buddha statue in Nara

Sunset in Nara

Torii

Sumo!

Final match of the day

Hiroshima Peace Memorial (aka A-Bomb Dome), one of the few buildings close to the epicenter of the atomic bomb to survive the blast.

Origami cranes have become a symbol of peace, particularly in Hiroshima.

It is believed that folding 1,000 paper cranes makes your wish come true.

A victim of the atomic bomb, Sadako Sasaki, attempted to fold 1,000 paper cranes before her death in 1955. Now, people from all over the world bring paper cranes to the her memorial in Hiroshima.

There's something about this one, seeing the A-Bomb Dome in the background, with lots of trees and people and life continuing on where there was once such intense destruction.

Going up the side of a mountain on Miyajima

Sun setting over the huge Torri on Miyajima. When the tide is out, you can walk right up to it; when the tide is in, it covers the bottom.

There's nothing really significant about this one. I just liked this tree.

Dinosaur BBQ & Ditch Plains, June 2011

rvrtravels — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 03:57:06 +0000

I brought my camera along to some meals out, naturally, and tried to “experiment” or something. I don’t know. It’s mostly a lot of pictures of water glasses and Donkey Punches, but they seemed like a good idea at the time.

Cheers!

And in b&w

I am occasionally under the impression that b&w makes blurry photos a little less bad-looking. I'm not sure that's the case with this one...

Using the Lensbaby

Again, not sure if the b&w helps the blurriness

Not a great one to end on, as it's pretty blurry and out of focus, but I like the colors in this one

Midtown and Union Square, December 2010

rvrtravels — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 03:39:44 +0000

Playing with a new lens around the holidays…

Israel, 2008

rvrtravels — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 04:41:53 +0000

My first trip to Israel, in 2008 (August, yikes). Like Alaska, it’s pretty hard to take a bad picture around these parts.

Unfortunately, because it’s been a few years now, the locations of some of these escape me. For the life of me, I can’t remember anything about these first few except that it’s the Mediterranean, and somewhere near Caesarea, which is in the northeastern part of the country. Also, I accidentally had my camera on monochrome for a while that day, so at least one of these is in black and white.

A Navy ship along the border

Jerusalem

Jerusalem through a fence

The Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock

The Western Wall

Mountains in the Negev

Road through the Negev

The Negev is really infinitely photogenic

The aquatic center in Eilat

The coastline

Just before sunrise on Masada

The view from Masada at sunrise

Don't stare directly at it!!

In the tram, on the way down from Masada

Because I can't decide between this one and the one in color

South Ferry, May 2011

rvrtravels — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:52:42 +0000

I was all the way downtown (pretty much all of Manhattan is “downtown” from me so I feel the need to specify) a few weeks ago, waiting for the Staten Island ferry, and took a few pictures of this group of street performers while I was killing time. I think I came right on the tail end of their dancing, because this – one guy doing a flip over a group of people – was their Big! Event!

I tease, but it was actually pretty impressive…

Getting the crowd riled up

He's flipping through the air over a row of people!!

Awesome

Alaska, 2008

rvrphotos — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 03:13:39 +0000

I spent a month in Alaska in 2008, half of it kayaking in Prince William Sound. I tend to find nature, landscape photography much easier than people and urban settings – in part because I’m shy and you don’t have to ask a mountain or an ocean if you can take a picture of it, and in part because I often don’t have enough patience to wait for the precise moment to grab the best expression on a person’s face or stance of their body that makes most portraiture so interesting to look at (that’s something that I hope to get better at, and is one of my goals for this blog). I also like to think that I have a bit of an eye for setting and framing, but, lets be honest here. It’s pretty much impossible to take a bad picture in Alaska.

So, these will be a bit varied. I took tons while kayaking and camping (some even from within the kayak), and a number while in Valdez and Juneau in particular.

More Yoga on the rocks, island in Prince William Sound

Fishing off the rocks, island in Prince William Sound

Waiting to head off, island in Prince William Sound

Kyaker, Prince William Sound

Checking out a waterfall, Prince William Sound

Umbrellas are great for keeping the bugs away, island in Prince William Sound

After a rainstorm, island in Prince William Sound

More from the same rainstorm, island in Prince William Sound

The view from my kayak, Prince William Sound

On one of the islands on which we camped there was a huge fallen tree that I really liked…

Bottom of fallen tree trunk, island in Prince William Sound

Okay, last one, promise…

I like this one because it makes me think of a body twisting back

Went to Valdez for a few days after the kayaking trip…

Harbor, Valdez

Mountains while on a hike, Valdez

See, it’s impossible to take a bad picture in Alaska.

Tall grass, Valdez

Ginormous mountain, Valdez

Valdez from afar

Then is was off to Juneau…

House on the outskirts of central Juneau

Outside of the governor's mansion (ew. She may even have been there at the time!)

Lighthouse light on display at museum, Juneau

Ravens, it turns out, are pretty awesome birds

Near a glacier outside Juneau

Phew. *wipes sweat off brow* Just posting pictures here is going to take some practice (I started on another blog site but found it impossible to figure out the formatting so I abandoned it, even though I liked the layout more than this one and found a great font for the header which I’ve been unable to reproduce here which really BUGS ME, but whatevs. I already have another blog here anyway – rvrtravels – so I’ll be sticking with WordPress for a while. Hopefully I’ll get a bit better at it with practice). Tomorrow – maybe Friday, we’ll see how tomorrow goes – I’ll be putting up some pictures from a few weeks ago.

rvrtravels — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:17:20 +0000

So. No one is watching this yet, I’m assuming (unless someone just really likes that photo of Yoga on the rocks in my header), but I’m going to talk anyway.

I’m going to be using this blog mostly for practice, to keep myself committed to taking pictures and working with them, and just to have a place to put them. So often when I take my camera out and take a bunch of pictures they just end up sitting on my harddrive collecting metaphorical dust because I have nothing to do with them, nowhere to show them. So.

The first few posts are going to be a mix of older photos and more recent stuff, and eventually I plan to update as I take pictures and keep myself on a regular schedule (but we’ll see how that goes).