Travel Blog #7: Tremendous Tobago

They show a commercial repeatedly in Canada. You see this young couple, obviously on vacation, walking hand in hand along a pristine beach. They are talking about how lovely everything is. Along comes the voice over warning us about the dangers of getting nasty viruses from unexpected sources.

Next there’s a close up of a glass with a tropical drink and ICE floating in it. The woman makes an “oooh” sound at how good it looks and you just know that twelve seconds after finishing her drink, this lovely young woman is going to keel over dead into a pool of her own vomit. You never know about those foreign viruses lurking inside a seemingly innocent looking ice cube.

As we are bound for Tobago today, I had that commercial in mind. Being an intelligent man, I had vowed to avoid all beverages with little umbrellas floating in them.

After the sanitized and prissy-clean St. Barth, I was really hoping we weren’t going to get “Caribbean Lite” again. But where St. Barth’s is clean, Tobago is gritty. Where St. Barth’s is “way civilized,” Tobago is wild. Where the people of St. Barth’s look at you like bird poop that suddenly fell out of a tree and into their caviar, in Tobago they smile real smiles and welcome you to their country.

We had decided not to take an excursion from the ship. It’s always a good policy to book a cabbie. At most of these ports, cabbies can be hired for about $30 an hour. This isn’t a lot when you also consider that if you choose wisely, you get a tour guide interested in making your trip as perfect as possible (since the thirty bucks doesn’t include their tip.)

He drove us all over the island.

We saw wonderful seascapes. We popped by a “mall” on a cliff overlooking the city. Our guide called it a “mall” but it really was just a collection of huts where people were selling crap to the tourists. I don’t care for the crap, since most of it is destined for garage sales somewhere down the road. I like the people. And while you really should purchase something, what I am after is a picture of the people, usually proffering their crap to the camera. This guy carves wood into the most amazing things. He speaks only the faintest trace of English.

He was charming, though, and very polished in working with the tourists. He passed each wooden carving to prospective customers with both hands, like he was handing over a precious gem. He charmed the women and smiled at their husbands.

I liked Tobago. I liked the laid back pace of life. I liked the friendly people and the warm sun.

Tobago is what you think you are getting when you think about South America. You’ve got fabulous beaches, wonderful sun and wonderful people. Speaking of “wonderful people,” one of my favorite travel moments of all time took place that very afternoon.

You’ll hear that story tomorrow.

Travel Blog #6: St. Barth's

Eddie Murphy spent New Year’s Eve in St Barth on his boat. Other travelers have seen Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington and a ton of other luminaries. Apparently they come here because the climate’s great, nasty tropical hurricanes rarely hit here and the prices on everything are high enough to keep the riff raff away.

The last time the ship was in port, there were over two thousand yachts in the harbor. We’re not talking your twenty foot skiff either. We’re talking multi-million dollar yachts like you expect to see really wealthy places. These have their crewmembers in white pressed linen and their passengers seated on chairs so comfortable that you can’t imagine ever wanting to move.

During the “At Sea” days, we developed a great relationship with a few crew members. This is a great idea, by the way. They’ve been back to the port often enough to know it well. Once they believe you aren’t a jerk, they are very friendly and often supply great information. One of these crewmembers is a deck attendant named Adrian. He’s from Croatia.

“Going to St. Barth’s tomorrow?” he asked with the kind of sly smile designed to spark the obvious question.

“Yup,” said I. “Why?”

“Take your charge cards. Oi! Very expensive!”

He made a flapping motion with his hand.

“Are we talking “oi” expensive or “Oh-my-God” expensive?” I asked.

Adrian paused to consider this. Then he smiled: “What is higher than “Oh my God?”

We tendered into the port the next morning anyway, glad to be off the ship for a while and instantly got the same feeling that came through loud and clear in Monte Carlo: this is where rich people live. And they don't like you much. They know you are there, of course, and they are happy to feed on the little bits of money you spend (which is how they got rich in the first place, I guess) – but there is a chasm between them and us and the bridge between us was torn down and dynamited a long time ago.

Our destination speaker told us that many of the shops actually close when cruise ships are in town since they don’t want the browsers wasting their time. We’re talking about shops that sell two thousand dollar shirts and women’s dresses that run upwards of $20,000 USD. (You wouldn’t want to get a chicken gravy stain on one of those babies.)
The place drips money and just a touch of scorn.

We arrived in port, and stood there for a minute drinking it in. An old guy approached us almost instantly.

“Do you want to split a cab?” he asked, introducing himself as Joe. “They are so pricey. We thought we could split the fare with another couple.”

He spoke very loudly and I saw two huge hearing aids that looked a little like tumors sticking out of each ear.

“Yes,” said Sheree instantly. “Let’s do it!”

So we piled into a cab run by Celine – a woman who claimed to be fluent in English. She was pleasant enough: but most of the commentary was confined to: “Over der une building.”

We sat and waited for more information. There wasn’t any. Yup. It’s a building alright.

There was great beauty in the places she showed us. The roads were narrow, but very expensive looking little cars zipped over them with ease.

I guess the thing that bugged me just a little was that everyone looked so well coiffed. Even the blue jeans were pressed, and that’s just a law against nature. You have the notion that even the jeans that have holes in the knees were put there on purpose before they were sold by some little guy in a sweatshop somewhere who probably wondered what the heck was wrong with people who wanted holes put into perfectly good pants. Isn’t it perverse that one of the fashions of the rich is to look poor?

I didn’t have the sense that there was anything wild left on St. Barth…and those things that looked wild were first domesticated and then re-created into the image of what people would expect to find on a tropical island.

Napoleon “discovered” this island and named it for his brother. (Here’s another strange thing: how come places are only “discovered” when white people get there? Didn’t the ‘natives’ count? They were already there…so….??)

But St. Barth landscapes were breathtaking and the marinas well stocked with yachts.

We paused at an ice cream shop and got two very small gelatos and a bottle of water. Total cost: $22 USD. At first I thought he was kidding. But he just smiled and put out his hand. Yikes!

Part of the challenge of travel, for me anyway, is to try very hard to set aside negativity and enter willfully into enjoying a place. This is something Sheree does quite naturally. But it doesn’t come easy to me. I tend to keep seeing only the stuff that bugs me.

It was on this trip however that I got over my uneasiness with a polarizing lens. I bought this little wonder a year ago, played around with it and concluded it wasn’t going to work for me.
But polarizing lenses are wonderful for reflective subjects. Once the filter is attached to your lens, you’ll notice that an outer part of the filter can be turned with your fingers. Point the camera at water or sky (or in this case a deep hued chain), turn the outer ring, and you will see the subject darken. It’s the same effect as looking out at the world through very cool sunglasses where you can adjust the lenses at will.

If you point a polarizing lens at water, the fish become clearer. You can shoot through glass much more easily. Before long I was shooting most things with a polarizing lens. You just have to keep in mind that your subject really determines whether you use one. And it is going to mess up your camera exposures, so be prepared to play around and bracket your shots.

So we pulled away from St. Barth’s happy enough that we’d come here. We saw nary a celebrity. But we did see David Letterman’s house from a distance. And that should be enough for anyone, huh?

We go to Tobago tomorrow.

HDR For Dummies...Like Me

HDR stands for “High Dynamic Range.” People are excited about this process, even though most aren’t entirely sure what it is. Here’s an over-simplified definition: HDR combines the best of three or more exposures to give you a picture you could not possibly get otherwise.

Your camera “sees” the world one way. Take this farm shot, as an example. If you focus on the sky, you’ll get a great exposure of the sky. If you want the buildings, you’ll get a great shot of the buildings but that lovely sky will be lost. You get the idea, right? Your camera will decide on ONE area of the photo to expose…and the other aspects of a “full spectrum” picture will be lost or weakened.

The traditional way to handle this would be to take the best exposure and selectively dodge and/or burn and apply filters to the areas with the poorest exposures to bring up the detail.

When setting up for an HDR exposure, you’ll need to set your camera on a tripod and BRACKET three exposures. Most cameras do this – you’ll need to make the change inside your camera menu. When you’ve composed the shot and half pressed the shutter button to lock the focus, press it all the way down and hold it. You’ll take three very fast exposures. One will look too dark, the next too light and the third will be close to perfect.

Traditionally, you bracket to make sure you get at least one good exposure.

But to make an HDR image, you are going to use all three exposures. The HDR process takes the very best elements of ALL THREE exposures and blends them together. That’s what results in the strange look HDR work carries. You don’t expect to see these kinds of images…because it’s much closer to what your eye sees.

I’ve purchased some outstanding software, Photomatix, to help me do this. You can download a trial through http://www.hdrsoft.com/ and play around with it. The software is designed to do the HDR math for you. Since math isn’t my strongest suit, this fills my heart with happiness. The software will set you back about a hundred dollars. (Note: If you type “VPG8” into the coupon area, you’ll get 15% off the purchase price. This is a great tip for purchasing software by the way. Google “Photomatix Discount Coupon” and see what comes up. I do this for EVERY bit of software I purchase and have saved big bucks on stuff I was going to buy anyway…)


Here are a couple of initial tips about HDR:

1) You need either a tripod, a “jam”, a rock steady hand or a subject that isn’t moving. Remember that, even though the camera takes the shots very quickly, your subject could be moving just a little. This results in a “ghost” effect. All of these shots I took by hand (as in “no tripod” or “jam.)

2) If your subject moves…you’re dead. This makes people, animal and sports shots really difficult. Don’t even go there. Your HDR will be a mess.

3) With Photomatix, the HDR creation is a two phase process. In the first, you choose the three exposures you plan to use. This results in a really awful image. You take those three exposures to the next phase, which allows you to refine the settings.

4) When I am reasonably happy with the exposure, I will save the image as a .jpeg.

5) I will then open the image in Photoshop and complete the editing.

6) I will sit back and make “ooooo” and “ahhhh” sounds as I look at the image until I feel satisfied.

There’s something magical about HDR. We saw some awesome samples with Alesandro’s work a few blogs back. There’s no denying that the effect is nearly ethereal.

When you’re editing in Photoshop, you are going to see some very strange effects unless your camera has been absolutely still during the photo taking process. You’ll have to be ready to clone and heal and otherwise re-define the image to make it work as a photograph.

I find a good HDR image breathtaking. But at the back of my mind I wonder what the “HDR Age” will do to traditional photography. My wife, for example, appreciates the visual power of HDR but has no intention of working with it herself. She’s a purist in the very most basic definition of the word. She’ll kick up contrast and do some cropping – but what you see is essentially the shot she took.

There’s skill to photography and there’s skill to HDR. I have the same feeling about HDR as I do about an overly Photoshopped image. One is photography and the other is digital art. They are related but completely separate disciplines. I believe they can co-exist quite nicely.

Here’s a strange idea: how do you think an HDR image would do when translated to Black and White? It’s something I am playing with and I’ll post the results here if I get anything decent.

Some of you have written in about the flickr artists profiling we have been doing lately. I have proposals out to several artists I’d like to showcase. But it’s ultimately up to them. I love looking at their work and apparently, you folks love seeing it. So look for more in the near future.

If you have any thoughts about HDR…or would like to post an image…I’d love to hear from you.

Tuscany MAGIC from Alessandro Ornelli

I spent a day in Tuscany. When I left, part of my heart stayed behind. We are planning a trip back to that wonderful region because a handful of hours simply wasn’t enough. Actually, I don’t think a year…a decade...or even a lifetime would be enough.

Tuscany is everything you imagined it to be and much more. The countryside is a perfect canvas for all artists. It inspired the artist, Michelangelo and birthed the incomparable singer Andrea Bocelli. It’s where you will see vineyards and history and the kind of countryside you thought could be found in storybooks.

It’s also where Alessandro Ornelli makes his art. Alessandro lives in Toscana. By day he is a PC technician but when he packs up his camera and heads out for the fabled countryside of Tuscany, he’s on his way to becoming one of the top graphic artists on flickr.

He is absolutely one of my all-time favorites.

I wanted to start this series of articles with Alessandro because the first time I saw his work, it took my breath away. I mean it. I saw an explosion of colors and light and I distinctly remember my jaw dropping as I sat in front of my computer having one of those “oh my God” moments every photographer hopes to inspire with his or her work.

It’s difficult to speak with Alessandro. His English isn’t good…and my Italian (beyond phrases like “Where is the red dog radiator banana located?” and “Please, madam, may I have three of your large green ears?”) isn’t much better.

We had to do all our talking through translators.

But look at these images and try to tell me Alessandro has a hard time making himself understood. I dare you.

“I love clouded, dramatic skies,” Alessandro writes. Okay. He didn’t have to tell us that. Both of the images he selected to be shown to you feature those huge Italian skies. Up top is one of his favorites. The Italian title translates to “Rain Threatens.”

You need to have a look at this image’s full size so click on it, spend a minute or two looking at it (and wishing you’d taken it…because I sure do) and then click on the “Back” button and meet me back here.

First, let me draw your attention to the leading line. Alessandro crops his image so those lines lead right to the sky. Open the picture again and have a look. As you look at the image, you will more than likely find your eyes following the furrow directly to that fabulous sky.

There are three beautifully ordered color grids being used here: the foreground is this awesome earthy brown. To the sides and the middle is vibrant green. The sky is comprised of varying shades of grey and black.

You need also to watch and see how this artist has used light. There’s light in the clouds as well as two lines defining the break between the brown earth and the green middle ground. See how he has used light to create that division?


Light plays and even bigger role in the second canvas Alessandro chose to show to you. This is the effect we have all seen and find very difficult to replicate. My wife and I call these “God rays” – bright lances of sunlight breaking through the clouds and shining perfectly on the earth below.

There are two really interesting things about this image to me. First: it has to be about 85% sky. The artist has decided the light and texture of his work are what he wants you to see. Where the first image started your eye at the bottom of the shot and then led you to the clouds – this image starts with your eye wandering around those wonderful dramatic clouds and then riding the rays of light down to the ground. In this image, earth is more of an afterthought…and, with a sky like this, why shouldn’t it be?

Look at the colors: strong greens and blues and whites. Bold and so very lovely.


This is my personal favorite. I chose it from Alessandro’s Photostream to share with you. I looked at this for a very long time the first time I saw it. The English translation is “The Party Ends.”

Do you see a continuation of what makes this artist truly exceptional? The sky, the perfect textures and the LIGHT – so lovely that it almost hurts your eyes. One lone umbrella remains and the people have vanished. The clouds are reflected in the water, the sand is textured with lines that lead to the water and then onto the sky. To me, this work is incomparable.

Alessandro says he spends about half an hour on each HDR image and shoots about 60% of his work in HDR. There’s a deftness, confidence and skill about his work, isn’t there?

I wonder how many Tuscany businessmen have watched him working on their PCs and had no idea who he was…or the awareness of beauty that waits within him.

Alessandro Ornelli’s flickr photostream can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/10235766@N08/

Pop by for a look. Who knows? You just might learn something.

I certainly did.

NOTE: All photos in this blog segment are by Alessandro Ornelli and are used with his permission. He reserves all rights.

Secret Worlds

There’s a secret out there. You can find it if you simply take a second to look over an occasional hill. Usually it’s in a place the rest of the world is only marginally aware of, the kind of place people cease to see after a while.

But it’s there.

There are people in these secret worlds as well – but they are the kind of people you only see only out of the corner of your eye as they melt into the background. The years have made them experts at disappearing, and the selective perceptions we (on the other side of the hill) have developed makes it easier still for us not to see them.

Sheree and I went to one of these places last night.

The hill you have to look over is in a neighborhood formerly occupied by the military. It’s at the end of a nameless street. Watch carefully because, as with all enchanted places, you will miss the flash of color it offers if you aren’t watching for it. It’s there for a just a second and then it’s gone.

We were a fellowship of three: Sheree was taking one of her photography students out on a photo safari. I tagged along to drive the car and serve up tasty and nutritious snacks if called upon. The student was Laurie, a sweet young thing armed with a big Nikon.

I’d done a show recently in the neighbourhood and during my ritual pre-event pacing, I’d noticed a burned out building: deserted and old. All the windows were boarded over or smashed. It had the look of a toothless crone. I came to the conclusion that if a place was going to be haunted, this is probably it.

There was graffiti all over it and within it. This building was custom designed as a photographer’s feast. Since I was about to do a magic show, I didn’t have a camera with me – but I was delighted to be reunited with the building again.

I lobbied immediately for stopping there. But my wife suggested we go out to the end of the street. I was chaffing at the bit, but I drove to the end of the street anyway.

There was this hill, you see.

And on the other side of the hill – this. We were, all three, seized by the “OH! OH! OH!” photographer reflex. When this happens, you can’t get out of the car fast enough and even as you’re parking, you’re taking the lens pen to your lens and opening the car door. It’s been my experience that photographers in particular have the ability to recognize an enchanted second or a magical ray of light and they understand what rare and wonderful things they are.

As I crept deeper and deeper into the rabbit warren of fallen walls and cubbyholes, I noticed four people noticing me and immediately starting to disappear. I turned to see if the women were coming, and when I looked back the people had vanished, like a magician had waved a wand and they were gone. There wasn’t even a puff of smoke hanging in the air.

There was a sofa in the middle of a clearing. There was graffiti all around me. Broken pottery, smashed toilets and piles of garbage. The light was perfect and I kept shooting. As I did, I realized that I was actually taking shots inside someone’s home and the fact that this home was outside didn’t matter at all. I could feel eyes on me…but maybe it was just the ethereal-sort-of-spooky feel already there. But there was definitely charged atmosphere.

There were other deserted and destitute buildings we wanted to get to before the light went and we were happily photographing these when a voice came out of nowhere.

“What are you doing here?”

I turned and met Jeremy. He said he was one of the military police and that we were photographing in a restricted area. His credibility was hampered just a little because he was missing two front teeth, pushing a baby carriage and had two really odd looking women in tow.
With thoughts of little dark rooms with naked light bulbs, getting taped to a chair and beaten with rubber hoses dancing through my head, I explained that we were just taking pictures.

It didn’t take long for Jeremy to warm to us. (I used my most charming smile and when my wife and her companion joined us, his heart melted.)

“You saw the shack then?” he asked finally.

“The shack?” I repeated cleverly.

He nodded. “If you like stuff drawn on walls, you should go to the shack.”

“Where is it?” I asked – suddenly eager to get there before the light went.

“It’s just over the hill from where you were before,” he said.

“…there’s another hill?” I asked. I had been congratulating myself on looking over the first hill. Finding out there was a second hill deflated me just a little.

He nodded and led us past the first enchanted area into the fabulous treasure that waited just behind.

My eyes rested on what initially looked like a blot on the wall in the corner. As I looked at it, I began to see that the blot of black was actually a body outline. Then it looked like someone forced to stand in the corner…and that the bedspring mattress could be…what? Bars?

Look at this graffiti. It’s not a cave drawing. It’s art. The notion that someone did this in a remote cabin where only a handful of people will ever go is amazing to me. Have a look at the mattress. I was blown away. Then I noticed another painting.

Jeremy was telling me about his tactical handcuffs and that his aunt and uncle are on military tactical squads and I wasn’t even listening. True. It was the kind of talk that would have set off alarm bells in my mind before.

But now?

Nah. I was busy. I was looking at this astounding wall stuff, thinking about the mind that created it, the hands that executed it and the great honor we had to be looking at it. The image on the wall was one of such complete desolation that I couldn't hold back a sudden rush of emotion and empathy for the person who had done this wonderful artwork in this deserted and marked-for-demolition building. The idea of bulldozers destroying this was pretty hard to take.

A brass...thing....had been twisted up in a very specific way and I had the inspiration that this anonymous artist had placed it right where it was and in a curious way, it completed the picture.

When I was a kid, I was blown away by the notion that there really could be an enchanted world you accessed through the back of an ordinary wardrobe, that this mundane world really did have some magic to offer. I am so very glad I was right. And the magic is easier to find that I had originally thought.

You just have to look over a hill or two.