I thought I would share one of my favorite Hawaii sunset photos. The shot below was taken at Ko Olina at the Marriott resort on Oahu, Hawaii. At the time I was shooting with a Nikon D70s and a 18-200mm lens. The sunsets in Hawaii are absolutely amazing and I can’t wait until my next trip. I have more Hawaii photos on my gallery.
I thought I would spend some time over the next few weeks highlighting some of the better photos from my trip to St. Thomas, VI back in March. The first photo is an HDR shot of the Marriott Frenchman’s Cove resort on St. Thomas. This was one of the first HDR shots I made.
I spent quite a bit of time laying around the resort today but I did snap some good sunset shots. I also caught some good self portraits shooting into the glass reflection on an elevator. We leave tomorrow and so we are trying to relax as much as possible before we leave paradise. All the photos are online here.
Today was quite a long day. We took a vehicle ferry from St. Thomas to St. John’s Island and toured the island. We ate lunch at Miss Lucy’s restaurant on the south side of the island. The restaurant is known to have one of the best views on the island. The food was very good and there was some interesting entertainment. There were about ten goats that walked past the outdoor patio on the side of the restaurant and one of them snatched a burger off a woman’s plate. There were also some chickens and chicks that were running around under the tables looking for food. It was definitely not the traditional dining experience.
We stopped for drinks at Margarita Phil’s. The drinks were excellent and the employees were pretty entertaining. We caught what was about the best sunset that I have seen here all week. The sunsets don’t really compare to those in Hawaii but I still snapped some great photos. All the photos are online.
Today we picked up a Jeep Wrangler from Budget (the only name brand on the island) and did some touring. We drove pretty much all over the island. We stopped for lunch in Red Hook at a Irish bar / restaurant named Maggie Malone’s. After lunch we checked out Magen’s Bay but it was so incredibly packed with tourists from the cruise ships that we didn’t even try to stay. There were well over 400 people at the beach and it was like a zoo. Needless to stay we went left right away and went to a high elevation look-out where we could get some good shots. Tomorrow we will spend the day on St. John’s Island. See the rest of the photos online.
We lounged around the resort again today but we did catch a taxi into town to do some shopping. I shot fewer photos today than yesterday since there wasn’t much change in scenery. I did take some time to shoot more HDR photos around the resort. Tomorrow we are renting a Jeep and we will do some touring around St. Thomas. On Wednesday, we will be heading over to St. John where I’m sure I will have the opportunity to get some great shots. See all the photos online.
I woke up rather early and went for a walk around the hotel property. I found a number of small of geckos and iguanas to photograph. We checked out of our room and moved our luggage over to our condo where we are staying for the week - the Marriott Frenchman’s Cove resort. We didn’t have any problems with our condo unlike our experience at the Marriott Frenchman’s Reef Hotel.
We lounged around the resort for the whole day but I managed to shoot quite a few shots. I also shot a few bursts of photos that I converted to HDR. My new Manfrotto tripod and Bogen ball head really helped me catch these photos. It looks like I might be carrying the tripod with me to most places we go on the island. I’ll try catch a bunch more HDR photos if I can.
All of the photos from today are online at http://djphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/4485860_86YWZ and the photos from yesterday are up at http://djphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/4486086_5Bijo.
We landed in St. Thomas about 4:30 PM (local time - EST +1) and surprisingly, the airport is so small, you have to walk down steps to get off the plane. It did allow me to shoot a few quick shots looking down the plane. We walked inside the terminal and within a few minutes our luggage was available. We took a taxi van ($60) about 3 miles to the hotel and checked in.
When we arrived at our room, it turns out they gave us one king bed instead of two doubles - what we booked. Of course Marriott (Frenchman’s Reef Hotel) didn’t have any extra rooms so they had to bring in a roll away bed. They wouldn’t even comp us for the inconvenience - not a good practice when your guests are paying $400 per night. I’ll be sending an email to Marriott corporate tomorrow.
Despite the problems with our room, everything else at the resort is pretty nice. There are a lot of scenic areas on the compound and I managed to snap a few decent photos even though it was getting late and the sun was setting. See the photos below and I’ll post more tomorrow. I’m on my Sprint EVDO USB card and I’m not receiving a strong signal so I can’t upload large copies of the photos.
I headed over to Lambert Airport in St. Louis at about 4:45 AM this morning to begin my 8 day vacation. We are on the first leg of the flight and I’m currently sitting at Miami International Airport…. I’ll be boarding the next flight for St. Thomas in about 20 minutes…. I will be putting up some photos tonight hopefully (assuming there are no issues with the Internet at the resort). Yesterday I found a good article about theft of camera equipment and other personal items in airports that is definitely worth reading.
I’ll be jumping on a plane on Saturday morning around 6:30 AM for a long day of travel and layovers. I’m going to St. Thomas, Virgin Islands for eight days. I’m pretty psyched - I’ll be able to really get out and use my new Nikon D300 in some great conditions. With the upcoming wedding season, I wanted to pick up a few new accessories. Last week I bought a Manfrotto tripod and Bogen ball head.
During my trip I will also visit St. John’s Island and possibly a few other islands. I will post photos on the site throughout the trip. I’m taking my whole arsenel of camera equipment. I will really be breaking in my new Think Tank Airport International rolling camera bag.
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