Monday, August 23, 2010

Just back from vacation, quick post!

I haven’t posted in awhile. I usually try to post two times a week with the goings on and some recent photographs from a shoot. However, I just had a family vacation in a place I will call Paradise. Growing up, I didn’t really go on family vacations unless I went with a friend that did. As an “adult” I had never been to the Ocean. Well I had…but there’s an interesting back story to that. I went to San Francisco in 2004. Now to someone who even thinks about this for 30 seconds will figure this out, but for those of us who were from PA and really didn’t go out of the 5 closest states much….California is almost all of the West coast. So when you think Cali, you think about these sandy beaches, babes in bikinis (or guys on surf boards for our ladies that read). Well San Francisco is not that. It is like PA. They get the 4 seasons. The reader’s digest version of the story is, though I got to go to the ocean and skip stones in it…swimming in it didn’t happen on the West coast.

When I was younger I went to Cape May and places like that with friends, but my family and I never went on a family vacation to the beach. Not a big deal, but there’s a reason I stress this. When you see something so alien to you, it either amazes you or makes you very uninterested.

My beautiful wife and I went to Florida, with my Sister-in-law, Mother-in-law and father-in-law. So firstly I’ve got to give a big THANK YOU to my family. The trip was wonderful and I appreciate the opportunity that you’ve given me to see Cape Canaveral, and Cocoa Beach.

Now if you’re reading my blog you’re doing it probably because you are either a fan of my photography page, you’re looking into photography OR you’re a friend of mine that knows I am a photographer. So naturally I pack up a gear bag (or in my case, a hard case…funny story, Pelican makes my cases. I’ve never seen a real life pelican…then I did!) I have a Pelican that is the largest you can take as a carry on, on an airplane. So I load this thing up with everything I think I’ll need.

I ended up only taking out one camera and one lens at any time. I did bring a flash with me, but I never had my wife or my sister in law take it out of their purse (thanks for helping me!)

The problem with this is when you’re in an air conditioned place, and you go into a high heat high humidity place you can damage your equipment if you don’t take care. Of course I did, and I use high quality rechargeable dessicants in all of my packs, but that’s not the point. I didn’t want to ruin anything and I used my cell phone to record a lot of cool moments. Though on the last day/night we were there, my wife and I got to go watch a sunrise. I can honestly say I’d never watched a sunrise before, let alone tried to photograph one! It was truly beautiful, even if that damn cloud bank wouldn’t get out of the way.

So I walk around all of these places, play in the ocean and meet these amazing people. I was in absolute heaven. I didn’t have to worry about working on anything except my tan (or my SPF 85 (yeah not kidding) protection for my tan!. I drank Corona Light, and ate Cheesecake or Ice Cream OR BOTH every day. I had some great food and some poor food.

A few people I met, one man was 83 years old. He didn’t look it. He arrived in America in Connecticut in 1968. He was 40 then. He was a heavy crane operator and ended up working on several buildings in the USA. I believe he said Sears Towers and the WTC. Before that, he was a 14 year old boy holding a rifle waiting for the Germans to invade Great Britain. He was in the British Army (I believe he said he was a Captain). Now he lives in Florida, and owns a company with his friend. They do nuclear water filtration.

I met another young man, who is a lawyer for the US Air Force. He moved there from NJ. He is 28 years old and when I asked him if he liked it there he said that he’s 2 blocks from the beach…how can’t you like it?

I seen cruise ships in person, and they are so huge! I went in the Atlantic Ocean over my head (perhaps 1 foot over my head?) and there were dolphins swimming by me. I didn’t know they were, and something swam an hit my legs that was like rubber. I freaked and swam to shore. My wife and sister-in-law told me that I was so close to the dolphins that they think it was a dolphin!

I’m terrified of flying. I had to have my Dr. prescribe me a few valium so I wouldn’t have a panic attack on the air plane. I’m sitting there reading all of this crap about how my seat can be used as a floatation device. All I could think was that if I hurt myself doing a belly flop in a pool…imagine the damage from falling 30,000 feet from the air. Then I would tell myself that the pilot would set us down as nice as he could, but then I got to thinking when we were flying through cloud banks, that what if another damn plane hit us!

I’ve got a few events coming up that I’ll be photographing, so I’ll have those photos when I shoot them. I just upgraded to the newest photoshop, CS5. However, it hasn’t arrived yet. I did a fresh install of windows 7 64bit on my computer, and don’t want to install my old version of photoshop just a few days before my new one arrives. I also upgraded to the new Adobe Lightroom 3. I had 2.5/6 before, but never used it.

So along with getting a new software to learn some new changes with, I’ll be learning to use the LR3 software, which I’m completely unfamiliar with it.

What this means is after I get my copy of CS5 (should’ve been here today), I’ll begin processing a few Florida photographs and posting them. Until then, here’s just a few snaps to get us started. They aren’t indicative of the trip, just something to look at until I post again.

Also, if you go to my face book page and check out the mobile uploads section, you’ll be able to see some that I snapped with my cellphone.

Stay posted, lots of new things are going to come from Rob Lynn photography. I hope you enjoy reading my blog, and will continue to do so. I find a lot of blogs are stale because they don’t say anything about the person behind it. I love meeting people and exchanging stories, so I focus mine not only on photography but also on something that you can walk away from and feel like you have something worth talking about.

Check out the website for more information,

www.roblynn.org

From there you can navigate to my face book pages, and fan pages. Please send me a request, as I’m often offering specials on FB that I don’t advertise on the website.







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