2011 Deck – Week 1

My first photo for this year’s Deck Project.  I received so much support, feedback and appreciation on the last project that I decided to do it again this year.  I called it The Deck because I was doing one photograph per week of the year (whether it is the best for the week or not), as a year has 52 weeks, and a deck of standard playing cards has 52 cards, not counting the Jokers, I thought the name The 2010 Deck sounded better than “A Photo per week for 2010”  🙂

I also think I learned a little more and got more familiar with my camera a lenses during the year.

Up to now I’ve only taken 42 photographs this week (and I doubt that I’ll take any more today) and those photos cover only 10 subjects, two of which were not meant for the project in the first place, those being some family photos and a house interior sequence.  That left me with only a few choices this week, and you would think that would make it easier to choose, but it made it harder, I was down to four choices, and while I can usually pick one out rather quickly, this week was harder, either the images were all good, or all mediocre  🙂

I ended up choosing this one below for it’s content, I liked how all the pieces fit!  It’s hard to see on the small image here on the blog so click on it to see the image on the site larger.  The afternoon rainy clouds, whiter clouds, an aircraft, a sail-boat, the rock line, a man and his dog, all in one image.  I hope you like it.

 

A Man and his Dog. Canon T1i, 35mm (Tamron 18-270), 1/400s, f/11, ISO200

Fort Amsterdam and The Plane

The eighth day of our stay in Sint Maarten, we started off with a visit to Fort Amsterdam, its ruins are a bit unusual, a part of it was apparently used as a radio station at one time.  The attractions at the fort are things like the cistern or reservoir, long unused, the old buildings or what’s left of them, the canons of course, the views from the different parts of the fort, and while we were there one attraction was wildlife, specifically a young bird who let me get close enough for a few nice photographs.

The Cistern/Reservoir at Fort Amsterdam

Canon at Fort Amsterdam

Resident at Fort Amsterdam

A view from Fort Amsterdam

The fort, although something that would be considered a national heritage site, is located on private land behind a Hotel/Resort, so I had to take at least one photo in the compounds 🙂

We then went off to the beach near Maho where the beach curves around behind the airport, and the aircraft head straight down the sea, over the beach and onto the runway for landing, there was a photograph by Jesse Diamond that my brother had forwarded to me prior to this trip, and both he and Nikhil insisted that I try to take an inspired photograph like it, so that was the main purpose of going there, getting Coronas at more than twice the normal price was just incidental 🙂

Beach Flyover, Princess Julianna Airport, Sint Maarten

Before heading home, we took a stop at a Nature Reserve where they have horseback riding among other activities, got a few photos, but only managed to really like these:

Cactus

Duck!

Back home I waited for the evening to arrive so that I could play with the setting sun, seated on the veranda, camera at my side and a cold Heineken to my lips, life is good.

Walk along the beach

As usual, on this trip, I can’t put all the photos in the blog, so click on the ones here and go straight to the site for all 42 new additions to the Sint Maarten 2010 album.

Sunset, Simpson Bay, Sint Maarten.