Picture of the Day (Dial-up internet users enter at own risk!)

[HatTrick]

Oahu From the Air

Aloha. A hui hou...

 

[jerseyfinn]

OK what's plan B?

Well, in Hawaii it could still be "beach" or "bar" as the temperatures mild and both begin with the letter 'B' .

Some nice Hawaii shots, the colors are so vibrant and . . . Hawaiaan.

Barry

 

[jerseyfinn]

Stylized photo/line art

I recently had a hernia fixed . . . the first time I ever have surgery. What makes this unique is that I'm a nurse anesthetist who has administered over 30,000 anesthetics thus far & this is the first time I'm on the receiving end. I still prefer to give rather than receive.

I take 3 weeks offs & during that time I read several books. My recovery period also gives me lots of time to download Photoshop tutorials from the NAPP web site. I put in lots of hours going through the tutorials and all of the new PS techniques they demonstrate.

I post here one of the new techniques I learn. It's kind of neat. I use some of my Marriott resort photos to create a line-drawing/photo. The first two images are stylized views of Oceana Palms and the other image is stylized Ocean Pointe.

I'm still playing around with the idea, but the effect works with objects or people.

Barry

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[cindi]

That is really cool looking.

I don't think I have ever seen a photo done like that before.

 

[SueDonJ]

Wow, Barry, LOVE that effect! It has great practical use for emphasizing focus within "busy" photos.

Now obviously we all want you to continue on your road to recovery, and of course we all want you to be back to 100% lickety-split, but is there some other way that we can force you to take down time and investigate other photo options??

 

[Rose Pink]

That picture technique reminded me of an Abba video.

I especially liked the last photo with the turquoise slides.

 

[Karen G]

Thanks for sharing your photo art with us. It's so interesting and unique!

 

[HatTrick]

Very cool, Barry. Like you might see in an advertisement.

 

[jerseyfinn]

Now obviously we all want you to continue on your road to recovery, and of course we all want you to be back to 100% lickety-split, but is there some other way that we can force you to take down time and investigate other photo options??

I'm gonna save your message for my wife the next time she hollers at me for being on the computer too much. I'll tell her that the people on TUG force me to do it.

The good news is we'll be down at the Florida resorts soon so I'll not be on the computer and will instead be on the beach trying to capture some more resort pixels.

It's gonna be a little wierd at the resort bar this time. I'll still visit, but only to order a tonic without the vodka or a beer. Since our December resort visit last year when I weigh myself on the scale and don't like the numbers, I temporarily stop drinking beer as I trying to cut down on the calories which goes with it. I think it's working as my jeans seem to be slipping down now and I gotta wear a belt again. I'll get the numbers when I step on the resort scale again. And yes, I know that I also gotta watch what I eat . . . I've been mindful of what I eat even if I don't add up the calories -- I didn't get a 59 in nutrition for nothing. ( fortunately I paid attention in anesthesia school )

Barry

 

[Elli]

I just realized that "Swift", Theresa, who started this thread hasn't posted since Aug. 7/10. Is everything o.k. with her? I always read her posts.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Guatemala
Spent that last half of January in Guatemala - about equally divided between La Antigua and areas in the northern mountains where Spanish is the second language for most people (first language is whatever is the local Mayan dialect).

I'll start off in Antigua, where I stayed in a host family arrangement at Casa de Mary y Salve while I did a week of Spanish language study; they advertise as a bed and breakfast, but it's actually bed and three meals per day, all for about $150 US for seven days. That's total cost, not per day. (Mary and Salve have guests from the US who come back regularly and stay with them in Guatemala for months at a time because it is so cheap.)

Also I shot all of the photos on this trip with a small pocket camera, as I didn't want to lug my big camera bag around. The camera fits nicely in a pocket and is convenient, but one of the prices you pay for convenience is lower quality lenses - this camera has some serious optical distortion problems (mostly fish-eye effects and skewed perspectives). I've tried to fix up the images as best I can, but there are still some problems.

****

First the street in front of the house. The casa is near the car parked on the left.

A view of the front garden as you come in through the door from the street.

A view down the main hallway, looking back to the dining area. The garden that is in the previous picture is to the right, at the far end of the hallway.

The rear garden area. My room is the door on the left.

A view of the rear garden area from a sitting terrace located on the roof of the casa:

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

La Antigua is United Nations recognized World Cultural Heritage city. Antigua was founded during the Spanish colonial rule and served as the capital for the Spanish empire in Central America for a period of time, until Antigua was rocked by earthquakes. The Spanish then moved the capital to what is now Guatemala City.

Because Antigua was laid and constructed as a Spanish colonial city, the architecture of the city is almost totally Spanish colonial, and the city is filled with numerous churches and cathedrals that date from the Spanish colonial era. Many of the cathedrals are in ruins, having been destroyed in earthquakes and not rebuilt.

San Francisco El Grande

San Francisco El Grande is located close to where I stayed, so I have a lot of pictures of it. San Francisco El Grande is an important cathedral, still in use though parts of it are in ruins.

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Here's a view of San Francisco El Grande from the upper terrace area at the casa where I stayed. As you can see, the cathedral is quite near. This view is of the back side of the cathedral.

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Here's view from the street at a side entrance. The cathedral is inside a walled area. After you pass through the wall there is a large courtyard, much of which is now used for parking. On Sundays the plaza is filled with vendors.

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And here is a view of part of the church from the plaza area. The main sanctuary is to the right. The arch to the left leads to the tomb of Santo Hermano Pedro, a Franciscan brother who was prominent in the area. Note that the domes are missing in the area beyond that arch; they were destroyed in earthquakes and never rebuilt. Instead the rubble was removed, the remaining walls were stabilized, and the area was turned into a garden instead of being under roof.

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This is main cathedral entrance from the plaza. The unadorned white walls are repairs made after earthquake damage. They didn't have the money to reconstruct with the orginal architecture, so you have to use your imagination to fill in what it probably looked like when it was constructed. Note that the area to the right of the main entrance is still in ruins.

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The ruins to the right of the main entrance. Being enterprising folks, they've turned it into a museum and library, with an admission price.

We'll be back to San Francisco El Grande in some future photos.

 

[Karen G]

Spent that last half of January in Guatemala - about equally divided between La Antigua and areas in the northern mountains where Spanish is the second language for most people (first language is whatever is the local Mayan dialect).

I'll start off in Antigua, where I stayed in a host family arrangement at Casa de Mary y Salve while I did a week of Spanish language study; they advertise as a bed and breakfast, but it's actually bed and three meals per day, all for about $150 US for seven days. That's total cost, not per day. (Mary and Salve have guests from the US who come back regularly and stay with them in Guatemala for months at a time because it is so cheap.)

What an interesting experience that must have been. The pictures are lovely--thanks for sharing them.

 

[SueDonJ]

Very interesting experience, and very nice pics as usual, I agree. The third pic in your second post is my favorite - I'm getting a vibe of peace and serenity despite the obvious tourists in the square, can almost feel the warmth and community. That never happens when I see a pic of St. Mark's Square in Venice.

 

[ricoba]

Steve,

Thanks for sharing.

That must have been fun, Spanish language studies in such a nice area...

How much and how long was the Spanish course?

So, how is your Spanish now?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Very interesting experience, and very nice pics as usual, I agree. The third pic in your second post is my favorite - I'm getting a vibe of peace and serenity despite the obvious tourists in the square, can almost feel the warmth and community. That never happens when I see a pic of St. Mark's Square in Venice.

In Antigua, any commercial establishment that has anything of value - a bank, a jewelry store, the supermarket, for example - will have least one, if not two or three private guards standing around, holding at ready a fully loaded and cocked double barrel shotgun. There is also a very obvious and well-staffed police presence throughout Antigua.

And that's La Antigua, which is the tourist-friendly and "safe" city in Guatemala. Quite a contrast with Puerto Vallarta, where we were last week, where even the banks operate without armed guards and the buses run throughout the city with open cash boxes.

That said, at no time did I ever feel physically unsafe in Antigua. In Antigua I saw no signs of evidence of violent crime. There is a huge tourist presence in Antigua, and tourism is the primary industry of the town. That's probably why there is the large police presence in Antigua; traveling outside of Antigua there wasn't anywhere near the same level of police staffing in the other areas of the country that I passed through.

I took the the guards and the police as a constant reminder to be watchful and to remember that I was in a third-world country.

*******

Guatemala City is a different story, apparently. In conversations with locals, they uniformly referred to the dangerous conditions in Guatemala City, particularly for foreigners who don't know their way around or what is safe and unsafe. (Example, you should never hail a taxi on the street in Guatemala. You only take a taxi that you have called to come meet you.)

Their warnings about Guatemala City were consistent with what I noted in my readings of the daily newspapers and watching television. There is a very significant and steady rate of violence and assault in Guatemala City and environs.

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One day watching the television news there was a story about an attempted abduction of a teen-age boy by an adult male. The attempted abductor had been caught, and the police brought him out to present him to the news cameras. The guy's face was an absolute mess; he had obviously been worked over very seriously, then cleaned up and brought before the cameras with no real attempt made to cover up that he had been bludgeoned.

I thought the message was clear; this is what will happen to you when we catch up to you if you do something wrong.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Steve,

Thanks for sharing.

That must have been fun, Spanish language studies in such a nice area...

How much and how long was the Spanish course?

So, how is your Spanish now?

I did one week of lessons (five days), 4 hours per day in one-on-one instruction. The price - $115 US for the week + $35 for transportation to Antigua from La Aurora Internaciónal airport in Guatemala City. So if I combine that with the cost of my one-week stay with a host family, it came out to less than $300 for one-week of near-immersion language instruction. That's a bit more than twice as much as I would spend on one-quarter of community college continuing education instruction (non-credit) in a class of about 15 students.

Ridiculously cheap. But then, Guatemala is perhaps the poorest country in Central America.

*************

As for my Spanish I'm improving. I'm starting to get reasonably good with written language. I can pick up a newspaper and understand more than half of the content. But my oral comprehension is pretty weak. I've noted, though, that it makes a difference who I'm speaking with. When I was in Antigua, talking with a volunteer and San Francisco El Grande, I realized that I was able to understand much more of what she was saying than was typical. It suddenly dawned on me that was because she was obviously well-educated and accordingly spoke a refined Spanish. Of course, my Spanish language instructors here in the US come from similar backgrounds and so also speak that style of Spanish, in which words and phrases are enunciated cleanly and distinctly.

I notice similar things when I watch Spanish language television. Public broadcasting, for example, is far easier for me to understand than is much of the popular programming.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

What an interesting experience that must have been. The pictures are lovely--thanks for sharing them.

It was quite interesting. I will make various comments as I work my through the pictures.

One nutshell observation is that Guatemala seemed to be a country of vast and unrealized potential that might finally come out of its slumber if it can keep from sliding back to the old ways.

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[added note]
With reference to my comments above, I want to be absolutely clear that I would go back to Guatemala in an instant if the opportunity comes by again. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. It's not the USA, but isn't the point of traveling to get into new areas??

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Tanques Publicos

Antigua has tanques, or pools, that were constructed as as public laundries. The tanques are bordered with tazas, or wash basins, supplied from the main pool.

The principal tanque is Tanque Unión, located in Parque Unión, a couple of blocks from San Francisco El Grande and a couple of blocks from the central parque next to the main cathedral and the city buildings.

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Tanque Unión

As shown in the last photo above, Tanque Unión is still used as a lavandaria, or laundry. Although la mujer in the photo above is a local, by far most of the people that I saw using the tazas to wash clothes were European or North American turistas. I came away with a distinct impression that the turistas using the tanque were just trying to be cool, whereas for the local residents washing clothes in a local taza would be an act of desperation.

I had my laundry done at a commercial lavandaria about a block away that mostly catered to the locals - 10 lbs of laundry for 25Q (about $3 US) washed (whites bleached), dried, ironed and folded. I added a 5Q tip, bringing the total bill to a bit less than $4 US.

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Here's a photo of another smaller tanque publico on the other side of town. Note the vendor with the hand cart returning home at the end of the day.

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BTW - all of the streets in Antigua are cobblestone.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Parque Unión
In addition to the tanque, Parque Unión is a municipal park. Here are a few views around the park.

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This is a municipal building that fronts the park on the opposite end from the tanque:

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Looking back the other direction, with building ruins on the other side of the street behind Tanque Unión. As with all municipal parks, there are sidewalk food vendors, offering freshly prepared chicken, beef, pork, frijoles, tortillas, vegetables, etc. The aromas are very enticing.

*******

Here's a closer view of the building ruins behind Tanque Unión:

 

[Elan]

Great pic's, Steve. Thanks for sharing them.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Great pic's, Steve. Thanks for sharing them.

Thanks, Elan, and to others who have commented ..... Moving on to the main plaza/parque

The main plaza

Not surprisingly, La Antigua has a central plaza, bordered by the main cathedral municipal buildings, and a few commercial establishments. Here are some pics:

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Catedral de San José is the main cathedral, located on the east side of the plaza.

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This building is on the north side of the plaza. I believe it was originally a hotel or pasado, serving dignitaries from Spain and other portions of the Spanish empire who might be visiting Antigua on official business.

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Horse-drawn carriages are seen throughout Antigua; most of the rides originate in the central park.

The building in the background in this picture is the same as the hotel above. The adjacent one-story building on the left edge of the photo is the largest bank branch in Antigua. The people standing next to the building are in line to go into the bank - this photo was taken on a Sunday and there must have been about fifty people waiting to get in. For security purposes, the bank doesn't let people queue inside the bank.

Note the bag deployed at the rear of the horse to capture excrement. All of the horse carriages are rigged similarly.

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This is the municipal government building, located on the south side of the square.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

La Fuente del Parque Centro

One of the highlights of the central plaza is the fountain. The plumbing is pretty clever. BTW - in the first photo note the woman on the left in traditional Mayan dress.

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The designers of other fountains in the city have taken inspiration from the fuente principal. This is from the courtyard of a restaurant where we had our last breakfast in Antigua.

 

[Fredm]

Steve, thanks for the pics and great narrative.

Interesting that your pics show many cars, but only one motor scooter (and a few parked at the main cathedral), and no bicycles.

Are they widely used?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Steve, thanks for the pics and great narrative.

Interesting that your pics show many cars, but only one motor scooter (and a few parked at the main cathedral), and no bicycles.

Are they widely used?

In La Antigua, there are not as many bicycles as one might expect. There are quite a few motos; they just haven't appeared too much in any of the photos I've posted yet. Motos generally have their own curbside parking areas; it's not uncommon to see 30 or 40 motos all lined up together in their parking area.

Tuk-tuks are also very common; generally used as taxis. Tuk-tuks are prevalent everywhere in Guatemala we went, even in rural areas, and almost always as taxis.