Skip to main content

Day 3 – Key West

We got up a little bit before 7:00 AM got ready and had breakfast before hitting the road down to Key West for a day trip.  The drive was just a little over two hours, with some construction and a quick little stop along the way.    We got down to Key West around 11:00 AM and then had to figure out parking.  We found a place to park and then took the Duval Shuttle (free shuttle in Key West) down to Hemmingway’s house.  We walked around the gardens and the house and saw all the kitties.  There are around 60+ cats living on the property, and they are allowed to go wherever they want, even on the furniture.    From there we walked 10 minutes down the road to the southern most point in the US.   We were not about to stand in line for 10 – 15 minutes to get a picture next to it, so I just grabbed a shot while people were switching out.   


From there we went to Louie's Backyard for lunch, based on a recommendation from the ladies Jim works with.  Unfortunately, while walking to the restaurant, about 50 feet from the door, I fell and scraped up my knee and hands, thankfully no big cuts.   We chose to eat inside for the air conditioning, as I was getting too hot from the sun.   The food was good, I had conche fritters and Jim had a pork confit sandwich.   From there we walked a couple blocks to pick up the shuttle again, to take us over to Malory Square and the Aquarium.  It was nice riding in the air conditioning of the bus.     We walked around the square and then over to the Key West Aquarium which is one of the oldest Aquariums in the US.    It was small but well maintained for being 90 years old.   After that we debated heading to the Truman Little White House, but I was just getting too hot and tired from the sun and heat.  There was absolutely no shade or breeze that day.   So, we called it a day and made the drive back to Key Largo and got in around 5:15PM to have dinner at the hotel. 

I’m not sure what I was expecting from Key West, but I really thought the historic district was going to be car free due to the way things were worded on the tourist information sites.  What they were really saying is you don’t want to drive in Key West because the roads are super narrow due to people parking on both sides of the people driving around don’t obey stop signs.   I also was expecting way more palm trees and cute little houses.   It just felt like an overgrown tourist suburb. I’m glad I didn’t book us a hotel on Key West.    

On Thursday, we plan on doing nothing but sitting in a cabana by the pool. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2024 Year in Review and Looking Forward to 2025

This year felt a little off for me; I think it was because I was in a mental recovery mode.  I finished my graduate program in June and immediately went on a week-long vacation to Palm Springs.  I do not recommend Palm Springs in June; way too hot.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but the graduate program mentally and physically exhausted me, which I think showed in some of my creative work.  But being able to work with great people like Natalie Hanrion , Coralinx Cosplay , and Anastasia B kept me motivated.  While I didn’t attend as many Cosplay Photo Shoot events as in the past, the ones I did attend were helpful in keeping the creativity flowing.  I also took some time this year to reflect on a few things and will be making some changes for 2025. In 2024, I shot 6241 frames, which is a 30-percent decrease from last year.  I edited 3187 frames, which is a 40-percent decrease from 2023.  I think this year, I started focusing on being very min...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Optical Spot

The weekend of November 16 th , I got a little ambitious and did four sessions to test out the Lindsey Adler Optical Spot .     I originally rented the optical spot from LensRentals , but that session had to be rescheduled; however, I didn’t want the rental to go to waste, thus a TFP weekend. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 2 FJ400 Westcott Strobes 1 Optical Spot 2 strip boxes 1 bell reflector grids 2 C-stands 2 light stands Sandbags Backdrop stand Savage Fashion Grey Seamless Gobos Gels Spyder Color Checker Card A-clamps Star filter Red Curtains Posing stool     The set up While I did four shoots in one weekend, the lighting setup was basically the same for all four sessions; what changed was the gels and the gobos.  I started with a fashion grey seam...
Post a Comment
Read more

Whispering Waters

On July 19th, I drove up to Poughkeepsie, NY to attend the Whispers of Waterhouse photo event held by Everlore Events . This was an all-day event, which included a light lunch, vendors, arts, and crafts areas, and three different styled shooting locations.  I was one of the roaming photographers for this event, which means you work with models who are not currently working with a featured photographer (who have schedules), and can wander between all three shooting locations at your convenience.  For this event I used: Canon R6 1 Speed light Trigger Umbrella Gels 24 - 105mm lens Camera Settings: This was an outside shoot that had sets in heavy forested areas, out on a pond, and sunny meadows; thus, I was adjusting the settings to the lighting conditions.  I used ISO 100 and 400.  My goal was to keep my aperture around f/4 to achieve a nice background blur; however, depending on the conditions, I had to stop down to f/9 and f/11 to manage the light...
Post a Comment
Read more