Vuvuzela Ringtone

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Last week I spoke at a The Ontario Fermentors Guild AGM on the use of social media for small business. The hotel that I was staying at was around 20 minutes away from Niagara Falls and the I needed to check off another todo on my life list of things to do. Item number 54 “Ride on the Maid of the Mist”. I packed my things into the bright white PT Cruiser [That's another story of rental car roulette I'll post at a later date.] and made tracks via the GPS to the mighty Niagara falls. I did not have much time to pull this off because of my afternoon flight home out of Hamilton.

The GPS chirped “Left, right, left, right” past the cheesy motels on the outskirts of town. As I hastily made my way through the world famous honeymoon hell on this very wet and rainy day I heard the woman on the GPS announce “You have reached your destination!” I sure had. What lay before me was the mighty Niagara Falls and it was huge. Tons of mist rising up out of the canyon. It was awesome in scale and beauty and the massive casinos and hotels that wrung it’s perimeter no longer mattered. There are few places on earth that do that to a person. The Grand Canyon, the desert in Almeria Spain, and the Rocky Mountains all have left me with the same feelings upon first glance.

I parked the car and whisked down the rain swept hill past the arcades and 1970′s haunted house amusements to the entrance of the attraction. Only $14 bucks to ride into the falls. A deal I thought to myself. I paid the ticket and went down the elevator to the waiting lady of the mist.

She was a beauty of a boat and just as I had imagined her. The sharp smell of burning diesel fuel, from the Maid, washed over me and into my nostrils. Yes we were going on a boat ride into the falls and it was going to take the power and torque of the mighty engine below the decks to do it.

We pushed off and I wrapped myself in the bright blue disposable poncho that was to protect me and my camera gear from the harsh punishment of the mighty mist that was about to deluge the fair maid and myself. I was excited and giggled  as I madly snapped self portraits with my iPhone to prove that I indeed did take the ride on the river.

I am not sure why I was so tickled to be on the Maid of the Mist but I was. As we steamed past the first set of falls the rain and mist began to pound the passengers and boat. My camera gear was taking a punishing from the less than gentle mist. I cleaned the lens and snapped up shots as I could. When we finally edged the bow of the boat into the leading edge of the falls the water that was pouring over the top deck and bow had most of the tourists all in a flap. We sat there nose to nose with the falls in a strange show down. Finally as the détente eased the boat slowly began to turn as she did so many times before. The falls would win this again today and we would limp back to the waiting dock where a new set of passengers would ride to the wet edge of the river.

Yes I had ridden the Maid of the Mist and checked off another of my life’s todo’s. It was fun and now I look to the list for the next crazy adventure that waits to be crossed off.

• Apple iPhone
• Baseline DCT, Huffman coding
• TiltShift – iPhone App
• Lo-Mob – iPhone App
• Flickr for iPhone
• GPS Latitude: 49 deg 17′ 32.07″ N
• GPS Longitude: 123 deg 8′ 38.74″ W

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This was shot on the old set of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” in the Tabernas Desert, near Almeria Spain. The set has been turned into a pretty cheesy attraction but we stayed the night near by and felt compelled to pay homage to the western legend. This set and the surrounding desert was host to the plethora of spaghetti westerns produced in the 60′s and 70′s. I guess the attraction [Mini Hollywood]  is worth it if you are in the area but I would not necessarily go out of my way to visit the old western set unless you are a spaghetti western freak. My 4.5 year old son really thought this was a real cemetary and I could not convince him otherwise.

Here is a slide show from the rest of the day spent there:

• Camera: Lumix DMC-LZ8
• Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
• Aperture: f/5.7
• Focal Length: 17.5 mm
• ISO Speed: 100

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I love this one for the rough grindhouse look and the overly saturated colours. Bigger than life just like a show girl. Shot in Seattle on 1st Avenue.

• Camera: Lumix DMC-LZ8
• Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
• Aperture: f/5.7
• Focal Length: 17.5 mm
• ISO Speed: 100

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Well it hit today. The 12th Annual International Photo Competition edition of Photolife Magazine that I was lucky enough to place fifth in the category of “People, Family, Friends, Strangers” I had found out that the image had placed back in December and I have been eagerly anticipating it’s arrival on the news stand shelves ever since.

I have been published before in magazines like the Georgia Straight and 24Hr magazine, among others this however is a pretty big deal for me as the competition was fierce with thousands of entries from around the world. The other thing that I am so very proud of is the fact that I shot the image on a Lumix procumer point and shoot. The rest of the winning images were all shot on DSLRs and SLR. I am a small camera fan and like the portability and “always with me” style that it brings.

I may be a new media guy but I have to admit still like the feeling of being published on real paper and cover stock, it just feels so tangible. I did also rush out and buy up the entire rack at the local Chapters.

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Lost in thought

This shot is from our trip to Oahu in 2007 on the east side of the island at the Kualoa Ranch jeep tours. They are not actually jeeps but rather ex Swiss Army six wheel drives that were actually pretty cool. The tour goes through the Ka’a'awa Valley where Jurassic Park, Windtalkers, You, Me & Dupree, 50 First Dates and Lost were filmed. It’s about two hours of six by six fun in the jungle. I would probably think about eating lunch elsewhere if you go in afternoon as the food there is pretty lame.

• Camera: Canon EOS 10D
• Exposure: 0.006 sec (1/180)
• Aperture: f/8.0
• Focal Length: 80 mm
• ISO Speed: 100

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Last Memorial Day I took the family to Seattle on a bit of a whim. We hit the Woodlands Park zoo and then went downtown. When we were at the Pike Place Market this old guy in a uniform just walked up and grabbed a crab out of the tank and started waving it at everyone. Then he just stood there and posed for pictures. I don’t think he was really crazy at all. Crazy or not he takes a great picture.

• Camera: Lumix DMC-LZ8
• Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
• Aperture: f/5.7
• Focal Length: 17.5 mm
• ISO Speed: 100

Photo Credit © 2010 JP Holecka

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Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts

The city of Valencia has an opera house that rivals that of Sidney without a doubt. In fact it is the 3rd largest opera house in the world after Metropolitan Opera House in New York City and Chicago’s Civic Opera Theatre. The Valencia Opera House [Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts] is located on a dry river bed that rings the old part of the city. The river was diverted and turned into a giant public space after devastating flood in 1957. Today the river bed plays host to Europe’s largest aquarium, a massive science world, IMAX theatre, and the opera house designed by native architect Santiago Calatrava. The opera house stands very tall and resembles a giant Spartan war helmet and is covered in Calatrava’s often used white concrete with an outer layer of broken mosaic tile [trencadís]. In the setting sun the building captures the warm rays and radiates them right back out. This is juxtaposed with the massive blue reflecting pools that connect it with the rest of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències [City of Arts and Sciences].

If you are planning a trip to Spain I can’t recommend a stop over enough. The City of Arts and Sciences it simply amazing and will dazzle and delight all those of any age.

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Photo Credit © 2009 JP Holecka

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Well I pushed both our old Samsung point and shoot camera’s SD video capabilities and iMovie’s distaste for 1st gen Macbook Pro’s with only 2 gigs of RAM to the limit! None the less, I have edited together just over 17 minutes of a very home style movie that did not deviate at all from the iMovie “Comic Book” theme. It took about a week, part time, to put this little film together and I will say I did have a lot of fun learning the weird iMovie workflow. I did learn a lot on this trip and will publish some tips on going to Disneyworld. If you have questions please drop them in the comments and I’ll be more than happy to attempt to answer them.

Cheers.

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This was shot early morning in the Spanish town of Cadaques near the French border. The picturesque town is one where Dali used to vacation as a boy and then later on returned and painted many non-surreal paintings. This is where we spent our last days on our trek through Spain and can’t recommend it enough. It’s so quaint it almost hurts!

• Camera: Panasonic DMC-LZ8
• Exposure: 0.033 sec (1/30)
• Aperture: f/3.3
• Focal Length: 5.2 mm
• ISO Speed: 125
• Exposure Bias: 0/100 EV

Photo Credit: © JP Holecka

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