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You can now see all my photos from the trip so far at the Sosauce.com gallery.

Through the grass:

Ducking into the frame:

In the end I took a long walk along the beach, camera in hand all the way. Here are some photos from today…

A sea lion:

Looking back at the Norwegian Sun, my home for four weeks:

Others walking on the beach:

I took photos of non-ladies on the beach too, but meanwhile:

A bike and a ship:

Working with nets:

This dog followed me for many miles of my walk. Later the dog patrol tried to catch him:

A sea lion on the pier:

As I framed the sea lion for a closeup, it shed a single, tiny, milky tear. So cute!

I’ll post more photos tomorrow…

This is a three exposure HDR photo, something I’ve not used yet with a human in the frame. Normally the idea is to make sure nothing is moving, as you get a fading effect. You can, of course, use a long exposure to makes sure moving subjects disappear completely. Here I set the timer, got into position, and kept as still as possible. The focus is slightly off, but otherwise I’m happy with the picture.

Today I’m in Puerto Madryn, Argentina, a city that exists purely for the seals and whales and walruses and penguins. I have four hours to fill, so I hope to see at least two kinds of large sea mammal/bird.

I only took five photos in Montevideo. Two of Bob and Nora, one of the cruise ship, one of some tango dancers, and the photo above. It’s a HDR photo, but the tone mapping is, I hope, not overly unrealistic.

Thankfully Bob and Nora, some friends from Germany, were in town. They are traveling around South America, and a cheap cabin on the Norwegian Sun cruise ships turned out to be a good value way to round Cape Horn. Norwegian Sun? That’s the cruise ship I’m working on right now! We missed each other by one cruise, but it was good to spend the day chatting with old friend, catching up on what they’ve been doing since June. Facebook is good, but long conversations are better.

Note, the following photo was taken under the red umbrellas, which really, really screwed up the colour balance. Rectifying it results in the green background… which I find a quite interesting effect.

Many of the photos I take are of buildings or animals or landscapes. Sometimes I take photos of people. I rarely take photos of myself. I was thinking recently “why not?” and couldn’t come up with a good answer.

So I’ve decided to try out some self portrait shots, and make them more interesting than just pointing the camera at my own face. Here is a photo taken with a tripod, zoom lens and bulb, using the not-very-smooth reflective surface of the flower in Buenos Aires.

Today I joined the Norwegian Sun cruise ship. I spent most of the afternoon catching up on sleep. Then I decided to see how much more similar I could make the two photos I posted yesterday. I think this is a fun way to learn about HDR and colour manipulation in software. That the start image is so similar, it lets me see what kind of things Trey Radcliffe has done to his final image. Recreating the same look with my image made me learn much more about Lightroom.

Bonus non-lizard photo. Welcome, Mr. Hermit Crab. This was also a very tricky shot to get, as that crab does one thing when it emerges from its shell: RUN! Thankfully the shell is a handy handle. I simply picked the crab up and placed it back in a good location, over and over, until I finally got a shot properly framed and in focus. I had to do it without looking through the viewfinder or the LCD screen, because the camera was right on the sand to get the right angle. The focus isn’t perfect, but again, I’m happy with the final image.

Soooo, the first half of my winter work trip is coming to a close. Last night my two shows went very well. I’ve started adding a “funny” hint about standing ovations in my show, and so far I’ve had at least partial standing ovations in every show since. This makes me feel good, because I like standing ovations, and the more I get the more work I’ll get. It makes me feel bad at the same time though; humans are sooo easy to manipulate! I feel like Kelhus from The Prince of Nothing series.

After my show, instead of packing, I spent a few hours in the officers bar. As I mentioned on twitter, I fell into the roll of DJ and had a lot of fun. The first track I played had everyone cheering and singing and dancing, so I stuck with it. Thankfully people kept cheering at each new song I played, even when I got cheeky and dropped in tracks like All That She Wants by Ace of Base.

I’ll do a bit more of a writeup of my trip so far in another blog post, and set out where I’ll be going and what I’ll be doing over the next four weeks.

Here’s a photo of two lizards fighting. Yes, more lizard photos, but I found this subject endlessly entertaining in Aruba.

Also, I’m not sure yesterday’s photo worked at all. It didn’t show up in my google reader anyway. Here it is again: