This is the central plaza at the Riu Palace Hotel just south of Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We stayed here for a week in late December And while it isn't "the last resort," 1/2 mile south of here, there were no resorts and a mile-long stretch of beach and trees and jungle. That's where I went every morning to watch the sun come up over the Caribbean.
Then I would stroll back to pampered civilization, take a spot by the pool and think from time to time about the blizzard that was raging in my home state. Not a bad way to spend a week. :-) Get a bird's eye view of this place by clicking here.
The exposure for this photo was 1/200 of a second but the rocks I was watching the waves crash against had been exposed to the pounding ocean for thousands of years. The sea and the rocks are timeless. We are not.
This is Derek and Alicia. The blurring of the rice (or tapioca) is an accident - I had been using a slow shutter speed inside the church. But the blurring adds an important element to this photo. I'd rather be good than lucky but I settle for lucky more often than not.
AKA - "The Lifeguard." This photo was taken a couple miles south of Playa del Carmen on the famous "Maya Riviera."
Lying under the shade of palm trees is not something I do very often. But on a recent "retreat" to Mexico with my family I was; and when I looked up from my beach chair, I noticed the interesting curls of the tips of the palm leaves above me and so I took a few photos.
This scene is fairly monochrome except for the pale brown of the cabin. And I was snow bound. 18" of wet snow fell during the night before this photo was taken. It was a beautiful place to be marooned.
What can I say? They saw my camera and posed. I had to take the photo! Of course, if I had had a little more time I could have done this one right. But this will have to do. At least the exposure is good.
HDR is a hot thing in photography right now. HDR stands for "high dynamic range" and the technique uses layering in Photoshop to get a photo that sometimes looks a little unreal. This scene required two layers and was taken at sunrise in Mexico a few years ago.
This is a spot I have photographed often. I blame Photoshop for the somewhat surreal look this photo has.