Fuegos Artificiales

Everyone would gather
On the twenty-fourth of May
Sitting in the sand
To watch the fireworks display...

...says Rush's song Lakeside Park. Here in Puerto Rico we have to wait for another country's independence celebration to watch a fireworks display. This year I was looking forward for the fourth of July's fireworks to finally practice some techniques to photograph...well, fireworks.

Now that I have acquired what is needed to shoot pictures in low light, I have been reading many articles and websites that say getting good shots of fireworks is not that hard. You need some basic equipment to achieve decent pictures: a camera (of course) with a wide angle lens, a tripod and a remote shutter release. Once you have that, you play around with the settings and the only thing you are missing are the fireworks.

I have bought most of my photography equipment from Adorama.com. They have a series of how-to-videos made by @jmarkwallace that are great to learn different techniques. Last week he tweeted 8 tips for mastering firework photography. Today I applied them with my camera and here are the results. These shots were taken from Parque de la Laguna del Condado facing the lagoon and the Dos Hermanos bridge that connects San Juan with the Condado area.

This was my first time shooting fireworks and my window of opportunity wasn't that big since the show lasted less than 10 minutes. I used my Canon Rebel XTi on BULB mode, f/10 - f/14, mounted on a tripod and released the shutter remotely, I used two of my lenses .

Canon Ef-s 18-55 3.5/5.6 IS

Canon Ef-s 18-55 3.5/5.6 IS

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro

Canon Ef-s 18-55 3.5/5.6 IS

Canon Ef-s 18-55 3.5/5.6 IS

Canon Ef-s 18-55 3.5/5.6 IS

Canon Ef-s 18-55 3.5/5.6 IS 

Four days in Culebra Island

For our mini summer getaway we spent a few days in the small island of Culebra, east of Puerto Rico, with our good friends Scott, Kay, Ian and Vivian.

We took the ferry and brought our cars, with all the luggage and groceries inside, including Scott's kayak on the roof of their car.

We stayed at a nice hotel near Ensenada Fulladosa, each room had its own kitchen so it was very easy to prepare food for the kids and leave them watching movies while we went to the restaurant just steps away from our room.

We spent the days moving from one beach to another, visiting Punta Soldado, Zoni Beach, Flamenco Beach and Tamarindo Beach on the South. Except for a couple of showers one of the days, the weather was perfect to spend the days at the beach. We had a chance to snorkel and see all kind of wildlife such as green sea turtles, sting and manta rays, all sort of fish including a few barracudas and many corals. The Poe family used their kayak to explore away from the shore, even adventuring off to Cayo Luis Peña.

Overall we spent four great days with really good friends doing what we all like to do. Of course having four small children you are never free of unexpected incidents. That last day Claudia fell on the wet floor of our room and hit her chin opening a big gash that required eight stitches. On the positive side we now know where Culebra's CDT is.


You can see more pictures here.

Hacia el mar..

Estas son imágenes de unos tinglares liberados en la playa del Balneario de Carolina. Este grupo de tinglares fue encontrado en el fondo de un nido por un residente de Ocean Park. Las demás tortuguitas salieron por su cuenta y llegaron al mar, éstas necesitaron ayuda y el Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales (DRNA) aprovechó para utilizarlas con propósitos educativos.

Esta temporada un gran número de nidos de tinglares se ha registrado en el área turistica de el Condado, Ocean Park e Isla Verde por lo que residentes se han unido para asistir al personal del DRNA. Se han organizado para patrullar las playas en busca de huellas de tortuguitas que salieron de su nido o huellas de hembras adultas que salieron a deshovar. Llevan un registro de las fechas en que han anidado las tortugas para así asegurarse que a los 60 dias (mas o menos) haya vigilancia y proteger a los neonatos. Las tortuguitas en estas fotos se liberaron en presencia de algunos residentes para incentivar su compromiso a ayudar esta especie.

El tinglar o tortuga laúd (Dermochelys coriacea) es la especie de tortuga marina que alcanza mayor tamaño, hasta 6 pies de largo y pesar 1,500 libras. De las siete especies de tortugas marinas es la que mas profundo bucea, mas de 3,000 pies de profundidad. Su dieta son basicamente organismos gelatinosos, como las aguas vivas o medusas. Esto le ha traido muchos problemas a la especie al ser vulnerable a consumir bolsas plásticas. Esto, además de la reducción del habitat para deshovar, ha llevado a los científicos a catalogar la especie en peligro crítico (IUCN).