Shopping and Pics
Yesterday was the 'shopping' celebration of John and Cleo's daughter for her birthday. After wandering the Mall for an eternity we finally entered a department store that had more kid's clothes than I'd ever seen in one place. With brand names. Brand names, especially for kids, are a rarity in the shops here. Instead of Barbie, you get Beauty, and so on.
Presents purchased, I found what I'd been looking for for over a year. Converse All Star high-tops. The only other shoe I've wanted was a pair of Keds, which I don't think they make anymore. The laces are in and I can't wait to wear them out shooting today. I made a couple of phone calls yesterday, and with luck I'll have someone to carry some of my stuff and watch my back as I take city pictures.
In the meantime I adjusted and posted (under the flap) shots I took last week from the mountain. I don't know what mountain it was and I don't remember at the moment what the town is called, but I'll update later when I figure it out. The shots are from southeast to northwest.
One note: remember; when you do stuff to jpegs in Photoshop, make sure when they come out the other side they are still jpegs. I had to rotate and crop one pic slightly, which required I make a layer. The two resulting psd's (hi and lo res) came out to just over 50 megs and it added just a little time to my uploading last night. I caught it this morning and fixed it.
Click the link below to see the pics. Usual caution to dial-uppers and folks with screens set at 640: the lo-res shots below are mostly 1000 pixels wide, and the clickable hi-res shots are even bigger. May I suggest that if you go for the hi-res you right-click and save (or control click for Macsters), unless you've got some time.
This was one of the first shots of the day, and the only one at all salvageable from the early group. It's from the roof with the tripod, but the wind was blowing pretty well, and folks were walking about making it difficult to get a long range shot off. It's taken with the 200 mm lens with 2x extender. We are some miles away. The tall white building just right of center is the Aurola Holiday Inn in Centro San Jose. As with most of the pics you can click for the full size image.
This is a handheld shot of the city from later during our walkabout on the mountain. It's taken with the 70mm lens, as are all the rest of the shots below. Downtown is in shadow to the left
The compound from the road. From both stories and the roof it has great views of the valley. Note the tripod on the roof where the first picture above came from.
Here's a view of the house from another ridge (sorry, not clickable).
Our guide for the afternoon.
Our guide and el caretaker de la Casa (spanglish anyone?).
Contemplating the meaning of it all, or just taking a good look, it could have been a better pic but I kinda like the composition.
A somewhat different agenda emerges as the berries just beg to be picked. Yes, I ate one, and no, I didn't get sick.
One of the neighbors having a bite to eat.
One of the things you get used to down here is a preponderance of perros. I've had experience in the past being the object of attention of a pack of dogs or two. It can be damned frightening, especially if you don't have a stick or something handy. But they seem to roam freely here, and even in groups don't normally bother the humans. Here's a pack in training. It' seems like mom can't wait to get them out of the house.
Here's one captured. No wonder they stay away from the humans when they get older.
A little respite and contemplation after our day out, my lovely landlady Mari ponders the meaning of it all; or is perhaps just wondering when we serve the cervesa.
Feeling my oats, I switched the camera off of auto and decided to see what I could do in the fading light.
Not horrible, so I pushed the envelope and tried out the predictive focus. A little soft, but my favorite picture of the bunch.
That's all.
