Magic in Key West

I have so many more photos of Key West left to share with you. It was my favourite port in the Caribbean and a close second overall. Everytime I got off there I would go mad with pictures. The place is so different to what I am used to and I would move there in a second.

You must get fed up of seeing this ship but it was my life for 6 months so tough luck. I can never get bored with it as it is such a beautiful place to be and you should go on it if you can.

Happy New Year Everyone

Ok first things first, Happy new year everyone! I hope you had an eventful new years. Mine consisted of working into the early hours but I did get a front row seat on a Thames boat for the London fireworks. I had never seen the fireworks in person so it was a great sight. Between that and taken me over 3 hours to get home (normally 45 minutes) I had a great time.

Now I guess its the time of year to think of resolutions not to keep (although I fully intend to this year… as always). I want to travel more around the country. I haven’t really travelled outside London in the UK although I have been lucky enough to visit many places abroad. My UK travel record is terrible so first on my list is Wales. It has a great coastline and many national parks that will keep me busy for way more then a week.

Here is a place that we haven’t visited in a while. Key West never had a great sky for photos. No clouds were ever in the sky which might seem perfect for some propel not not for us photographers. I never tried surfing although I think I would be terrible at it.

A Bar in Key West

The first late night we had it Key West we didn’t know what to do. Two of us wanted to just walk around taking night shots of many things and some of us wanted to go to a few bars. We compromised and went to a bar quickly first where I took this photo.

I didn’t like the feel of the place. I don’t know why but we moved on quickly. We had a great night in the end. The highlight… running back to the ship at 1am hoping that we weren’t late for the all aboard. The ship doesn’t wait for stall. Luckily we made it.

Welcome to South Beach

Key west is such an idyllic place. it seems like a small surf town but it has a wild side at night which I got to visit a few times with a late (or early depending on how you look at it) sail time. During the day I spent most of my time here on South beach near the Most SOuthern Point Cafe.

Serenity in the Harbor

The ship has just gone back over the Atlantic and I am upset that I am not back working on it. I may go back one day but for the moment I am happy back in London.

The ship was back in Key West on Sunday so I thought I would mark the occasion with this photo of it in Key West harbor. Everytime the ship is in port my Facebook gets lit up with where everyone is. The joys of free Wifi in restaurants is hard to forget. It is so different to the really slow ship internet and did I mention that its FREE!!! 

Anyway enough of that. Its hard to make the ship look bad when it is in such a beautiful surrounding. I have said many times that I want to live in Key West. For those of you that haven’t been I would suggest that if you are in Florida, pop down even just for a day. The chilled atmosphere will do you wonders.

Night Life on the Magic

I still didn’t have a Tripod with me while going out in Key West at night. I made do with a high ISO which produced more then a little noise. I have to thank Topaz denoise in helping me out on this occasion along with replacing the sky from a bracketed exposure.

Key West had such a great night life and I was lucky enough to experience an overnighter in the Florida Keys. Lots of bars were filled with crew and only 2 people didnt make it back to the ship (Quite impressive when there are around 1500 crew).

We dont have these in England. Its strange how you can buy a newspaper on a corner of a street. Admittedly, its quite a good idea and alot quicker then popping down to the shops.

Key West, Florida

We done alot with a free week in Miami. Went out every night, hired a car and went exploring and took photos at every opportunity. Im not sure what part of Miami this was in but I think we went to the Hard Rock Cafe on the same night. All the time I was in america I didnt have a tripod with me so had to improvise on every object possible. I found a wall by the scene and pirched my camera on it and tried to compose the scene the best I could.

The Ghost Tower

I had so much fun at late night Key West. We got off the ship at around 11pm and had until 12:30am to get back to the ship. Some people just wanted to go to a bar but Me and another photographer from onboard just wanted to walk around taking photos so thats what we did. I was very disappointed with myself though as I didn’t have a tripod with me and wasn’t allowed to use one from the ship. This meant that all my night photos had to be taken with a high ISO which produced alot of noise. I think that I managed to keep it at bay with my editing technique but a tripod would of definately come in handy.

We done the Western Caribbean to start and the first port I went to was Key West. It ended up being my favorite port in the whole of the caribbean. It is so relaxed and chilled, and also has the best cheeseburger place ever! The key lime pie isnt bad either.

This was taken by the Southern-most point Cafe, close to the tip of Key west

The Green castle

While in Miami I found out what ship I was assigned on. They put me on the Disney Magic. I wasn’t too sure whether I was “Disney” enough but it actually turned out very well. 

The second part of training bought me to Disney World, Florida for the Disney Traditions training. This is where they teach you everything about disney: how to behave, look and history behind everything. They also let you into the parks for the day. I took this time not to learn anything about disney but to take lots of photos.

One of my friends hired a car and we went for a drive around Miami. He had an idea to drive down to Key Biscayne and see what was there. We found a national park hidden right at the tip of the island. This is the lighthouse hidden away. I got some great shots and also some very burnt feet from walking on the sand.

HELLO!!!

Ok so after all my travels I am finally back home and it feels so good. After saying hello to a few friends I got straight down to sorting out all of my photos into lightroom, finding out that I had to buy a new 3tb hard drive in the process. 

I have taken so many images that i didn’t know how to even start processing them or in what order. I decided to do it in some order and take you though what I done, place by place.

I am starting off with the hotel I stayed in, in Miami. I went there for training for the cruise ships. I stayed at the Hilton Homewood and was lucky enough to meet some good friends there. You can see most of them sitting around the pool as we done most nights.