Conch Shell Juggling

The "Find-Something-Different-To-Juggle-In-Every-Port-Challenge" recently resulted in a cascade of three conch shells up in the air on Coco Cay in the Bahamas.  They weren't the easiest things to juggle but some of the shells are really very pretty.  Some species are sold for $25 per shell.  I spotted several large Iguanas on the island but they didn't seem too keen on the idea of getting tossed around in front of my camera.

THE EYE OF THE JUGGLER EXAMINES TABUAERAN

I was in Kiribati last month with Holland America.  Here is a the final edit for the segment I did on Tabuaeran for my new travelogue series.  I've really been enjoying practicing my skill set...  Shooting, editing, narrating, and hosting.  It really makes me appreciate just how much work goes into video production.  I composed some music too in this segment using Garage Band.  The theme music I licensed from a company called Premium Beat.  I'm now moving on to work on a segment on Bora Bora which was absolutely spectacular and so much fun to start shooting underwear with the GoPro.

BORA BORA AND FRENCH POLYNESIA

Lately, I've been shooting and editing a lot of video.  I am producing a travel video series.  Here is some sweet footage I took in the lagoon in Bora Bora.  I shot it with my new waterproof GoPro4 Silver.  Some of this footage I shot in 4k.  It does 15 fps in the super high definition.  I really like the camera because I enjoy shooting covertly.  It's very small and it's possible to get very authentic moments when I'm on location and people seldom notice that they are being recorded.  I often just clip it on my belt.  It's a cool little video tool.  On this assignment, I joined Holland America's Statendam out of Honolulu and cruised down to the very remote Fanning Island in Kiribati and then south to French Polynesia before returning home out of Papeete.  I'm calling the video series "Eye of the Juggler" and it will be available for sale after my performances when I work on cruise ships.  It's fun.  I get to write, record narration and practice my storytelling and editing skills.

SPRING IN EUROPE

I’m back in the Mediterranean on a three week spring tour on Holland America Line.   Enjoying the process of getting back up to speed with my Canon.  Here are some of my favorite images so far.

This tiny little fella drew everyone’s sympathies on the streets of Ravenna.   

He was shivering and not very comfortable around the other dogs.
They must have seemed like giants to him!

A snail climbs a stalk of grass in Sardinia, Italy.  There were thousands and thousands of them.

A sea gull riding the wind next to the ship while sailing from Naples, Italy.  Simple works.  :-)

A young man in Catonia (Sicily) cleaning up after the fish have been brought to market.  

There is a really amazing fish market there.

A man feeds pigeons in Korcula (Croatia) to the delight of a toddler.

Korcula, Croatia.  It was once home to Marco Polo

Ravenna, Italy has some amazing estuaries where shacks are set up to catch sea food.

CAPRI, Italy

I just recently had the wonderful opportunity to photograph the famous Island of Capri while visiting Naples (Napoli), Italy.  Capri is an island a half hour by ferry from the port of Naples.  Once there, I took the full island tour and shot the beautiful famous natural arches.  The highlight of the tour is going inside the Grotta Azzurra, a cave which illuminates itself with natural sparkling blue light.  To see the clip on Vimeo, click here.

mini.SCILLA

mini.SCILLA from Michael Menes on Vimeo.


I've been experimenting with making "tilt-shift" videos during my travels.  This is one of the picturesque Italian villa of Scilla across the Straight of Messina.

Industrial Ruins of Messina, SICILY

Across the Tracks...

A few favorites from a cool area I discovered across the railroad tracks in Messina.  (Except for the last two images which I shot the same day downtown and in the railway station.)  Really amazing rawness created by man and nature.  The place feels very haunted.  There were also people living off the grid in the ruins...

Paraty, BRAZIL

Paraty, Brazil

Paraty was used as an entry port during the slave trade.  When slavery was abolished in 1888 in Brazil, it became a ghost town overnight and was forgotten.  It was rediscovered some 75 years later and is now a Unesco World Heritage site.  There are many pousadas (inns) right inside the historic area and excellent snorkeling tours available at the pier.

These photos are part of my tour on Oceania's Regatta, a small upscale vessel visiting some of the smaller ports along the Brazilian coastline around Rio de Janeiro.  It's been an awesome three weeks with the camera.  A bit difficult to update the blog, but I will post more images on my return...  Paraty had been on my list of places I really wanted to see for a while. I was able to photograph it on two different days about a week apart.  At high tide, some streets flood near the sea.  I didn't get to see this on my first visit.  Indeed, weather and the time of day can make a huge difference in terms of photography. The reflections on the water are simply amazing!

Taormina and Spisone, SICILY

My Day Trip to Taormina and Spisone, SICILY

Taormina is a famous old Sicilian town near Messina with spectacular views of Mt. Etna and the Mediterranean Sea. Above Taormina is another small village with a fortress and church a bit less touristy as it requires a set of strong legs to walk about 45 minutes up uneven steps to reach the summit...

Well worth the effort though!

Near Taormina is Spisone, a famous beach that draws rock climbers as there are some good climbing spots there.  My partner took this photo of me relaxing on the rocks in the shade...

And a lovely place to try some great Italian food!!

Chania, CRETE

Recent Photo Exposé of Chania, Crete

For the past couple months, I've been visiting Chania each Friday on the Navigator of the Seas.  I really love the vibe in the old city.  So much history on this Greek island!  The earliest civilization in all of Europe was established here on Crete.  There are many important geological digs around the island with many layers of old, new and everything in between marked by an occasional reminder of Turkish conquest...  I was delighted to find a lovely stretch of beach just past Koum Kapi on the West side of town.  I'd love to stay a few nights in this old city.  There are abundant small rooms for rent.

The Acropolis

AN AFTERNOON AT THE ACROPOLIS

I'm busy processing images from a day trip up to the Acropolis.  The size of the ruins is hard to appreciate through photography.  I was genuinely impressed and inspired!

New Production Cast

New Cast on the Navigator

We have a new cast on the Navigator of the Seas.  I shot their debut of 'Ballroom Fever' last night from the front row.  Truly dazzling!  Here is an image of the new ballroom couple from Russia.

St. Peter's Square

Rome, Italy

Indeed, the Catholic Church puts on quite a show.  I imagine the whole idea is to impress the hell out of anyone walking through these massive pillars.  For sure, there's a whole lot of theater going on here.  Don't miss it if you travel to Italy!

Mohonk Mountain House

New Paltz, New York

This is a panorama I took after my performance at the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York earlier this month.  Mohonk holds a performing arts festival in their parlor space which looks out over beautiful Lake Mohonk.  They present music, dance, theater, comedy, and even juggling!  I've performed several years now at Mohonk and this year was another great show with a full house over the July 4th holiday weekend.  Mohonk is an amazing place recently voted the #2 all-inclusive resort in the Untied States.  There's all sorts of activities like hiking, swimming, horseback riding, tennis, golf, an indoor pool and spa, and much more.  My twelve year old daughter really loves it and can't wait to go again.  Check it out at www.mohonk.com

A Mystery in Athens

Piraeus, Athens

Anyone who has cruised into the port of Athens has walked past this  peculiar eye-sore of a building.  Apparently, it was intended to be some kind of passenger terminal.  I couldn't find anything about it on Google.  I'll have to try to ask some of the locals...  The scaffolding appears to be keeping the roof from collapsing.  Maybe it was designed incorrectly or they just ran out of money.  I'm surprised more people haven't discovered it's wide-angle appeal.  I stitched both of these together using Panorama Maker 5 and then adjustments in Camera Raw and a bit in Photoshop.

Photo Exposé | The Iginia FS Ferry (Sicily)

Sicily, Italy

I recently got to take a wonderful journey forty years back in time on this lovely vintage ferry service that connects Sicily to mainland Italy.  The Straight of Messina is only a couple kilometers wide and although much discussion has been made over the years of building a proper bridge, the massive earthquake of 1908 that leveled Messina has made the idea controversial and possibly expensive.  Meanwhile, the old ferries (this one built in 1969) continue to take passengers, cars, and even trains back and forth.  Although less convenient to get back and forth than a modern bridge would be, the ferry service definitely has a whole lot of character.

Watching one of the trains disembarking from the front of the ferry was very surreal.  It just seemed like it shouldn't really fit in there!  Once on the mainland, we took a train north to a small beach in the town of Scila and swam in the warm waters and looked back across the straight at the island of Sicily.  All for just a few euros...

The images in this travel exposé will be available soon in my Smugmug gift shop.  Image browsing is free.  Prints and other sundries are available at modest pricing.


Click here to order prints or browse the full gallery.

Inspiration at Sea

Onboard the Navigator of the Seas

I always find inspiration in the different ports I get to visit, but on board, the cruise ship environment often leaves me with very little photographic inspiration.  I find the decor tends to be conventional, inauthentic or bland.  When I've gone out around the ship with my camera, I often return without any good shots.  Recently however, I got inspired by some shots on Trey Ratcliff's blog at StuckinCustoms.com.  He specializes in HDR pohotography and did some amazing images on board the new Disney Fantasy.  Great stuff!  It made me rethink what might be possible and so here are three shots I took this week after touching them up in Camera Raw.  They look really amazing on my iPad3 with its retina display.  The pimples on the basketball are so crisp, that you'd think you could reach out and touch them!  These were all taken with my Canon 7D with its 18 to 135mm lens.

The Galleria in Messina

This is the "Galleria" in downtown Messina. It's very easy to miss this gem of a building.  Sadly, it's currently hardly in use.  I spent about half an hour shooting it from different angles. 


There is a larger, more impressive, and bustling one in Naples, Italy. And in Milan is the famous Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.


About the Image:  It's another vertical panorama made from several exposures.  The final piece will have a height of 12,500 pixels.  I have more processing work to do on this image.  I consider this a "rough-in".  I'll go back to the raw files once I get the presets I like off the compressed jpgs, then rebuild the final panorama applying the presets to the raw exposures.  That wonderful reflection of the canopy glass on the glass floor section wasn't planned.  It came as a complete surprise to me!

Stromboli Volcano

A panorama I caught of the Stromboli Volcano north of Sicily in the Aeolian Islands as we were returning to Civitavecchia (Rome).  They say this volcano has been erupting continuously for the past 2000 years.  It is 3,038 feet high (926 meters).  I was lucky to have one of the Holland America ships cruising next to it to provide a sense of scale.

Royal Caribbean's Ballroom Fever

A still from the RC production show Ballroom Fever featuring the 2011 production cast.  The sets, costumes, and lights are fantastic and the show always features an excellent ballroom dance couple usually from the Ukraine.  Photography is allowed so long as no flash is used.  I shot this in creative-automatic mode which works well without a flash so long as the dancers have stopped moving like in this moment at the end of the show.