Posts tagged with vacation
14 April 2007 - Watching the fish underwater in Lanzarote
A young boy watches fish swim past on a boat off the coast of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. The boat’s staff threw food overboard for the fish while the passengers went below decks to watch from the observation windows. As it was the start of the season in May, the boat was nowhere near full and everyone got a good look at the marine life swimming past.
This is the first picture I’ve posted from our honeymoon in Lanzarote last year. I took so many photos it’s daunting to look through them and pick out the ones I want to publish.
11 April 2007 - San Francisco Tourists
Tourists stopped on the sidewalk off Union Square in San Francisco last summer. Despite the city’s reputation for fog the day was sunny and clear.
I had a great time doing some street photography of course!
1 April 2007 - Alcatraz Control Center
The Control Center in Alcatraz. This room is visible to all visitors to the prison and is beautifully preserved.
I couldn’t find anything specific about this room but Alcatraz History has a very good site with lots of information about the prison on Alcatraz Island.
31 March 2007 - A view on an Alcatraz Street
Looking through a doorway onto one of the streets of Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco. Tourists congregate while listening to the electronic tour guide.
I think I should have all my photos of Alcatraz and San Francisco posted before my next trip there in July.
24 January 2007 - Tourists on the tram
Tourists on a tram in Chinatown, San Francisco. I got lots of smiles and waves from the passengers when they saw my camera pointed at them!
18 January 2007 - Looking out from Homely House
Last September we stayed in Dingle for a weekend and had lunch in Homely House, a restaurant in the town. Check out the previous link for a picture of Brian Lapen and EagleSpirit who ran the cafe.
Unfortunately for Dingle they’re now in Hawaii, and the building was destined for demolition last I heard so it’s quite likely this view is gone now!
16 November 2006 - Checking the prisoner
“I’m so tired. They’ve had me locked up here for years. I’m in solitary confinement for my sins. I was set up I tell you! It wasn’t me!”
A tourist looks in on a cell in Alcatraz in the solitary confinement wing. Luckily I was able to walk out immediately. Not a pleasant place.
Besides the main subject of this image, it’s the small details I like. That barely noticed feather on the far right grabs me by the shoulders and screams, “you don’t know the half of what I’ve seen!”
Alcatraz Island is now inhabited by the birds and I presume security staff but I think the birds have a better life with all the tourists around hefting lunches and sandwiches from the mainland.
Imagine the scene, me and a few of the others scrambling to get a shot of this seagull. I had my wide angle lens fitted so I had to lean forward for the gull to fill the frame! It’s a sign of how tame they are that we got this shot even if he did eye me suspiciously.
7 November 2006 - Looking onto Freedom
A young woman talks on her mobile phone while looking out a barred window in Alcatraz Prison, San Francisco. Walking through the prison was quite an experience, especially as tourists like myself took photos and listened to the audio tour while wandering. It was easy to imagine how awful incarceration must be looking out the windows and through the bars of cells.
This was shot in the prison canteen and I rotated the image on purpose to add a little interest.
No thank you – gulp!
5 November 2006 - S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien
The Liberty Ship S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien lies anchored at Pier 45, Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco. It’s visible to all the tourists boarding the ferry to Alcatraz and is open to the public.
I didn’t get a chance to look inside, but ssjeremiahobrien.org makes me wish I did. She was one of the ships used in D-Day 1944 and made eleven crossings of the English Channel.
The small writing on the forward gun reads, “Miss Jerry O’Brien”. That looks like a shamrock behind the young lady accompanying the signature. Is there an Irish connection?
In June 1943 the Liberty Ship S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien slid down the ways at the New England Shipbuilding Corporation in South Portland, Maine. Shortly thereafter she entered service, operated by Grace Line for the War Shipping Administration. Named for the first American to capture a British naval vessel during the Revolutionary War, the O’Brien made seven World War II voyages, ranging from England and Northern Ireland to South America, to India, to Australia. She also made eleven crossings of the English Channel carrying personnel and supplies to the Normandy beaches in support of the D-Day invasion. After the war, she was “mothballed” and laid up in the Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, north of San Francisco.