Underwater Photos from my Canon in a Ziplock Baggie

Who would have guessed that putting my canon point and shoot in a glorified ziplock bagwould actually take good underwater photos. Good thing the camera was old, and I'm ready to upgrade, because one of my waterproof camera baggies did start to leak by the end of the trip, but they worked well enough to get some great shots. Though the tropical fish and coral lost their luster without a strong flash. But otherwise, I'm quite happy.
More Hawaii photos coming soon!

Manta Ray Dive!

So R- and I learned to dive for our Hawaii trip. Many more photos to come, but here are screenshots from the DVD from our night dive with the manta rays off the Kona coast of the Big Island of Hawaii.

From Manta Dive

The images courtesy of the dive operator (for the exorbitant fee of $70, but totally worth it). Will post some video clips online if I ever figure out how. (Any suggestions on what to use to pull clips from a DVD for upload, do let me know!)

Mini-honeymoon Photos: Moab, UT - May 2008

Photos from our "mini-honeymoon" that fit in between the wedding and Romina's graduation, and before our main trip to Hawaii. A visit to Moab, UT, home of Arches National Park and Canyonlands, often overshadowed by nearby Bryce and Zion Canyons, not to mention Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.

We were impressed by spectacular sights, spectacular skies, and a surprisingly dazzling array of dessert flowers. Also, our first shot at "adventure travel" with rappelling down 10 story canyons and rafting, a prelude to even more at Hawaii.


La Sal Mountains from Arches National Park - May 2008


Park Avenue, Arches, Utah - May 2008

Hawaii Photos, coming soon!

My photo of Bobby Flay at BRGR

Was at BRGR the other day. Great burgers incidentally. Had my brush with a (foodie) superstar (though my one visit to Mesa Grill, albeit many many years ago [2000] wasn't so memorable), waiting to buy a burger for his daughter. Nice to know BRGR gets Bobby Flay's stamp of approval. Checked my iphone to make sure it really was flay, and then used it to snap this photo.

Wedding Photos

Many of you have been asking about photos. Here are the photos from our awesome photographer Shai Eynav. You can order any of the regular pictage prints directly from the website. If you want prints of the panoramas (the 2nd link), let me know and I will coordinate with the photographer.

• http://www.pictage.com/492274
  
• http://www.shaiphoto.com/rominaben
  

Plus, we'd love to see any pictures you might have of the wedding. Let me know, and we'll put links up on a new site at http://www.rominaAndben.com Also, in case you're interested, thoughts from the Memory Box will be there as well.

Vietnam photos - Spring 2007

Trip to Vietnam was short, most of our time was spent in Saigon. Most salient memory is I first experienced air pollution so thick that walking outdoors left a slimy film on skin. Crossing streets through the ever present heavy motor scooter traffic who considered traffic lights as suggestions was only possible by confidently stepping into the street, walking at constant speed, so that the scooters can then avoid you. And said traffic made navigating in a car no fun, so that after being stuck in grid lock for almost an hour, we only escaped when our tour guide got outside to direct traffic.

Photos from Ithaca - September 2007

DSC_4869
Originally uploaded by benho.

Just a few photos from the past month.

Whee... I'm a published photographer!

So I now have 3 things on my resume as professional photographer (in case I ever decide to switch careers), the couple hundred dollars I was paid by my department to photograph my grad school graduation ceremony, as official photographer for Stanford Wushu, and as of today, as published photographer on Schmap.

Well sorta anyway. Schmap is a web-based travel guide that uses Flickr to get free photographs, and probably used my photo for the Westward Look resort (a beautiful place incidentally) near Tucson, probably because it's the only one on Flickr.

R- actually beat me getting on Schmap with her photo of Davies Hall in SF.

Anyway, good deal. Schmap gets free photos and free word of mouth, and flickr users get their 15 nanoseconds of fame.