The Voice Of A Traveler

If a man speaks at sea where no woman can hear him, is he still wrong? That, my friend, is the question.

I had one of the best birthdays of my life. Not a lot of people knew that it was my birthday, but it was really great. First off, I hung out a bit with my friend Chris, who is the black label artist on the Ryndam. We went and found a wifi spot to get internet, and I got a lesson on color theory from him which is a little ironic considering he is the resident black and white photographer. I was then able to talk on the phone with all three of my lovely family members. Later I hung out in the OB with a bunch of friends. The next night I was able to hang out with more people who didn’t realize that my birthday was the 3^rd, so I kinda had two birthday parties. Between the two nights I got more than enough free drinks. Also, my boss Tino bought a huge bottle of Grey Goose Vodka for me, and his wife gave me Burberry London cologne. So now I get to smell good when I drink vodka!

Life on a ship is constantly changing and evolving. Passengers are new and different every week. Crew members come and go as their contracts end. Contract length varies from job to job. My contract of 8 months is definitely one of the longer ones. I have friends who have 9 or 10 month contracts, but most are in the 4 to 6 month range. Then there are people who are only here for 1 to 3 months, and a few are only here for a couple of weeks. Of course not everyone got on the ship at the same time, so people are always leaving and then being replaced by new people.

We have a new photographer on the team. He is from Seattle and so as he’s an American citizen, he can help me shoot the gangways. This makes it a lot easier for us to get more photos and then once every two weeks I’ll get the day off from shooting as he’ll do it by himself. Earlier in the week Chris, Justin and I were on the aft of the ship taking long exposure photos, and we got some great results, particularily one photo. We used Justin’s fish-eye lens coupled with Chris’s full frame sensor. The result is stunning. I have it uploaded in the photo gallery. The city lights that you see are Juneau and the moon is also shining through the clouds. The fish-eye effect is really amazing, especially on a full frame camera.