scenic

HDR Friday: Kailua Bay

October 19, 2012 in HDR, Scenic

To continue on with Hawaii's scenic beauty (and 33rd continuous HDR Friday posts)... here's the view of Kailua Bay from the 5th best beach in the world (according to National Geographic), Lanikai Beach!

The wife and I decided to avoid most of the tourist hotspots, i.e. Hanauma Bay, Waikiki Beach and head over to Lanikai Beach for some real R&R :)

Of course to commemorate our "babymoon", we left some footprints ;)

Happy Friday everyone!

HDR Friday: City of Glass

September 14, 2012 in HDR, Scenic, Travel

I guess it's a sign that I need to start traveling again when I have to look back for old photos I took back from 2008. So here we go, back to the beautiful city of Vancouver, view from Stanley Park!

HDR Friday: Sydney Harbour Bridge

July 13, 2012 in HDR

Another oldie but goodie... Sydney Harbour Bridge is nicknamed "The Coathanger" because of its arch-based design. It carries rail, vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian traffic between the Sydney central business district (CBD) and the North Shore. Across from the infamous Sydney Opera Hall, both stands still as the icons of Sydney and it is also the fifth longest spanning-arch bridge in the world. *Source: Wikipedia

Next time we go, I'm aiming for a night shot of this bridge ;)

Happy Friday folks!

P.S. - Those of you who are at San Diego ComicCon this weekend.. I hate you! j/k

HDR Friday: The Place to Unwind

June 15, 2012 in HDR, Travel

Hello folks! It's that day of the week again! Surprisingly I've been able to get this HDR Friday going without missing a beat since February, so I'll try to keep this going as long as I can.

Today's photo represent one of my favorite place to relax in the Pacific Northwest, Vancouver's Portside Park (or Crab Park) located just within the Burrard Inlet.

While sitting on any one of the benches in this park, you would get the waterfront view of seaplanes landing in front of a gorgeous backdrop of North Vancouver and Grouse Mountain in a distance. On the opposite view, behind the benches there's this large grassy field just right below the beautiful architecture of Vancouver skyline, without a doubt this would be a place I would go weekly just to wind down and clear the mind. It's too bad that it's 1300 miles away from Los Angeles and I have yet to find a spot that's similar to this place in Southern California. Anyhow, for bonus photo below is one of my first HDRs of the view taken back in 1998.

2012 Caribbean Cruise Extravaganza – Part 2 - Sint Maarten

March 28, 2012 in HDR, Scenic, Travel

For part 2 of our Caribbean trip.. I'll just give you the tour of the beautiful Sint Maarten. Mainly because I haven't had any chance to finish editing rest of the photos but I digress... so here we go, the multicultural, and island divided between the French & Dutch... Sint Maarten:

We decided to utilize their local taxi tour guide instead of cruise line's excursion package to save us some cash.. after all it still takes us to all the places we wanted to see. So starting off in the French part of the island:

We stopped by the tail end of a nudist colony/beach.. the Orient Beach:

Might I add.. this is our first time ever at a nude beach, and no we did not participate :p

Here are some interesting scenery and lifestyle from the French side:

After exploring through the French side, we arrived into the Dutch territory and on to Maho Beach.. my "must-visit" spot for the whole Caribbean trip. For those who don't know, Maho Beach is located adjacent to the Princess Juliana International Airport! Where all the incoming planes must fly over to land on the run way! Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to wait for a 747 to fly by.. but hey at least now I can say I've experienced it :p

Last stop.. Philipsburg, the main town and capital of Sint Maarten:

Stay tune for part 3... back on the US soil, Saint Thomas of US Virgin Islands! Of course for those of you who missed part 1, you can always check it out HERE.

HDR Friday : Princess Sunset

March 16, 2012 in HDR, Scenic, Travel

It's been about 10 years since the last time I was on a cruise, I almost forgot how gigantic these things were... equipped with almost anything you would need for a vacation getaway, it was our tour guide on this Caribbean excursion! This photo below was taken at Grand Turk (Turks & Caicos Islands), just an hour before sun completely sets and our port departure. Earlier the day, the wifey and I decided to just roam around without my camera and enjoy the island, though I was still scouting for photo spots, I enjoyed every minute of it. Sometime it's better to just soak in the experience and not through a view finder. Considering that it's our first time here in the Caribbean, I knew I would be able to see some amazing sunsets.

Stay tune for the full blog post of our Caribbean excursion and even some street photography from the infamous South Beach Miami =)

For bonus photo.. check out how amazing the atrium looks within the Rudy Princess Cruise Ship:

Honeymoon in Paradise - Part 4 - in Bora Bora

November 04, 2011 in HDR, Personal, Scenic, Travel

After 3 days of relaxation and excitements in Moorea, we finally arrived at the infamous honeymoon Paradise, Bora Bora! Albeit, given our experience, we got to admit that it's not as glamorous as it sounds, our preference is definitely Moorea over Bora Bora but then again it's really just our opinion :)

We got to stay at Sofitel's Motu (Motu = Private Island), and talk about private and quiet, only a good handful of couples on the island with another handful of resort staffs. From what you can see from the photos below, the 3.5 days in Bora Bora we spent most of our time sunbathing, swimming with the fishes (unfortunately not with the reef sharks), kayaking, and a 2 hour tour of their downtown district.

Mari's first time kayaking... after, she sworn to never do it again. :(

Our mini trip to downtown Vaitape was brief but more than enough time to explore.

Fancyyy dinner! Ok not that great (given that part of the chicken was still uncooked), but good to try something different than the nightly buffet.

This concludes our trip to the South Pacific, although there are still so many more photos from the trip but I'll go ahead and save them for HDR Fridays :)

In case you missed the other 3 posts of our South Pacific Adventure:

Honeymoon Part 1

Honeymoon Part 2

Honeymoon Part 3

Have a great weekend everyone!

Garden Galore

April 12, 2011 in Scenic

There's nothing better than a quick photo shoot to re-inspire and frankly, be away from our responsibilities. Here are some fun shoots from our trip to Descanso Garden in La Canada Flintridge this past weekend. The fiancée was patience enough to model for me with several 7+ shots panoramas, so I gotta give her a shout out here before she stops modeling for my experiments.

Photographers start young these days...

I can't have a photo shoot without some sort of HDR or "Brenizer Method"... in this case, I did both! =)

It's rare that we actually have a picture together.. gotta thank this nice lady for taking this shot perfectly.

rl-1399-Edit-1104091-1000 sec at f - 2.8-2

Beauty before the storm

April 09, 2011 in HDR, Scenic

It's already April and it's windy, cloudy, scattered shower.. I guess I should say welcome to Los Angeles! Anyhow, based on many facebook/tumblr posts from LA, (including mine: http://mobile.ronlimphotography.com/post/4446397434/now-this-is-a-beautiful-day). I figure I should a HDR of these gorgeous clouds over Mtn Wilson and San Gabriel Valley! So here ya go:

It's one of those days...

March 07, 2011 in Scenic

It's one of those days in LA where it's chilly, windy and generally speaking a "monday".. but this gorgeous sunset made the day! Gotta thanks my fiancée for calling me and giving me a heads up to go take this shot! (despite the wind, this was the clearest shot of the batch)