Puerto Rico

I had the pleasure of leaving the cold, snowy Rochester weather behind for a week long trip to Puerto Rico. My family and I stayed an hour west of San Juan in Hatillo, the quiet countryside of Puerto Rico.

One of the best parts of the visit was, of course, the beach, but I also took time to venture out and explore other parts of the country. Southwest of Hatillo lies the Camuy Caves, 268 acres of subterranean caves carved out by the Camuy River over one million years ago! I brought my camera, looking forward to the challenge of photographing the beautiful cave system. The lighting underground was low which made this shoot extremely difficult. Not to mention, I was in a tour group of 30 people and had to keep up the pace with the guide or risk being left behind in a dark cave...with bats...!

I did my best to adjust the white balance settings, ISO, and exposure, taking photos, reviewing, and adjusting over and over. Without a tripod I had to improvise using the hand-rail and large boulders along the path to steady the camera. I took over 100 photos, many of which were blurry, but a few seemed to capture the mysterious beauty of the Camuy Caves.

After emerging from the dark, cool caves I was ready for a visit to the beach. Because we stayed away from San Juan, the tourist hot-spot, the beach we visited seemed like our own private paradise. We met a few locals but for the most part the beach was our own, quiet retreat for the week. I didn't have a lot of trouble shooting here because the lighting was great. However, I did notice as I was uploading the photos that my lens was dirty. I'm not sure if little bits of sand or maybe even water affected the lens but I had to look very closely at the photos and clean them up in Photoshop. 

Because the beach was so beautiful I didn't want to edit the photos too much. I did increase the 

vibrance on a few of the shots though and also applied a "diffuse glow" to a few of the stormier shots to soften the look of the sky.

I also took a trip to Old San Juan while we were in Puerto Rico. Old San Juan is over 465 years old and 

was originally built as military fortress. The cobblestone streets still remain and the influence of Spain can still be seen in most of the architecture. More tourists visit Old San Juan than any other city in the Carribbean each year.