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 ABOUTfeatured: 30 Best Snorkeling Blogs Fun Ways to enjoy the caribbeanArchive for the ‘Abstractions + Tapestries’Dec 23, 11 Comments Off
Merry Christmas all, here is another card I made using sea-glass or beach glass if you will and a single sea-urchin skeleton. I won’t even tell you how many days this took me to photograph, it looks so easy but what a nightmare to illuminate! I always seem to have a head-full of creative, fun ideas but half the time I can’t seem to make them work! In case you haven’t guessed this is supposed to be a sea-turtle of sorts but heck it’s the Holidays so it can be whatever you want it to be! Aimee and I are still racing around the house trying to get everything ready for our guests that arrive tomorrow, still so much to do! I did two sub dives today and in the morning Stijn is coming over for a two hour bike ride, we need to make up for lost time! Sorry so short, just wanted to say Merry Christmas once again and to wish you all the best and say thank-you one more time for all the support in 2011! Eat and be Merry!! Party on folks, Barry and Aimee Aug 28, 11 Comments Off
Good evening friends, what a day I had! I was up at 4:30 this morning sending out e-mails to check on friends in the New York area and getting ready for a mountain bike race I had at 7:30. I left the house at 6:00 and got to the race course at 6:30 which gave me plenty of time to get ready and go do a slow warm-up loop. At 7:30 the race started and I was off, I had to do five laps or loops and each loop takes around 15-20 minutes. The first lap was great, Stijn and I were together while other riders just went crazy sprinting out ahead forgetting they have five laps to do and the experts had to do seven! I mean come on folks, pace yourself! On the first lap alone Stijn and I reeled in many of those little jack rabbits that thought they had the race won the second they left, I was laughing to myself as we passed them, I mean really folks, what are you thinking?? Well, about the time we started on the second lap it started to rain, but at first it felt great and was just a light sprinkle but moments later it really started to come down and just like that the fun was over! We were all about a quarter of the way thru the second loop when we got hit with a torrential downpour filled with thunder and lightning and within seconds the beautiful single-track trail was transformed into a raging river!! We all tried our best to stay on our bikes but one by one soaked to the bone and covered in thick red mud we all gave up and it was now time to push the bikes!! Mine was SO heavy with mud I couldn’t even lift it anymore to carry it and it wasn’t just me, I looked ahead and everyone was having their own little muddy nightmare! I actually spent more time on the ground eating mud than riding, every time you tried to ride you would just crash, man that stuff was slippery! To make a long story short, we all ended up walked, pushing, carrying, pulling our bikes back and that was that, they called off the race, there would have been no way any one would have been able to do another loop! I went directly to a big mud puddle in the middle of the road and started washing my bike and myself, and moments later was joined by others as it was actually working pretty well. It took an hour to clean my bike at home and I am still trying to clean my gear, I think someone took a photo of me and I will try and get that to send to you, what a morning!!
So finally a photo of something I made from driftwood!! I have had so many requests over the past year of folks wanting to see some photos of what we use our driftwood for. Besides the tables, shelf units, paper towel holders and coat racks the jewelry holders are very popular. Below is one of the many fun driftwood jewelry hangers I have made, I named this one “Little Buck”. It’s fun to give each a name, I think it adds a little spice and character. I used tumbled glass bottle tops for the eyes and filled them with cuttings from an old pair of beached flip-flops. The base has round stones with natural holes and antique ceramic pieces we found at the glass beach all tied together with nylon rope also found along the waters edge. If you go to the link below, I posted more shots of other jewelry hangers I have made. Everything is of course for sale or I can make you something specific, just let me know. http://www.coralreefphotos.com/driftwood-creations/
Off to bed, have a great Monday, Barry
Aug 24, 11 Comments Off
Good morning all, not much news for you all today other than some rain, humidity and a whole lot of heat! We are now locked into the start of hurricane season and we are definitely feeling it here! Anytime there is a big storm somewhere around the Caribbean it sucks all the wind and life out of our area leaving it hot, calm and humid, not my favorite time of the year. Curacao is lucky in the fact that most storms start around here and then unfortunately move up towards the States, it’s kind of like we make’em and everyone else runs from them!! I did an hour and a half bike ride after work last night without much wind and it was hot! I came home completely soaked like I had gone for a swim in the ocean, nothing like stewing in your own filth!!
We have friends coming to visit next month from the States and will stay with us and I think we are getting friends from Rapid City, South Dakota for Christmas, we can hardly wait!! Many of you know Aimee and I are going to Fiji in February, we have both been getting ready for this trip already as there is so much to.
Here is another water reflection for you, the last one as many guessed was a chain-link fence but with a white metal pole and the green was all palm trees in the background.
Aimee and I are off on a hot morning walk with the dogs, see you again soon, Barry
Aug 20, 11 Comments Off
Good morning all, it’s early Saturday morning and I am on my way soon to see the wild flamingos that live near the house. We have a visiting friend at work that has never seen them in the wild so I am taking her and the dogs out for an early morning adventure.
I wanted to quickly let you all know that we have posted a trip to 1000 feet with the Curasub and it’s on E-Bay! This is a $650 trip so please throw a bid in there, you may be the winner, here is the link;
I believe this ticket can be used at any time as well, so don’t worry about an expiration date. We also have our underwater video camera almost ready and you will soon be able to watch the sub and myself underwater everyday live, I will get you that link as soon as I can.
Here is a new Crazy Water for your viewing pleasure today, it’s been a long time since I sent one of these out. Any guesses to what it is??
Off to find the beautiful flamingo’s, have a great weekend. Barry
Apr 26, 11 Comments Off
Good morning readers, how was your Easter?? I’m sitting here surrounded in Butterfinger and Kit-Kat wrappers and I had to work to find them, our Easter Bunny is a good basket hider! The “Indi Bunny” proved to be a big success here. I told Aimee first thing in the morning that she had to go turn on her computer to see the message the “Indi Bunny” left for her and once she read it, she took off in search of her goodies, it was really fun!! Thank you everyone for all the Easter cards or bunny photos, we loved them all!
Yesterday was still a holiday here but we both had to work. I had a sub dive at 9:00 with some VIP’s from one of the airlines who are going to do a story on the sub and Aimee did a dive out on the reef with the dolphins. On my side the visibility was great for once and the sub photos I took underwater came out super nice but Aimee said up her way the visibility wasn’t as good, maybe because they have more sand there? After the dive I figured the whole reef must be clear today so I got all me gear ready and went for a second dive but seconds upon entering the water I found out that was not the case. I am still trying to take my “before and after coral bleaching photos” and figured yesterday was finally the day to get it done but after diving for 10 minutes and seeing how stirred up it was from passing waves, I got out and called it a day not taking one photo.
Here is a new CRAZY WATER photo I took and we named it “the Dragon”! Ok, you can re-name it whatever you like, but look carefully and there is a cool face, and no I was not standing out in the sun too long, but thanks for asking.
I better get ready to go, I have to do a bunch of macro photography out on the reef today with new deep-water crabs and a recently found Sea-Goddess (sea slug). Have a wonderful day guys!! Barry
Feb 15, 11 Comments Off
Good evening friends. Well tomorrow morning I take off for Bonaire, so those of you who get the blog via e-mail remember it won’t be coming to your doorstep everyday, you will have to go to the website itself to see what’s going on. That address again is; www.coralreefphotos.com Also I may be to tired or just plain don’t have the time as well so please be patient, I will try my hardest to post something everyday.
I still have lots to do tonight and it’s already almost 9:00, I even skipped my Tuesday bike ride and stayed on the computer instead. Below is another colorful reflection that I found in the water the other day, it was a yellow building with red trim creating this effect in the warm early morning sun.
Talk you all from Bonaire next, have a great week, I know I will! Barry
Jan 31, 11 Comments Off
Good evening readers, that was one of the faster Mondays that I can recall! I spent much of the morning working on re-building an old camera housing and removing years of corrosion caused by salt. For a liquid that I spend so much time in I hate what it does to all my equipment! After any given dive I have to spend a whole lot of time rinsing my dive gear and the camera, if I were to leave it un-rinsed for just one dive it would start corroding over night and do serious damage! I did one dive today at 1:00pm, the water was calm but the visibility wasn’t that great making it very hard to get nice sharp, clean photos. My coral face is now more than half way back from it’s attack of coral bleaching, it progressed a long ways over the weekend.
How many of you have ever seen a colorful spot of oil or gasoline in a parking lot as you walk into or out of a store? Well this is a larger version of the same thing except this is solid crude oil floating on top of the ocean. I found takers full of this colorful floating mess inside the harbor on the way past our oil refinery called Isla. It’s funny how something so beautiful can be so terrible yet without it our lives would be so very different. These refineries need to invest in a plane load of Palmolive and spray it onto the water, in large quantities it would work!
I still have lots to do this evening, see you all tomorrow, Barry
Jan 18, 11 Comment (1)
Good morning boys and girls, yesterday was spent trying to teach a new person how to take underwater photos as I am in desperate need of some help especially on the weekends. It turns out, like most everything in life it’s not as easy at it looks and will take a long time and a lot of diving before he is able to do this on his own. I ended up teaching for half the day and then at 1:30 did a dive with my friend Bart who is the hands down World Champion of blowing air rings! Curious what that means, tune in tomorrow and you will see!
The days have been fairly sunny again without much rain, this island really needs to dry out as there is running water still almost everywhere you go. I found this cool reflection in the water near the aquarium the other day early in the morning before the wind started and rushed to get my camera. It’s impossible to get these reflections on a windy day. The water usually has to be very calm and the sun must be shinning, then take a stroll around the waters edge and let your imagination run free, it’s really fun.
Sorry so short and boring my mind is just not with it this morning and I need to get to work. Have a great day, back tonight, Barry
Jan 7, 11 Comments Off
Good morning all, waking up very tired this morning and dreaming of a hot cup of Highlander (best coffee in the World) but that yummyness has been gone for months now, although we did get lucky in finding some Dunkin-Donuts blend that made it’s way to Curacao. But soon this will change, in a few weeks our Buddy Bernard will be visiting again bringing us our coffee we love so much. Go ahead, treat yourself to something really great, tell them I sent you, they have a blend for everyone! www.darkcanyon-coffee.com
Aimee and I kept very busy yesterday, she worked on getting our poor car fixed and I dove with the mini-sub. I did two back to back dives yesterday in fairly strong current, that really takes a lot out of you. For the sub, being in strong current is really no problem as they have plenty of power, it’s the photographer on the outside that has to try and stay in one spot and then most times I have a fairly long swim back.
I really don’t have much for you all today just a weird reflection I took in the water the other day when the water was so calm. Thanks for all the great messages, pictures and stories, we love hearing from you all!
Need to get to work, another busy day ahead! Barry
Dec 4, 10 Comment (1)
Good evening readers, what a day!! It has been non-stop pouring rain all day, what a major mess again!! I tried to get the dogs out this morning but could hardly get them out of the car and at 2:30 I tried again and did get a 20 minute break from the rain. Curacao is flooded again, it seems like just when it’s done it comes back all over again, it’s really unbelievable! The worst part is, all this rain-water flows right into the ocean carrying with it waste, trash, soil, oil and gas and every other thing you can think of, the ocean around Curacao at the moment is just a muddy mess!
So unfortunately not much for you tonight. Try and guess what tonight’s photo is, I will give you a hint, it’s named after a mythical creature and I used a macro lens.
I have been battling water all day in one of our rooms, it’s been coming in thru one of the phone jack outlets, how weird is that? This is the first time we have had this problem, I wish I could find out just where the source of the problem is, the search continues.
Sorry so boring tonight, have a wonderful Sunday! Barry
Nov 20, 10 Comments Off
Good morning all, here’s a fun photo that we just sold to a National Geographic Kids magazine this week. They had asked if we had any photos of “faces around the house” that kids could easily relate to. One of the things we found was this shoe of Aimee’s sitting outside just smiling at us so I made the eyes a bit bigger and that was that. One good example that everyone knows is a plain everyday electrical outlet, if you look at it there is a face, that’s what they are looking for. I am still working on this project so if you see something I could use please let me know and I will find it here and photograph it. Also, we don’t want to build or make a face, it should be a natural face or a profile of a face so be creative. They say “think out of the box” but for this I want you to crush the box, stand on it and then look around, that may be better.
Yesterday I did one sub dive with customers and spent the rest of the day in my new office that Dutch just made for me. Since we opened I have been using a bathroom to assemble all my underwater camera gear but this week they built me a new custom made photo lab and it’s big enough to have everything in there. Because the sub-station has the air-co going 24-7 I can’t have my cameras in there, it’s too cold! The second I take them from the cold to the outside heat they fog up immediately and become unusable. So now we have them in a warm room the same temp as outside and it’s perfect.
Let’s see what else? Oh yeah, I came home yesterday and was getting ready for another big storm when I found the coolest spider I have ever seen! I know, who cares, I hate spiders right? Well this one has an armored plate on his back, almost like a shield, it’s so cool! The plate is a yellowish color and the spider is black, it’s a very difficult photo to take and was hoping I could get a good shot this morning but after an all night tropical downpour I will be lucky if I can even find him again. I will send the photo I took even though it’s not so great. It rained all night, can see already I will be inside most of the day AGAIN!
By all, find me some cool faces, you can even take a photo and send it to me, thanks, Barry
Nov 4, 10 Comments Off
Hey Guys, it’s us, your two “Lost in Paradise” Americans who came here years ago for a possible job and seven years later we are still here! I have very little again to report, it seems like we have been inside or working for a week or more and zero exercise! I am officially sick of all this moisture, it has made hiking and biking very difficult! I have heard that the trails are a complete mess meaning they are most likely very rutted and full of loose rock and sand! Tomorrow I am still doing my snorkel with famous cyclists at 10:00, hopefully I will have something great to send out!
I will let you guess what this is!
Good night or good morning, they both work, Barry
Oct 26, 10 Comments Off
Good morning all, sorry about the late blog but yesterday was busy from start till finish. I went into work at 8:00 and did a sub dive at 9:00 and when I got out it started raining. This rain turned into one of the biggest downpour events we have seen in quite awhile and within minutes the ocean turned an awful color of brownish yellow from all the dirt flowing into it! When it stopped I took off to my house carrying a new Slit Shell that was recently found at 500 feet with the sub. I have a little studio set up at home and started photographing it when the phone rang, it was work saying we have a walk-in customer, how fast can you get back here and do another photo shoot with sub? So I put the shell in the refrigerator and ran back to work, did the dive and took photos and by 1:00 I was back home again to finish what I had started. Some of you may remember the last Slit Shell I sent out that we found a few years back, well this one we have now is much bigger about the size of a softball and much for colorful and is considered one of the most valuable shells on Earth, I will send a photo when I can. I ended up spending all day shooting this thing which worked out perfect as it poured off and on the whole day. At 5:00 I took the dogs out to the now exploding Curacao jungle and the dogs did a very fast run thru the pools and pools of standing water and mud, what a mess! This could be some kind of record for the most moisture this year and now the mosquitoes will be even worse, not a big fan of the rainy season!
This one’s for Aimee today who loves when I take a normal color photo and zap it with a little crazy-ness! These are my new buddies that I swim with every day, the beautiful Boga’s. Boy talk about a territorial fish, this school has not moved in three months they are out there every time I go out and I just love swimming with them.
Off to work, it rained all night, it’s such a mess outside! See you tonight, Barry
Oct 6, 10 Comments Off
Hey everyone, how was your Wednesday? In the States we call Wednesdays “hump day” because it’s the middle of the week, will have to ask my friends in Holland what they call it?? I had a busy day of running around the Sea Aquarium during show times and trying to get something nice for our new Sea Aquarium coffee table book that I have been working on for the past year or more. The book will be around 60 pages all in color and will show everything that we do and love here at the Aquarium.
We are still having strange weather but at least the sun was out today. This evening when Aimee and I walked along the coast it was almost flat out there, it’s so strange to the ocean so calm, it just doesn’t quiet make sense?
Here’s a “happy face photo” I took the other day as I was driving to Punda, it was along the road on a wall and of course I had to stop! I keep telling myself that I will take a weekend and drive around and photograph all the art on walls but so far it hasn’t happened. I have said it before and I say it again, Curacao is by far one of the most colorful places you will find in the whole World, everything here is painted in crazy colors!
Sorry so short, be back tomorrow, Barry
Sep 6, 10 Comments Off
Good evening all, I am down with a cold or some kind of flu today so I took full advantage of my surroundings. I figured since I am completely surrounded by western motif and staying on a large cattle ranch why not put together a Western photo for my faithful readers. For many of you this gun needs no introduction, it’s the most sought after and famed gun of them all, the Colt 45 revolver. My friends here at the ranch were a big help today helping me put together this nostalgic collage for you and I want to thank them again for all their help and hospitality. Many historians remember the famous post-Civil War slogan that said, “Abraham Lincoln may have freed all men, but Sam Colt made them equal.” Before Colt’s revolving cylinder, “a shooter could only obtain a pistol with one- or two-barrel flintlocks,” according to ScopesGuide.com. The Colt revolver signaled a revolution in ballistic weaponry, transforming the tedious reloading process and low rate of fire. Samuel Colt’s legacy lives on as the company bearing his name continues to sell Colt revolver. In 1836, Samuel Colt was issued a patent for his pistol design, which featured a revolving cylinder with slots for five or six bullets. During the next several decades, the revolver experienced fluctuating appeal until Colt produced the Single Action Army model in 1872. This model also is known as the Peacemaker and “the gun that won the West.” The Single Action Army was the first breech-loading pistol to use self-contained metal cartridges. By 1941, Colt had produced more than 350,000 models of this pistol. During the 1880s and 1890s, the United States Army and U.S. Navy completely rearmed their soldiers with Colt revolvers. While soldiers often complained of the pistol’s poor accuracy, its small caliber and ease of use enabled troops to quickly master the sidearm. The Spanish-American War was influenced by the pervasive use of this cutting-edge technology. The Colt revolver continues to enjoy popularity in Western cinema, video gaming and gun collecting circles.
Many thanks to www.eHow.com for all that wonderful info. The weather has changed here overnight for the worse, it was very cold this morning. I decided since I am not feeling well I should just stay in today and I think for once I made a good decision.
I trust everyone is doing well, have a great day. Barry
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