A couple of days before I left for my trip, I made a stop at Circuit City. I didn't really give myself a limit as to how much I would spend on a camera because I was more concerned about the features that it had to offer. I wasn't going to spend $300 on a pretty nice digital camera that I could only do so much with. I also knew that eventually I would want a really nice camera with changeable lenses and high quality resolution. I looked at all of the features on all of the cameras until finally...I saw it. Ohhh, it was beautiful. Sleek, silver, and beautiful. The Canon Digital Rebel XT 8.0mp SLR.

   A couple of days later I left on my trip to Las Vegas. I came back with over 700 pictures! So I may not have left Vegas with much money, but I definitely found something that I loved to do!

   Fortunately for me, I took a lot of vacations and mini-vacations last year and have a nice collection of photos to show for it. Since then, I've taken over 10,000 photographs, started a free-lance photography business, and sold custom posters. On one trip I even met President Bill Clinton! Here's a few destinations that I was able to make it to in 2005:

• Las Vegas
• Laughlin, NV
• Little Rock, AR
• Indianapolis
• Bloomington, IN
• Houston
• Chicago (many, many, many times)

   So now I'm looking toward 2006. My feet have yet to have left the ground, but I'm itching to go somewhere. I have my sights set on a few destinations in particular:

• New York, NY
• Seattle, WA / Vancouver, BC
• Hollywood, CA
• Minneapolis, MN
• Washington, DC
• Boston, MA
• Yellowstone National Park

   If there is one thing that I've learned since I started getting into photography is that the best pictures come out when you least expect it. I wish I could carry my camera around with me (sometimes I do!), but the camera is fairly big and is carried in a bag that looks like a purse. Need I say more?!? But having a camera with me would allow me to get those 'unexpected' shots. Sometimes good luck comes in handy, as it did when I went to Little Rock.

   You might be sitting there asking yourself, "Why would you go to Little Rock?" Ok, well that is definitely a valid question and I'll explain how it came about...

   It was about two weeks before my planned Las Vegas trip and I was sitting at home watching TV. A commercial came on with Eric Estrada as the celebrity endorser (have you seen the commercial?). Estrada talks about land for sale and development in Hot Springs, Arkansas and how the company that he sponsors will fly you and a guest to Little Rock, put you up in a nice hotel for two nights, all expenses paid because 'they're so confident that you'll love their property and want to buy it'. Estrada then says in his commercial that if you are unsatisfied with the property and choose not to buy, the company will STILL pay all expenses. Now that got my attention! So I called the 1-800 number, set a reservation for the weekend after I returned from Las Vegas, and everything was a go. Turns out, everything the company promised was true and I got a free 3 day vacation to Little Rock, Arkansas!

   The morning after I arrived, I went to the front desk of the beautiful Double-Tree Hotel (owned by Hilton) and asked what the heck there was to do in Little Rock. He told me about the President Clinton National Library that just opened months earlier. So I went. I was there for about 10 minutes when President Bill Clinton walked in the door unexpectedly. He stopped and posed for photographs, shook hands, and then went about his business. I got to shake his hand and get some pictures!

   And so begins my photography career. Within three weeks of buying the camera, I had taken beautiful land shots from the airplane flying over southern Utah. I had taken skyline shots of Las Vegas and Laughlin, NV. I had taken pictures of the Little Rock skyline overlooking the Arkansas River. I had even captured a former president. Which brings me to my challenge...

           WHAT'S NEXT?

   As I said before, sometimes you just have to be at the right place at the right time to get the perfect picture. So it is really hard to set yourself up for it. Patience is the key! I'm open to suggestions for destination or photo ideas. If there is anything local or unusual that is 'photo-worthy', email me your suggestions. For right now, I'm not looking to go out of the country (except for maybe Mexico or Canada). I'm just curious to what others think would make for a great picture.

   Please feel free to enjoy the pictures that I have posted. It is a collection of "The Best of the Best" taken by yours truly. Labeling them would take forever, so if there are questions about any of the photographs that I have posted, please feel free to email me directly. Otherwise, enjoy!

SEND FEEDBACK TO:

jlaxsalinas@robertmorris.edu

Unauthorized use of photographs is prohibited.

  I've mentioned in past blogs that I'm a pretty spontaneous person and like to try new things. I got a call about a week ago from my friend Kenny wanting me to go down to Indianapolis to watch the High School State Wrestling Finals. Now, I've never gone anywhere and not had fun with Kenny, or most of my friends for that matter, but I've never been a big fan of wrestling. I was never a big fan mainly because I just didn't know or hang out with many people who watched it (and I don't mean WWE wrestling). I didn't know how people scored points, strategy, positioning, nothing. So it was never fun for me to watch. All I saw was two guys in spandex pushing each other around, which wasn't exactly how I wanted to spend my leisure time. But, I'm always up for a good time and I didn't have much else going on that weekend, so I figured "what the heck, why not". So last Friday, Kenny, Felix and I took a road trip to Indianapolis to see the all-weekend finals tournament. Needless to say, I had a phenomenal time.

   We left last Friday afternoon and headed to Indianapolis. Since I wasn't as anxious to see the finals as Kenny, I decided to go down to Bloomington, Indiana for Friday night and hang out with some friends I knew, stop at my favorite winery and come back up to Indy on Saturday. I didn't do much other than hang out when I was in Bloomington, but the winery was fantastic! Now in the future, you'll probably see more about this winery because it is one of my favorite places to go (the scenery is gorgeous). So for those wine enthusiasts out there (ages 21+), if you're ever in southern Indiana driving down HY 37, make a stop at Oliver Winery. I recommend Oliver's Blackberry wine. It will be worth the visit.

   So Saturday evening I made it up to Indianapolis to meet my friends at Conseco Fieldhouse (home of the Indiana Pacers) to watch the wrestling finals. I had no idea how much hype was put into it! The lights were off inside the stadium with only a spotlight on the wrestlers as they came out and wrestled (very much like a boxing match). Luckily for us, we had good seats in the balcony on the first row overlooking the entire event. And more so lucky for me because I brought my camera and it was a perfect spot! We watched all of the weight classes go through their matches and then we headed out for a night out on the town in Indianapolis.

   The next day, we woke up around....1:00ish and headed back home to NW Indiana. We had a blast on our road trip and videotaped a bunch of funny 'skits' on the way home. We set the camera under the rear window facing the front and videotaped about 30 minutes of the drive back home, capturing funny moments, all the random comments that were made, and a funny clip of us dancing to Black Eyed Peas - My Hump.

SEE A VIDEO CLIP OF THE DRIVE!!!

Click here!

(Not recommended for dial-up users)

Video length: 1 min 16 sec

In this clip, we are driving north on I-65 in Indiana near Lafayette. Kenny complains about how long it takes to drink a Strawberry Fudge Cheesecake Milkshake from Steak N Shake. Also, we discover that cameras do not have a mouth.

   Now I have a new perspective on high school sports. When I was in high school, I was very active all year in different sports, so I never really had an opportunity to experience a state final in any sport...there just wasn't time for it and driving to Indianapolis wasn't much of an option. So I leave you with some photos that I took over the weekend. Some are wrestling photos, the others are just snapshots that I took over the weekend. I am happy to say that I was finally able to get a nice skyline picture of Indianapolis, one that I've been trying to get for some time now.

   Congratulations to all of those who participated in this past weekends wrestling finals, both in Indiana and in Illinois!

Send feedback to:

jlaxsalinas@robertmorris.edu