9286, A Room With A View

Ya know, I hadn't really thought about it much until the cruise, but I am not at all a sceneic photographer. I love life's little details. I tend to see something, zoom in on it, and try to catch the memory of it in a still frame. One of the things, though, that I was absolutely knocked off my feet by was the grandure and openness of the world viewed from my balcony on our cruise ship. Rarely do I find myself pulling back my lens so far and wishing I could capture more of the BIG pictures around me.

So... about half way through the voyage I decided I would create panoramics in each port we stopped in. I stood on my balcony and took frame after frame while turning from all the way left to all the way right. I thought it would be a clever way to get about 60 different photos into one post too!

Click on over to my Flickr Photostream to see the individual shots that make up each panoramic. I know they look super tiny here, but over on Flickr, you can click Actions > View All Sizes > Original and view them in their panoramic glory.

Our first port of call, St. Martaans...

...then we stopped in St Kitts...

...Thursday we found ourselves in San Juan, Puerto Rico...

(The view was as nice as we left San Juan as when we were docked.)

...with the last stop before heading home being Labadee, Haiti...

With views like these, there is no doubt as to why I walked straight to my sliding glass door and out on the balcony every.single.time I went in my stateroom. Paying the difference to upgrade from a standard room to this one was worth every cent. I can't image cruising in any other room from here on out. I've been spoiled rotten, I tell you... just rotten.

And since I'm sure you'll send me emails about it... I made these panoramics in Photoshop Elements 10. I edited the photos first then went to File>New>PhotomergePanoramic. Photoshop did the rest. I think the sunrise in San Juan and the day that followed was my *favorite* of the cruise. Though, snorkeling in St Martaans is viaing for the first place position as well. More on those thigns soon...