Those following my adventures know that right now I’m currently in Jamaica as a part of a press trip put together by the Jamaican Tourism Board. The tour definitely puts an emphasis on luxury, something I don’t spend a whole lot of time concentrating on during my personal travels. That being said, when in Rome you do as the Romans do; and when in the lap of luxury, you pamper yourself, relax, and only swim if it’s leading to a drink at the swim up bar. It has been a nice change and I feel like I’ve taken a little bit of the luxury side of things but also given some of my adventurousness back to the luxury. Over the next couple of weeks I will be featuring Jamaica on the site, not only in photos like the one below of the swim up bar at the RIU Montego bay, but articles about solo travel in the Caribbean, the ethics of swimming with dolphins, a look at what a backpacker does in the lap of luxury and maybe even some cliff diving at Rick’s Cafe. I hope you stay tuned to this and enjoy the twist in things.
How I Got this Shot
I raced around the RIU Montego Bay at sunset because the light in the sky was absolutely perfect, and ended up getting a number of good shots. The hotel is coloured pastel purple and so was the sky. Placing the feel of the similar colours to the images was my main goal. However, when I looked at the swim-up bar I thought to myself “the bar is now closed,” and also wanted to give a photo an “end of the night” look. I generally prefer photos that are properly exposed throughout the shot, but this one also has great emotion to it. To get a shot like this the scene should be back lit (sun in the background), and then expose the sky, this should underexpose everything else and give that silhouette element to the photo.
I shot this photo on f/16 at a focal length of 18mm with a very quick exposure (for that time of night) of 0.5 seconds. The ISO, as it should be, was at 100.