Isla South Region, Puerto Rico

153rd Ponce Carnaval 2011- Part 1 of 2

‘Carnival Week’ (Carnaval/Spanish) is always the week before Ash Wednesday. A tradition that dates back to Colonial Spain and it’s celebrated throughout Mexico, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean.

A fantastic time to take a vacation!

Everyone has heard of the Rio de Janiero Carnival in Brazil or Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana. They are the most famous, but there are thousands of ‘Carnavals’ going on during this time of year.

Rey Momo in Carnival Week Parade at Ponce, Puerto Rico

In Puerto Rico, Ponce is most famous for theirs. It’s the longest running Carnaval on the island.

Carnaval events in Ponce started on the 2nd of March

A masked ball was staged in the Plaza on Wednesday. Thursday featured a local tradition- ‘Rey Momo’ the king of Carnaval who reigns over all the sillyness. Formal pageants for junior queen and queen were held on Friday and Saturday. The big parade was on Sunday afternoon, ending in the Plaza. And Monday evening featured the Grand Ball of Carnaval also in the Plaza. Plaza las Delicias [Read more…] about 153rd Ponce Carnaval 2011- Part 1 of 2

Ghost Town of Aguirre Central Revisited

Another installment of PR’s Sugar Industry of years past.

Panoramic of Old Aguirre Central Office in Puerto Rico

The San Juan Photo and Social Club decided to take a ‘guerrilla’ run at the old sugar mill in Aguirre. I could not pass that up! We met the guys from San Juan at the Aguirre Post Office, on Sunday morning. It was a bright and sunny day. The weather forecast was for a 35% chance of rain.. other than a light shower on our way there, it never rained while we were shooting. This would be my 2nd visit to Aguirre.

We are in the middle of the dry winter season now so dead grass and dying brush was everywhere. In Coamo, they are busy burning it away from the side of the road. You can see some of that from the last video I did, from the San Blas Marathon Route. In fact, some of the burning came very close to our house. I digress…

The shoot consisted of 2 Mates from San Juan, me-self and me First Mate. There are more photos taken by the group over on the Meetup Group Web page, ‘A trip to the South Side‘.

We started at the abandoned hotel, up the road a bit from the local Post Office. I had shot it before so I wanted to try a little HDR photography this time around. [Read more…] about Ghost Town of Aguirre Central Revisited

49th San Blas Marathon 2011 Runners Video

A video of runners from the 49th Annual San Blas Half Marathon of Coamo, Puerto Rico. Shot from just before the 15th Kilometer mark. With about an hour’s worth of video, the battery quit. Compressed into 13 minutes, 40 seconds. Late evening sun fading to low contrast dusk. You can see the helicopter’s shadow as it passes by and the “Baby Buggy Guy” is near the end. The ‘animated’ guy keeping folks out of the way of the runners and passing off water for the thirsty runners is to be commended for his efforts.. THANKS!

The last post of 3 for the San Blas Marathon of Coamo

Shot with a modified VadoHD. Music courtesy of The Free Music Archive.

Additional photos can be seen at the original post and the other video of the route of the half marathon.

It was a lot of fun shooting the Marathon and I look most forward to the 50th anniversary of the race. I’m sure it will be fantastic!

49th San Blas Marathon Video, from the Route

This ‘From the Road’ video covers the entire half marathon route and was shot on the morning before the race. Shot from the roof of my SUV with a modified VadoHD videocam mounted in a custom made bracket. The original 1.75 hour trip was compressed into 11 minutes and zips right along. Because the camera tracks with the SUV, you do not get a sense of how steep it is in places. There are a few ‘burps’ in the video near the end before I ran out of battery. Music for the video was courtesy of The Free Music Archive.

A special ‘thank you’ to the police for letting me through 2 road-blocks. Otherwise, this would have never happened.

The route itself was redirected as you approach the Coamo Plaza as there was a crane in the middle of the road.

The best time: 1:03:09 was turned in by James Kwambai of Kenya who had also won the race in 2005 and 2009. The fastest female runner was Yolanda Caballero of Colombia with a time of 1:14:48. Images of the runners can be seen from the main post here and on the 2nd page of images as well.

A 2nd video has been posted up! The video featuring the runners as they pass by us, just before the 15th Kilometer mark and it is a longer video at 13:40 minutes! It was all downhill from there.

The 49th San Blas Half Marathon of Coamo

The best excuse to party if there ever was one!

I reported last year about the fact that Coamo’s San Blas Half Marathon was as much about the ‘party’ as it was about the ‘race’. I wanted to capture that essence in this story.

10.5 gigs of still photos and 2 videos later, I got the goods.

This feature will be spread across 3 posts… the 1st containing all the still images (with extra pages of even more images), the 2nd being a video shot from the roof of my SUV, of the entire ‘Race Route’ on the Sunday morning in question and a video shot of the runners just before they reach kilometer 15.

I’ve created a new map of the route with important roads and points of interest along the way. It is drawn to scale so it’s reasonably accurate. You are free to share this with friends, but not for commercial use.

A larger version can be had from the MAPS Page in the Menu Bar.

The weather for the day was broken overcast in the low 80’sF. Exactly what the runners needed. It sprinkled a couple times, but never really ‘rained’.

A PARTY to REMEMBER

Folks from all over Puerto Rico come to watch and play and party the Saturday and Saturday night before Sunday’s big race.

I had wanted to shoot the fireworks show on Saturday night so we set up on the hill overlooking the Stadium and baseball field. [Read more…] about The 49th San Blas Half Marathon of Coamo