Puerto Rico- Day 3...shooting all day long

Today was the day of shooting. We woke up early (for us), and got out of the hotel by 8am. We met out first model Anne at the hotel and traveled 1.5 hours out to the Yunque rainforest to the abandoned house in the middle of the rainforest that seemed to be custom made for a photo shoot. While driving there it rained on and off very heavily. We got to the house and set up for the shoot. The shots below are taken by Michael...and the one in particular of me at the house is a shot that Michael got while I was showing the model what I wanted her to do.

While shooting it started to rain very heavy and we were able to grab some great shots of the model with the rain and the house. Two hours and 20gb later we left the house and thanked Anne for doing such a fantastic job. There are many more shots from the shoot but I will have to post them later. I truly enjoyed the lines and lighting of the house which were just perfect for a photo shoot.

We left the house and traveled back to the city to the heart of old San Juan. We got stuck in the traffic that was just horrible. Trying to get through the old streets of San Juan with all the other traffic, especially on a Saturday was an absolute nightmare. We were trying to get to what the locals call the "Totem Pole," which is a monument in the city near the famous castle of El Morro. After 2 hours we found a parking spot, and met up with the lovely Ilka Tamar for her shoot.

The shoot was planned for El Morro which is a castle that was built by the Spaniards back in the 1500's. The castle is one of the primary locations for the new upcoming movie, "Pirates of the Caribbean 4." We entered the castle and have access to the entire place....and let me tell you it was nothing short of AMAZING! The castle was so large and offered so many options that it turned me into a kid in a candy store. I have never shot at one location for 4 straight hours, but this place was truly remarkable. It was so windy up there that the veil kept flying off of Ilka. Michael was kind enough to retrieve it which got him the nickname of "Veil Boy," by Ilka...and the name stuck. The most awesome thing about shooting there was that there were no regulations...we were able to climb anywhere we wanted and to shoot what we wanted which was something we don't find very often.

The most awesome part was shooting on the side of the edge of the castle which you can see on the shots below. You wouldn't know it but the edge was only 5 feet away, and was about a 300 foot drop. Michael and I grabbed shots of each other shooting which was really fun....We ended the shoot outside of the castle using HDR on the massive lawn in front of the castle. Sometimes I swear I am shooting and I can't believe what I'm shooting. That was exactly what this experience was for us today. We planned on meeting Ilka for dinner after the shoot but honestly we got lust in the traffic and never got hooked up again. We ended up back at the hotel and grabbed dinner in the restaurant. I shot a total of about 55 gb today...and all of them were so much fun I can't even describe how much I enjoyed it.

Puerto Rico- Day 2

Well....we planned on waking up early...try 11am. We left the hotel and I immediately broke the "No fast food" rule by going to Burger King. It's not that I don't like a good meal...I do! But we had a lot to see and I didn't want to waste time eating when I could be photographing something. Michael really wanted to go to a place on the side of the road to eat so we could experience real Puerto Rican dining. I mentioned that I had done so the world over and more times than not the food is either awesome or an invitation to Montezuma's Revenge. So I affectionately labeled the road side places as, "Diarrhea Joints." So as the day progressed as we would pass these places I would ask Michael if he would like to partake and he would give me a dirty look as he insisted they weren't diarrhea joints.

Our plan for the day was to go to the famous Yunque Rainforest. We plugged it into the GPS (my Garmin from the US worked there without the need for additional maps which was awesome) and we went on our way. Once out of the city of San Juan the beauty of the island was really able to display itself as the traffic cleared somewhat...at least on the highways. We traveled quite a bit and needed some lunch. I didn't say we couldn't eat at a diarrhea joint...but I didn't make it easy for Michael to eat there either I must say. We got off the expressway and headed into a shopping center that had a KFC. I speak a good deal of Spanish and ordered everything in Spanish except for the name of the meal which was listed in English. Ordering through the drive thru the conversation went like this (translated into English except for the name of the item):

Me, "Yes, Id like to order two Big Crunch Combo Meals."

Drive thru speaker, "Two what?"

Me, "Two Big Crunches."

Drive thru speaker, "What?!"

Me, "I'd like two Big Crunches please."

Drive thru speaker, "I don't understand you."

Me, "Two Big Crunches," said with a little more gusto....

Drive thru speaker, "Oh, two Beeg Crunchees!"

Michael and I started to laugh and then pulled up to pay. The lady told me my Spanish was good but my pronunciation of the meal was wrong.....all I could do was laugh. It took us 45 minutes to get out of the shopping center because the traffic was so bad. We got back onto the expressway and found our way to Yunque Rainforest....well we found the Southern road which we found out was blocked off and didn't go through the rainforest like the maps suggest. No explanation as to why it was blocked off.

We did find this amazing house that was only half finished that was in the rainforest and the walls were all missing on the outside....we saved it on the GPS to come back and do a shoot there. We took some awesome shots and just marveled in the beauty of the place which was actually the Yunque city (tiny), not the actual rainforest because the road was blocked.

At this point we realized that Michael's window wasn't rolling up which sucked because it was raining off and on. To show solidarity with Michael I also kept my window down during all the rain storms so he knew I was feeling his pain. We plotted a course to the northern road of Yunque and had to circle around to get there because of the road closure. We got to the rainforest and only had 1 hour to look at everything because it was getting close to 6pm and was closing. There is only one paved road in the park but we managed to find a dirt road that was closed and of course we drove around the cones and went down it! That was where it got awesome. It reminded me of the rainforests in Australia. We went until it ended and did a fun photo shoot where we were certain the Chupacabra monster was hiding.

We left the rainforest and headed back to the southern road to get some shots of the city during the moonlight. Only problem is that the moon never came out. So we were driving in total darkness in a small city where all the locals were coming out to party. I was driving about 40 mph in our Expedition when I hit a major pothole...the car veered to the right and headed straight towards three Puerto Rican men who were walking on the side of the road. They started screaming, "Ay, ay ay!" and we started screaming, "Crap!" I turned the car away from them at the last moment and they started screaming bad words....we sat stunned for a moment and after driving for about 25 seconds we started laughing uncontrollably. It was one of those laughs that you do to release some anxiety.....I felt horrible for scaring the men but I was certain if we went back to apologize there might be some fisticuffs happening....so we decided to keep driving.

We called the rental car company "Target" and told him the problem. He told us to bring the car back. We drove back to the car agency and told the guy we wanted a discount for having to bring the car all the way back. The guy looked at us cross eyed and told us, "No discount." He told us he didn't believe that we had to drive all the way back from the rainforest....so it wasn't a big deal. We swapped cars and left knowing we wouldn't rent from them again.

We drove back to the hotel and while doing so passed through hooker alley. We stopped at a red light and we were propositioned by one....unfortunately it wasn't a woman...but it looked like one. We realized it wasn't a woman when we heard him talk....we laughed again. We got back to the hotel and then walked to Los Binos for dinner.

We got back to the hotel and I caught the Laker game on TV. This was the game where Kobe hit the unbelievable 3-pointer as time expired for the win. I yelled and screamed so loud I woke up the hotel and Michael came out of the bathroom with his pants half down wondering what was wrong with me.....it was 2:30am over there.....it was a wonderful day with many memories....Puerto Rico is awesome!!!