Montreal Jazz Festival

    For ten days every summer the sound of jazz fills the streets of Montreal, Canada. The music event has been held for over thirty years, commencing at the end of June. Several blocks of the city are closed to traffic and stages are erected in the streets and in parks. In 2004 the Montreal Jazz Festival (officially the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal) was crowned the world's largest jazz festival.

Montreal International Jazz Festival 2009

Atlantic City as a Cheap Destination

    I was itching to get out of town for the night. I started pondering destinations for an overnight trip from Lancaster. I had a few restrictions; I wanted it to be a place I could do on the cheap, do solo, and take public transportation to. After weighing all of my winter getaway-from-Lancaster,PA options, I settled on Atlantic City, New Jersey.

6 (Non-Technical) Travel Photography Tips

     I was inspired to write this post after thinking of all the places I've traveled to and don't have any pictures of. Just as frustrating, there are other places where I did take pictures, but wish I had other ones or just more of them.  I thought I'd share a few travel photography tips in the hopes that it may save others from my disappointment. If you're a professional travel photographer, or seasoned traveler, these tips might seem like common sense to you. If you're a person who is new to travel or loves to travel and sometimes happens to have a camera along, these tips might help you out.

1. Vary the subjects of your pictures - I've always taken photographs of landscapes and nature, and never really took pictures of people. I also never cared much about having pictures of myself while traveling. Looking back, I can think of lots of photos I'd like to have of different people along the way and also of myself at different places. I know other travelers who've done the opposite, took lots of photos of people and now wish they had more pics of landscape and buildings.


Varying my photo subjects, having a beer, playing with my new
 camera's macro at Mountain Jam

Lancaster County, PA, Towns with Memorable Names.

    I've lived in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania much of my life. I rarely give the names of our towns here much thought until someone new to the area calls my attention to it. I recently heard a conversation between a local and a tourist about Lancaster County's town names. It inspired me to make a short list of the ones that usually spark conversation. All of these towns are very small, Amish Country towns, located within a short drive east of Lancaster City.

Original photo and copyright info can be found here

Whale Watching in the Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park

   The Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park (Parc Marin du Saguenay-Saint Lawrence) is a national park in Québec, Canada, made up entirely of a marine environment. It encompasses much of the Saint Lawrence Estuary from Port-au-Persil, 50 miles north, to Les Escoumins and also the Saguenay Fjord.

Near the mouth the of Saguenay Fjord

A Walk Around Philadelphia in Pictures

  Yesterday was a really nice day here in southeastern Pennsylvania. I decided to take the hour train ride into Philadelphia, go for a long walk, and enjoy the unseasonably warm weather. I made a map indicating the route I walked (the red line) and put numbers on it corresponding to some pictures I took along the way.