It's a Sea Day!

What do I do?  I wake up early!  As in 3am early!  Good thing I brought my own iPad with me.  I played Sudoku for an hour until my eyes got heavy and then I was back asleep for a couple of hours.  I really dislike getting old and I really dislike waking up in the wee hours of the morning and then going back to sleep.  It makes me more tired when I finally get up. 

We woke up around 8am and then lounged around our cabin.  Our stomachs started grumbling an hour later and we headed back to the Horizon buffet.  Bad call!  The buffet area was packed and so was the seating areas.   Where did all these people come from?  Are they on the same schedule as we are?

I checked the Princess Patter (I received last night) and saw there was a Photography class at 10:30 this morning.  This class intrigued me.  It was “learning the art of artificial and natural lighting techniques with the Princess Master Photographer.  It was a complementary class with a maximum of 35 guests…first come first served basis”.  I’ve never seen a photography class offered on a Princess ship before. 

Off I go with my hunky Nikon DSLR hanging around my neck.  I go down two decks below (deck 7) and I end up back in the Crown Grill restaurant waiting for the class to begin.  Being the shy and introvert person that I am, I start to engage in small talk with a few folks gathered around the table I’m sitting at.  One guy to the left of me had traveled to India and stayed for several weeks taking pictures.  He didn’t have a camera with him at the moment.  Suspect!  A lady to the right of me didn’t have a camera with her, but was interested to see what the class was about.  She’s cool!  Others around me had their Canon P&S cameras with them.  A table behind mine had Nikon cameras.  Way cool!  I was the only one with a DSLR.  Interesting….

At 10:30 sharp, Nikola (Serbian) and Ivan (American) separated us into two groups (indoor and outdoor).  I was in Nikola’s group and we headed up to deck 19 where his indoor studio was located.  Nikola specializes in black and white portrait photography.  He showed us the studio lights he uses and his settings.  When it was time to take a picture, Nikola selected a gentleman to sit and pose for him.  Nikola showed us the three groups of lights he uses:  A, B, and C.  The “A” light was a backlight.  The “B” light was a small front light that was to the left of the subject.  The “C” light was a large front light, positioned in front of the subject.  Nikola took a couple of shots and showed us the results on his camera.  He then wanted another model and selected me to do a few poses.  I had a blast!  I got the chance to see how the different lights work (from the model’s perspective).  I got a chance to shoot a picture of the audience. 

A picture of Nikola and the audience

I snapped this picture using the studio lights

It was Ivan’s turn to take our group outside for natural light photography.  The sun was bright.  Ivan was looking for a model and picked me out of the group to pose for him.  Yep, that was a blast too!  He used two tools to help with natural lighting.  One was to use a medium size round reflector/diffuser and the other was to use his external flash.  There I was sitting on the putting green on deck 19…posing for the Princess photographer!

Ivan showing us how to use the reflector on a sunny day

That was the best two hour photography class I ever had! 

I went back to the cabin and found Hubby sitting outside on our balcony.  He was enjoying the peacefulness with his iPad and listening to the waves below. 

After lunch we went to the Princess Theater to watch a matinee movie:  Hope Springs with Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones. 

Much of the afternoon was spent lounging around in our cabin or on the balcony. 

In the evening I tried to find the best WiFi location in our cabin.  I went to the balcony…no such luck!  The desk in the middle of our cabin gave me only 3 bars.  I headed towards our cabin door and noticed I received an extra bar!  Four bars resulted in a good connection.  Not great, but good.  Except good meant the WiFi would go in and out…connect and then disconnect me.  Love the satellite at sea!

I grabbed the desk chair and place it front of the door.  You would have thought I was a very bad girl…sitting and facing the cabin door.  Hubby had a good chuckle.  My laptop was propped on my lap with the monitor leaning against the door.  I was hoping with the laptop touching the door would give me a continuous connection or perhaps another bar?  Again, no such luck!