After a couple of days on airplanes and flying though Huston we are finally back home in Calgary!

This morning, after a little swim in the ocean and some nice cake for lunch, we started to head back home to Calgary. As soon as we arrived to the La Romana International Airport we got some bad news; our flight from Miami to Las Vegas was cancelled. Not having much luck talking on the phone with our travel agency, we decided to fly to Miami and see what will happen next.

When we arrived to Miami we found out that there were some mistakes made with our reservation and that we had to stay in Miami for the night. We were provided with a free hotel room and some food vouchers, meaning we could spend some time exploring the night life of Miami.

Our last day here at the Canoa Coral by Hilton all-inclusive resort. Tomorrow we have a very long trip back home to Calgary. As always I didn't take nearly as many photographs as I would like to, vacation was too short to do all the things we wanted to do, but overall we all had a great time!

I tried to take some sunset photographs today. It probably wasn't a very good idea to leave these shots for the end of our vacation, because in the evening it started to rain and I only ended up with couple of shots that I kind of liked. There aren't many locations at our resort where I can take that "postcard" shot, but I will try again tomorrow night.
The show tonight, here at the resort, was very nice, lots of dancing and very entertaining.

Today's text for my photographs is provided by Tracy Mulder:
We decided to venture out from the resort on a group excursion today. Most of all this reminded Sergei and I why we dislike group excursions--too much time sitting and waiting and being rewarded with not too much to see. Anyways, our trip took us first on an amphibious boat (traverses from land to water and vice versa) on the River Chavon. It was nice, but not worth the money in my opinion.

The highlight of the trip was going to Catalina Island. There lunch was included and we had 3 hours to relax, snorkel, etc. To be honest though, the island was hardly deserted as there were many tour groups, as well as merchants, not too mention the snorkeling was no better then here at our resort. Oh well, the Belski's (Sergei, his dad Viktor, and his sister Violetta) amused themselves by trying to emulate the locals by fetching themselves a coconut from a palm tree. Nice try guys, 'E' for effort! :)

Knowing Sergei, the cooking of the meat (chicken and lobster), was the most fascinating part, and a picture he had to have. After lunch we simply walked along the beach, enjoyed the surroundings (while swatting at swarms of mosquitoes--another not so grand attraction of this island) and went snorkeling. I must say for myself, the speed boat ride to and from the marina in La Romana was probably the most enjoyable part.

Next stop after the island was a stop at an esteemed cigar factory-- who knew it would be a small room with only 5 employees. It was actually quite neat though, and as you can see they made cigars of all sizes. One lady mixed a variety of leaves and filled the cigar preparing it for the press machine, while the second lady added the finishing touch after the pressing machine. According to our guide each employee must meet a minimum of 350 cigars per day to earn their wage--where any more would earn them a bonus.

Our last stop was the most interesting; a village called Altos de Chavon. The village overlooks the River de Chavon, built to look like old ruins, however in reality it was constructed in the 1970's simply as a tourist attraction. It is a neat idea that really does look old; with its church, many nice resaturants throughout, gift shops, great viewpoints, etc. This village has many great portrait opportunities that Sergei envisioned; too bad with the tour group we were only there for 30 minutes. The village even had a 5000 person ampitheater where many famous concerts are performed every year. Overall, the day was enjoyable, and it was good to get out of the resort at least for day!

Nothing is really new, still enjoying our life on the beach.

Just another day in paradise :) We spent some time kayaking this morning and in the evening we all went to take some family photographs. We also had dinner at a Mexican restaurant here at the resort.

Well, we started our vacation with the usual routine, me getting sun burnt (at least the weather is fine and there are no huricanes). We spent the day at our resort, the water in the ocean is great! My dad and I signed up for a table tennis tournament, after kicking his butt I moved on to lose to a guy who ended up being the champion. We tried our skills at some archery, although I loved it very much, we found out that I don't really have any skills in that. There is not as many restaurants as we had on our last trip but the food is good and we are having a good time!

We met up with my sister in Miami and after 5 hours of hanging around at the Miami International Airport we were on our way.

Las Vegas International Airport.

Just wanted to let you all know that I'm going on vacation tomorrow evening. I'm going to the Dominican Republic for a week. I will try to update my page while I'm there but who knows what kind of Internet access I will have. Hope I will not have too many problems at the airports with all my camera equipment :)

Today I photographed a couple of the Mount Royal Cougars soccer games again. It was a nice hot day (unlike other day when I had to photograph soccer in the cold rain). Cougars won both games, men won 9-0, so it was very fun to watch.

Couple of my friends and I went to the Waterton National park today. We didn't see any elk but the weather was great and we took some nice photographs. I can see that leaves are starting to change and I will for sure go there again in about 2 weeks to take some fall colors photographs. I will update my "Landscapes" gallery very soon so take a look there to see more photographs from Waterton National park.

Tonight I was photographing men's and women's soccer games. I spent 4 hours in the rain. It was very cold and very windy, but my camera survived and I ended up with some nice shots. Mount Royal Cougars played SAIT Trojans. Men's team lost their first ever regular season game at the Stadium Field 3-2. Women remain undefeated after winning 1-0. Although I was very cold and wet, I really enjoyed the game!

Tracy and I looked at some show homes in Airdrie today. We didn't find that perfect one for us yet, but we are getting closer. The one on the photo above we can't afford, but from all the houses we have seen, this was the best and for about $525.000 it can be yours.

I guess some of you noticed that I didn’t post any photographs for a while. Well the weather is not the best right now, so I took my camera to Canon for the sensor cleaning. After my last trip to Banff National Park I discovered that the sensor on my camera is very dirty and pretty much unsuitable for taking landscape photographs.
I also decided to play around a little with my website. I'm still working on it so over the next couple of days you will notice some more changes. Don't be shy to let me know what you think about the slightly new look.

Played some golf today, for the first time this year. It was fun and hopefully I will have some time to do it again before the season is over.

Not a full moon but it was an unusual color so I thought I would take a photo.

I woke up early in the morning and headed to Banff National park. Although it was a very long day with a lot of driving, it was great! I visited Yoho National park as well, and took many very nice photographs. The weather was great and I stayed in the park from sunrise to sunset.

Exhibition game between Calgary Villains and MRC Cougars.

Some photographs from the final night of the GlobalFest 2006 International Fireworks Competition and couple of shots from the trip to Bragg Creek this morning.
Please check back later, I think I took some nice fireworks photographs and I will post some in my "Events" gallery.

Hong Kong, last competitor from this year's International Fireworks Competition. Tonight Elliston Park was full of visitors, everyone came to see Hong Kong, last year's champion. I'm sure people weren't disappointed, even with the rain. Great show tonight! I hope they will win the GlobalFest 2006 trophy.

Tonight was the third night of the international fireworks competition at GlobalFest. Canada put on a good show, but in my opinion it wasn't as good as Germany's fireworks.

Global Fest 2006 is here! While browsing the official page for the Global Fest, I found a photograph of me from the last year, you can take a look here.
This year Tracy and I bought tickets for each night of the international fireworks competition, unfortunately we missed the opening day. Tonight was Germany's turn, so here is a couple of my shots. I really recommend to see this competition for all firework lovers!

I lost all my money betting on horses today. Only having $7, it wasn't bad, but I can see how this can be addictive. It was my first time seeing Harness horse races, I must say that I liked Thoroughbred races better. I think in Harness races there isn't as much action going on and its not as fast.

I have some of my photographs (framed and on canvas) for sale at Prints Charming, a custom picture framing and fine art posters store (1409 - 11 St SW, Calgary). I was at the store and thought I should take a snapshot of some of my photographs on display. The space between photographs is where one of my prints was, they are selling fast, so you better go and check it out before they are all gone :)

One of the photographs from a photo shoot that I had today.

This weekend my friend and I went for a day trip to Banff National park. We drove to Red Deer and took David Thompson Explorer Trail (hwy 11). Well I can't say I was impressed, the first half of the trip we didn't see anything interesting that we wanted to photograph. The second half of our trip was very good. It was a beautiful drive, we made some stops to photograph different lakes, and visited Moraine Lake. We got lucky with the weather, it only rained a little on the way back.

Calgary Zoo has a new baby gorilla girl. She is only a couple of days old on this photograph.

I didn't have my macro lens so I did the best I could with a 400mm.