Lately I’ve been taking a lot of photos at the studio. Demand for photos has really picked up. People are more willing to spend the money these days on luxury items like high-end photos. As you can see above, I have taken quite a few photos of the Adriatic Sea. Many people don’t know much about the Adriatic Sea. It’s a body of water that separates Italy from the Balkan Peninsula. Lots of people like to park their boats in the Adriatic sea.

Otherwise I have taken some great photos lately. Boats, seas, mountains, and so on. Those are some of my favorite subjects. When I was in Thailand, I took lots of photos of the local activity there. You can see my post above about Thailand. Another popular country to visit in the area is the Philippines.

Since I am self-employed, I find it is important to be covered by self-employed health and dental insurance. I did some research and actually found that dental insurance is usually not purchased for individuals. Rather, people usually get a dental discount plan. These really don’t cost that much. Many of the people I know that are self-employed use these types of programs. Basically, instead of working like insurance, you just pay a reduced fee when you go to the dentist. You still have to pay a monthly premium to be a member of the dental discount program. But once you are a member, the regular services at the dentist such as teeth cleaning are relatively inexpensive.

Otherwise, I continue to practice the art of being frugal, which I describe in my post above. In that post, I describe some of my tops tips. It is probably worth another look if you would like to educate yourself on the subject.

I love the tropics. The weather is nearly always perfect. The sea is always warm. Away from the tourist traps the prices for things are cheap and the people are friendly. This holds true for Indonesia, Thailand, Southern India, tropical Africa, the Caribbean and the north coast of Colombia. There is something perfect about a tropical beach – white sand, massive coconut trees, never-ending beaches and warm nights.

The nights in the tropics are made for lovers. The stars come out in legion away from the glare of city lighting. They seem brighter and fill me with hope. Because of the shape of the earth the moon is closer at the tropics and so seems bigger. It is no doubt partly for this reason that moon madness has gripped the small tropical Thai island of Koh Phangan. Since the first Full Moon Party in Haad Rin in 1987 the numbers of people going to celebrate the completion of the moon has soared. Now up to 20,000 people attend the party. It’s a crazy event complete with lots of fire rope jumping, people drinking way too much and lots of loud music. It’s a celebration on a pagan scale that lets people let loose in a way the over-regulated societies of the West generally frown upon. I’ve been a couple of times. It was hard to get full moon party accommodation. It wasn’t hard to get some amazing photos of not only the moon but also the hedonistic antics of the revelers.

The music at the Full Moon Party in Koh Phangan is not always great. They don’t seem to bother with famous DJs, and they seem behind the times in their insistence on the primacy of trance music; but, nevertheless, what an event. I have never experienced anything like it. And just when you think the party is winding down people find new reserves of energy and head off to the Backyard Pub for another 12 hours of dancing and drinking.

Well, the summer is almost over now so vacation season is wrapping up. Where I work, lots of people were on holiday for extended periods of time. I myself took a few trip here and there and brought back some photos.

One website I have always liked for travel planning is tripadvisor. This site has reviews from people who has visited various establishments around the world. The reviews are often quite amusing and I find myself literally lol’ing at them. Like sometimes people are really desperate to come up with things to say, even if they haven’t experienced the place themselves. I remember one review that said “I didn’t go to this restaurant but I peeked in the door, and it looked okay. So I gave it three stars.” That review gave me a chuckle. It’s almost as good reading fake reviews on Amazon.com for items like uranium or personal tanks (these really exist – google it).

Now that the summer is over it is back to work. I have a friend who is launching a business and trying to be a film consultant. He’s an MD and wants to work on movies. It seems like an interesting business model. Obviously if you watch a show like House or Grey’s Anatomy they must have a medical expert on staff.

Speaking of stock photos, I’ve been looking around online for some interesting ones. There’s different sites where you can buy credits and purchase stock photos. It’s a little bit expensive – usually about $3 for a medium-sized quality photo. The strange thing is that they charge more for larger photos sizes. Like the smallest version of the photo will cost $1, and the largest one will cost $5. As if it costs them anything to shrink or enlarge a photo! But perhaps that business model is working for them.

Taking photos is definitely among my favorite hobbies. It’s important get all the settings correct – the aperture, the exposure, the lighting. Whenever I head out somewhere, I definitely try to bring my nice digital camera with me in case anything interesting happens.

Do you remember this?

I used to have a film camera, but honestly the technology of digital cameras has advanced so much that I only use digital now. I remember back in the day when you had to wait three days to get your photos back from CVS or whatever. That was frustrating! Nowadays we have instant feedback on our photos.

It’s interesting to see what’s going with Polaroid these days. They’re now a private company – they used to be public, but were bought out by a private equity firm in 2009. The company was acquired for just $90 million, a considerably lower valuation than during its heyday. Poalroid still makes instant cameras and some people buy them. However, they also make consumer electronics. This includes plasma TVs and DVD players.

The other day, I was reading with interest about a consumer products company that actually still manufactures in North America – Arizer. Arizer has been known to make the best vaporizer, and they are known for their high quality. They’ve continued to update their technology over the years. It seems that, unlike Polaroid, their product will not become obsolete. People still like to vape and it’s hard to imagine anything replacing that.

Apart from that, it has been a pretty good summer. I got some great photos of  the Adriatic that you can see on the home page of this site. In the future, I am hoping to travel to some other beautiful locales and bring back some high-quality pics. I just need to find the time off from work and plan the trip effectively.