I have heard of photographers going out and taking photos all night long to get the perfect shots and perfect their night photography.  Taking photos at night is one of my biggest challenges when it comes to using my camera.  I do love night photos so it is something I am working on.

While my friend and I visited Kyoto, Japan in June she wanted to go to an area called Gion to see if we would get lucky and see some Geishas.  We had just arrived in Japan a few days before so I was still a little jetlagged.  My friend also has a lot more energy than I do and she insisted that I go.  I was literally falling asleep while I was at this beautiful area in Gion exploring the Yasaka-jinja Shrine.  My photos could be a lot better, but I am very grateful now to my friend for convincing me to stay out until 3 o'clock in the morning.

Our second stop on my Caribbean cruise aboard the Norwegian star was the Belize city port.  In order to get from the ship to shore you must take a smaller boat.  Belize is a fast growing area.  It is still not as commercialized as the Cancun area but according to the locals is growing very quickly.           

Today I returned from a seven day cruise on Norwegian Cruise lines.  The ship I was on board is named the "Star".  Over the course of the seven days we stopped in four places.  Our first stop was on Roatan which is an island in the Caribbean about 40 miles off the coast of Honduras.  I decided to choose a shore excursion for each of the stops on this cruise.  I chose to visit Gumbalimba Park in Roatan at this port. 

La Isla shopping center in downtown Cancun in the hotel zone resembles that of any large American city with every high-end shop you can imagine, nice restaurants to eat at, and bars to grab a drink in the very hot weather that is prevalent in this part of the world.  This area of Cancun did not exist when I first visited in college.  All their were was outdoor markets where locals were selling their homemade goods that you could barter for.  Now this area is very attractive but looks quite similar to the shopping centers in large cities around United States.

This is one of Antoni Gaudi's most famous houses in Barcelona.  It always caught my eye when I walk past it.  Each time I tried to capture it better in a photo as it wasn't easy with so many cars and people walking by.
This is not the hotel I stayed at but it is an example of how many of the hotels were very attractive at night because of their lighting.

Although Barcelona was a very beautiful city at night this will be a mostly photo only post.  Although I am so glad that I switched to using a Mac computer a couple of years ago.  It's been a little difficult getting used to not having nearly as much storage space as I did with my other PCs.  I will be leaving soon on another adventure and want to edit and share my photos before I go.  It's probably silly but I feel like I'm behind if I have a lot of photos from a previous trip on an external hard drive that still need to be edited.

I think one of the best things about Barcelona and especially about Barcelona after dark is the colorful fountains around the city.  Many of them change color.  I felt very fortunate that some of them were right outside my hotel as I don't go out at night when traveling alone.  The photo below was taken by the friend I met from Marrakesh Morocco down near the coast. 

I felt very fortunate to have made a friend in Barcelona not only because it's nice to make friends, but because we were able to go out walking at night and see some things that I never would've seen otherwise.  Barcelona is a beautiful city and at night the lights on many of the hotels as well as the Gaudi house were very interesting and picturesque.  It was also nice to have some photos of myself as I dislike carrying a tripod and or asking strangers to take my picture.

This is an area Down near the coastline where one would board a cruise ship around dusk
People seem to stay up late in Spain as I took this photo around 10 o'clock at night.  Most restaurants and stores stay open late.  Many of the fancy restaurants didn't even open until seven or 8 o'clock at night.
I took this photo from the rooftop of my hotel.  I stayed at a very nice hotel called the Casa Fuster hotel.
Here is another photo taken from the rooftop of my hotel with my camera set at an aperture of 1.4 F to create the Bokeh affects.

Thank you so much for stopping by.  Please feel free to leave any comments or questions below.  I hope you all have a wonderful week.

~Michelle