Tag Archives: marisa africa photos

The Time I Got Lost in Noosa

16 Aug

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This one time, a bit over a year ago, I got lost in Noosa, Australia. Let me just clarify that it was not in the middle of a city that I was lost. I was trekking through the National Park with 2 Israelis I had met and the sun was setting and we were lost in what seemed to be a forrest. It was some scary $hit for real!

The funny part of this story is how we got out of the park:

I got lost in the park with a couple of Israel soldiers who swore they could protect us and get us out in once piece. I trusted them, but was really not happy about getting lost in the dark. As we were walking across an empty beach (part of the park) at sunset, contemplating on pitching a tent and hoping the tide didn’t rise and leave us stuck or heading away from the ocean into a forrest area that we were unfamiliar with, we met a couple. Not just any couple. We met a very drunk, nude, couple of swingers. This was just icing on a cake and I knew that at some point in my life I would be able to share this story.  Needless to say, they were quite amused with us and our getting lost. They thankfully led us out of the park, through the forrest… picking on us the entire time. They kept shouting “snake” or “possum” or some sort of animal, just to scare me. Once we got out, the man saw my camera and dropped his drawers one last time for photo purposes. That one will not be on the blog… sorry :)

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Heat vs. Circus

11 Jan

The past week I have had the pleasure of attending more than one event at the American Airlines Arena. Both events were so diverse in show that I found the contrast to be quite interesting. On the one hand, there was the Miami Heat Basketball game, and on the other the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus. One event had cheering fans, beer, alcohol, cursing and score keeping while the other had children, lollipops, lemonade, clowns, elephants, horses, tigers and “magic”.

I will let you guess which was which.
I had a great time at the Heat game. The fact that we won made it that much more pleasurable. My friend got us great seats which allowed me to take some cool action shots. I personally like them blurred because it adds a bit of an “artful” twist! I also tried to focus on Beasley because I love him.
For me, the circus was an interesting diversion to a typical sunday night. I took my sister as a birthday gift and came out with photos and a new perspective on animal rights. As you (the blog reader) may have seen my previous posts, I was in Africa a few years ago and elephants were among my favorite animals to photograph. I also took kindly to learning a lot about them during my time in Kenya. For example, did you know elephants are pregnant for roughly 2 years? They stay in packs and have incredible memories. It was actually quite hard for me to digest the fact that they were creatures of a circus show. They were made to stand on their heads, hold people in their mouths, lean on each other and many other “tricks”. I felt somewhat of a hypocrite being the vegetarian that I am. Not only were the elephants made to do tricks, but there were also tigers, dogs, zebras and horses on trained display. Which leads me to my next thought… how does the Miami Heat feel knowing that their home housed captivated animals that poop on their court?
It is just amazing to me how one location can host such opposing events.

For more information on Circus Animal Cruelty click HERE




















Africa – The beginning

15 Dec

This morning, while having breakfast, I was reading the Miami Herald. The front page led to a spread about overpopulation in the Africa and the increasing rise of poverty. In Africa, over half of the population is under the age of 15 and by the year 2050, there will be a population of over 2 billion people. That is a lot of poor jobless Africans. Women there on average have 5.3 children and every few seconds a new baby is born. These facts shocked me and I just had to share them with the people who read this blog.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is where it all began; my love for the camera. About 5 years ago my grandmother took my sister and I on a Safari through Kenya and Tanzania. It was for this trip that I purchased my first SLR. Every morning, up at 6/7 and out into the “bush” for some wildlife, landscape, photography. There were periods where my sister would get super annoyed because I would take so many pictures that the tour would have to wait for me to move on.
After going through these images again after a few years, I have to say it was really hard to find some good ones. I can see, looking back, that I definitely trained my eye to see the world differently. I also have learned how to actually use the tool that I love so much! So after going through 1000 bad pictures, I managed to come up with and edit a few good ones!
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