2025 NE Cruise - St John, Stone Church Exteriors

These last two posts of churches in St John are of one we discovered at the end of a long street on the edge of downtown.  It's called the "Stone Church", which is of the Anglican Church of Canada.  While this is a good, straight-on shot of the building, think taking a picture of the church through these trees adds interest.  As a bonus we have a light post in the foreground:

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Focus-Shifted Model Ship in Library

Also in this library was a large model sailing vessel, which was used to create a focus shift between the wheel and "ropes" in the foreground:

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Library Book Display

We were standing on the second floor across a wide expanse in the lobby, so had to zoom in to 250mm for this shot.  The goal was to get close enough to the books to read their titles.

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Library Balloon Girl

As it turns out this library was quite the place, with more than one photo op for the Bigger Cahoona.  The girl was hanging from a wire, which was quickly and handily removed by the awesome and improved Remove Tool in Photoshop.

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Marching Protestors

It became necessary to stop by the restroom before we got to the ship, and a kind person on the street told us that the library was the best place to go.  That's it across the street here, but we couldn't cross right away because of this march taking place.  Don't know if they were protesting or celebrating or what, as the flags and signage didn't specify.  So we waited a few minutes for them to get past, then made our way to relief.

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Old Building Facade

A building we encountered along the way back to the port.

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Apartment Building Through Trees

This was the view upon exiting the church.  Looking at the apartment building through these trees reminded me of this post and this post, both published in 2020.

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Ornate Church Lectern

Probably the most elaborate and ornate lectern ever made...even the bird gets a sash!  Wonder who gets to stand here and speak...

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Focus Shift with Cross and Stained Glass

 ...a focus-shifted pair using some stained glass in the background.

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Church Throne

Is this a throne?  I guess only certain people of high "rank" in the place get to sit here.  I've always had a problem with hierarchy in a church, as the Bible teaches that love is the great leveler of all the playing fields in life, and the "greatest among you shall be your servant" (Matthew 23:11).  Dunno - all these robes and crowns and hats and sashes - and thrones - the "higher ups" in a church get to use sure sets them apart somehow.  Shouldn't we be uniting instead?

2025 NE cruise - St John, Bookmark with Cross

 

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Pulpit of Church Interior

Church interiors are always fun to shoot.  There is often an abundance of color, good subtle lighting, and lots of art in glass, wood and stone.  Pulpits are interesting, as their elevation and degree of ornateness speaks to the veneration of the ministers that stand and speak behind them.  Plus it's a challenge - due to the usually low light conditions it's a trick to keep a steady hand, especially with a slower, middling lens.  I like photographing the insides of churches.

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Church Organ Pipes

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Narrow Window Exterior Shot

 

2025 NE Cruise - St John Steeple Shots

A peek-a-boo steeple shot here plus oblique angle of another below, on a church which we'll enter in the next several posts:

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Broadside Container Views

A broadside view of one of the containers.  Glowing and Found Edges effects on same below:

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Colorful Container Shopping Plaza

Part of the appeal of going on a cruise to new and (sometimes) exotic destinations is visiting towns and attractions that otherwise you wouldn't even know or think about.  Saint John is for us one example.  We'd never even heard of it, but found it interesting to explore.  Realizing that a lot of what is along ports like these is built just for the benefit of cruise passengers, they are nonetheless interesting to visit and occasionally patronize.

Imagine an entire shopping mall built primarily out of shipping containers!  I couldn't resist going crazy with the colors...

2025 NE Cruise - Portland, Neighborhood Panorama

I debated about posting this one because it's a 4-shot panorama and just so huge.  But I liked the idea of capturing a grove of houses instead of the usual cityscape.  So here it is...click the photo on a larger screen to see more detail.

And this is it for Portland posts.  Next stop:  St. John, New Brunswick

2025 NE Cruise - Old Pilings

These old pilings caught my interest.  Guess it would be too expensive to remove them, so there they are.  Closer view below:

2025 NE Cruise - Portland, Sailing Ship

An example of some of the old sailing ships plying the waters there in Portland.  Reminiscent of this post and this post, both captured in Key West back in the day.

I've gone sailing exactly once in my life.  While at UT Law School my brother bought a little Sunfish, and thought it'd be a good idea to hit Lake Travis on a blustery spring day.  It was windy and cold out there, and being so close to the water we were frequently hit by spray as the little craft bounced along.  It was nice of my brother to offer the adventure, but I vowed from that day to stay away from sailboats, especially little ones...

2025 NE Cruise - Portland Yacht

Old with the new...  Saw this yacht gliding into port on our way back to the ship.  Really sleek, probably cost in the neighborhood of $10 million or so.  It's easy to conclude that the older man with white hair perched on the bow is the owner (click on the photo to expand), literally watching his "ship come in" as it is guided by his staff.  I guess that if you're a gazillionaire something like this would be a tempting purchase.

If you have the money, why not spend it?  A fair question, but then you think of so much good that could've been done to aid the homeless, fund research to fight a disease, etc.  This concept is brought into sharp focus by a billionaire in another country who bought a super yacht for something like $150 million.  Thing was, he did not like boats or being on the water, so all he did with it was use it as a breakfast room.  Yes, he would descend from his penthouse apartment on the shoreside, walk across the street and get on his boat to eat breakfast.  Then return to his apartment or wherever else he was going for the day.

Pic below of same as it neared its berth on the other side of the ferry:

2025 NE Cruise - Portland, Fence Segment with Locks

Interesting that city officials - or somebody - had cut a segment of this fence and installed it as a standalone sculpture.  As mentioned in other places in the blog, affixing locks to a fence like this in other places has created no small problems.  Perhaps putting them on display served to appease the public while not able to allow its practice on city infrastructure.

2025 NE Cruise - Portland, Lighthouse Statue with Clock

While we were in town...

2025 NE Cruise - Portland Cityscapes

We have always wanted to go to Maine, and one of the reasons for selecting a New England cruise was this first stop in Portland.  Though just here for a day we made the most of it and explored what we could within walking distance from the terminal.  Before deboarding, however, I took the time to snap a couple of cityscapes...

2025 NE Cruise - Boats in Boston Harbor / Brainless YouTube Commercials

Some boats of interest in the harbor...the police, a pilot, and what looks to be a tug based out of New York.

I watch YouTube a lot...probably more than I should.  We don't subscribe to the premium, which means we are stuck with watching at least the beginning of a lot of brainless commercials.  As a result, I hereby refuse to listen to any commercial, much less buy their products, if it contains any of these words:

     brilliant

     NASA

     revolutionary

     by storm

     trick

     experts agree

     cutting edge

     incredible

     genius

     doctor

     obsolete

     game changer

     magic

     everybody

     nobody

     Did you know...

     You need to...

     secret

     shocking

     ...don't want you to know

     (any bad word)

2025 NE Cruise - Boston Harbor Lighthouse

...and what would New England be without lighthouses?  The first of many encountered on our cruise, this guy was captured toward the end of the Harbor as we sailed north.

Caught this second peek-a-boo shot just a little further out:

2025 NE Cruise - Old Building on Boston Harbor Shoreline

Zoomed in a bit to capture this old building along the shoreline; full composition below.  In the pic above, note how some space was cut between two sets of windows.

2025 NE Cruise - Boston Harbor Shorescape

Thanks to the large sensor of the Bigger Cahoona, coupled with its high-resolution of 48 megapixels, cropped-in shorescape pics like this can resemble much larger panoramas.

2025 NE Cruise - Boston Harbor, Infrastructure Circles

The first official morning of the cruise was August 30th.  We endured the check-in process and boarded in time for a quick lunch before sailing.  We had a balcony cabin, and stood there to watch the world go by as the ship slowly made its way through the harbor.  I've always been intrigued by the infrastructure of major seaports, and these circles caught my eye...

2025 NE Cruise - Boston Cityscape

The wife and I went on our first cruise to explore New England.  We'd been on many in the Caribbean, which got boring (we're not beach people).  One in Alaska, which was great and one that we'd like to repeat and expand on later sometime, Lord willing.  And now for the first time we're in New England.  Started out in Boston, flying there the night before the cruise departed.

And what we saw was surprising.  While the population of the city itself is almost 700k it retains something of a small-town feel.  Must be because of the large number of colleges and universities there.  At any rate, I was pleasantly surprised at the coziness and positive vibe we experienced in the city.

Did not take the Bigger Cahoona out for our exploratory walk that first night, but did consider the photo above, captured with the iPhone 15 Pro Max, to be a keeper.

First Visit to Phoenix - Giveaway Chair in Chandler

Saw this on a neighborhood walk...

And this is all for our first visit to Phoenix.  Our objectives were met during the 5-day visit there - we scoped out the lay of the land, explored some of the sites nearby, and experienced first-hand the infernal heat that everyone talks about.  Now we are a little more prepared for our next, more extended visit in September when, Lord willing, we'll be here to help out with Allison's NEW BABY!  Meanwhile, between now and then there's a 10-day New England cruise to cover in the blog.  By the grace of God we've been allowed this travel time during our early retirement years, and are looking forwarded to share those adventures with you.

First Visit to Phoenix - Salt River Fishing Trip, Saguaro Looking East

Once down the road a bit we stopped and, looking east, saw this scene.  It would have been easy to remove the holes and blemishes on the saguaro, but most do in fact look like this so decided to keep it natural.

Well, what the heck...here's the same with a somewhat cleaned-up saguaro.  On a larger screen, click on the photo and use your arrow keys to swap back and forth for comparison:

First Visit to Phoenix - Salt River Fishing Trip, Silhouette Looking West

We decided to head back toward the end of dusk when, looking west, I saw the opportunity for a silhouette featuring some saguaro on the hilltop.  There were some electric lines cutting through the middle of the scene, but the newest version of Photoshop took care of that with two clicks of the mouse.

First Visit to Phoenix - Salt River Fishing Trip, Shoreline Reflection Shot

We were hanging out on the riverbank, sort of hoping that wild horses would emerge from the vegetation on the opposite shore for a drink, when I saw this opportunity for a reflection shot.  No horses, but think the pic turned out OK...