Phone-tography

Happy New Year everyone! Yes… it’s true… this is my FIRST blog post of 2013!

Well my friend Sherese has decided to come visit me here in Medellín for the month of February. We have had a lot of fun together getting to reconnect again. When coming down for the trip I told her to leave her PC and SLR Camera back in the States and that she could use mine while she was here. Instead, she has decided to take on a new task of seeing things from a new prospective by taking all of her photos with her cell phone which can be quite frustrating for a photographer – no zoom (well no REAL zoom)! However, it has been a great challenge for her and she has gotten me to take my phone out a bit and take some photos as well.

Make sure to check out Sherese’s blog – Life Defused. This blog post is about her own phone-tography as we took a 5 hour walking tour of Envigado (southern suburb of Medellín). Check out her other posts in order to inspire yourself!

Here is a look at our walk around the city via my cell phone lens. All photos taken with my Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket and edited with the Snapseed app.

Salsa Dance Performance

So today I thought I would share a personal post with everyone. A few weeks ago I was invited to dance with my girlfriend’s salsa group for a performance here in Medellin, Colombia. One of the members of the group is currently studying abroad in Italy for a year so they needed someone to perform in his place. I agreed and it turned out to be a great time. We were quite surprised by the size of the crowd when we arrived as it turned out to be a very large event held on a covered basketball court. We had a few worries about trying to spin on the concrete but in the end it didn’t turn out to be much of a problem.

Casino Salsa is a bit different because instead of just using couples it is done with a group of couples. The dance consists of switching partners  and dancing in a circle (rueda). In case anyone isn’t sure – I am the one with the beard 😉

After our performance the crowd cheered us on for an encore. We performed an extra number but it was all improved. Casino Salsa is a cuban style of salsa in which one person yells out the different moves (when it is not choreographed) and everyone follows in sync. It was hard to hear in this venue so the leader calling out the moves is also using hand signals for us to understand easier. So, here is the improved version!