Tag Archives: miami

Miami Airport Photos and a 50mm Lens // Part 3

August 18, 2008 – 8:14 am

This the third and final part of my airport in a 50mm lens perspective (see ATL part 1 and DEN part 2), at least until I jump on another plane and end up at an airport other than ATL, DEN, and MIA. Miami was the most difficult out of the three to shoot. It was hot, humid (yes I was inside), very very crowded, and all under construction.

That just means I had to look around more than I usually do and find something that said this was MIA and was (to me) photographically pleasing. For this post, I chose these 4 images below.

Approach into Miami

Miami Airport in 50mm

Miami Airport under construction

Roof in Miami airport

I love the second shot, the plane. This old plane was restored and hung from one of the walks between terminal buildings. What caught my attention was the print just below the name of the pilot.

Passengers travel in this vehicle at their own risk

I did find one nice architectural images of this roof line which seemed to open like a bottle top. I would have preferred to get the faces of the travelers but in an airport you must be wise when holding the camera. With so many irritated passengers around every bend waiting for delayed flights, I wasn’t real interested in inflaming the minds of many.

I always liked the Miami airport. So much diversity even in the airport itself, but modernizing the terminals (which they are doing) would also make it a nice place to fly into while waiting for a long connection. All images in each part of this shoot were taken with a Nikon D700 (in full frame FX mode), hand held, with a 50mm Nikkor f/1.4 lens. Comments, suggestions, critique, or criticism are all welcome. These are shown in the order they were taken.

To see the larger sizes all at once just click on the first image to open the light box gallery and you can scroll through the larger sizes that way. You can also see the largest sizes in the Auburn Images Photography gallery (MIA in 50mm)

By Scott Fillmer | Posted in Journal, Photography, Travel | Also tagged 50mm, airplane, airport, camera, mia | Comments (3)

We Decided to Go Book Hunting in Miami Florida

February 25, 2007 – 9:03 am

To celebrate St. Valentines day this year we combined business with pleasure, as usual, and took a much needed escape (I mean trip) to Miami. We found a book distributor (NOT - more about this later) in Ft. Lauderdale who sold books by the pallet. We decided to go down and check them out to see if the books were worth our time. On the way down we stayed in Orlando and went to Universal Studios for dinner. We didn’t care much about going to the theme parks, but just outside the entrance to the theme park is the Universal Studios Mall. It is an open air mall with about 20+ restaurants. The largest two resturants there, in size and name, are the Hard Rock Cafe and Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville, where we ate. The atmosphere at Margaritaville was fun and of course laid back. They had a solo guitarist who was loads of fun with his crowd interaction. After dinner we decided to go play a round of putt-putt at a course across the street from our hotel. I won the putt-putt game, even after landing in the ruff, but Scott beat me at the air hockey table in the game room afterward. These first photos were taken with a cell phone so the size is pretty small.


Hard Rock Universal Studios


Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville Universal Studios


Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville Universal Studios


My expert golfing landed me here.


The Nascar Budweiser Car at Universal Studios

On To Ft Lauderdale to the Book Distributor

The next day we headed for Ft. Lauderdale and the so called book distributor. I say “so called” because we were expecting a warehouse with stacked pallets of books and what was actually there when we arrived was a 30′ x 100′ “warehouse” full of mostly made in Taiwan items. He had books in the back of the unit, but most had either fallen off their pallets, been crushed, or been subjected to so much humidity they were coated with mildew. We opted out of taking a pallet home and decided to continue looking elsewhere. This meant that the utility trailer that we had taken with us to bring back a pallet was still empty and that we now had room to take home a few plants from the wholesale nurseries in Miami. Yipee!!

Miami was packed with traffic congestion everywhere we went, but we managed to make it to the hotel and to dinner on South Beach. The water and sand was wonderful, but we have ruled this out as one of our spots to frequent because of the shear number of non-tourist people everywhere.


Beats the 40 degrees back home!!


The Hotel


Scott on the beach outside our hotel.


The temp may be 84, but the water is still cold!!


Walking with sand between your toes, what could be better?


Cleveland’s Miami Beach

We took the Hwy 997 route back home where we picked up some fabulous plants for our new house and a Key Lime tree just for the fun of it. Across the Everglades and up through Sarasota. The weather was changing as we were on our way back up north. The wind picked up and the temprature dropped from a cold front that was blowing through. We went to the beach anyway. Our last evening we ate at Boston Market (one of my favorite places) and stayed at a Comfort Inn Suites in Ocala that had been open about 2 weeks. It was probably the nicest, cleanest, and best smelling hotel we have ever stayed in. Then it was back to the house and back to searching for more suppliers for books.


Bird on Sarasota Beach


Me, cold again….

By tiger | Posted in Travel | Also tagged beach, books, florida | Comments (1)

Miami, Daytona, Baseball, and a New Motorcycle

July 17, 2006 – 6:37 pm

Miami, Daytona & Motorcycles

Coming Home

Another thing that Scott and I like to do is go to sporting events. These include, but are not limited to, all major league sports, minor league baseball, and college sports of all kinds. We planned this trip so that we could catch a Florida Marlins vs. Houston Astros game in formerly “Joe Robbie” stadium. This is a stadium that I have always wanted to visit.

It was so hot during the game (mid-day game) that we left after about the 5th inning. You can see from the photo that 90% of the stadium was empty right from the beginning of the game. Heat and a “not so good team” were probably the main reasons for this, but we enjoyed the game none the less.

Dolphin’s Stadium

After we left the game and went back to the hotel to freshen up we found a little place on the ocean to eat dinner called O’Mallys Ocean Pub. The dining was outside, with a live band and the tables were about 50′ from the crashing waves. Magnificent!

While we were on our trip to the keys we decided to get serious about finding Scott a bike so we could ride together. We decided to take the “scenic” route home to Alabama through Daytona in order to pick up new bike bells for each other. There is a legend that goes with these bells and they are supposed to be given to a rider by a friend. We picked out our bells in Daytona at a place called “Hot Leathers” (hmmmm) and purchased them for each other, had a spectacular lunch at Johnny Rockets overlooking the ocean (one last time) and then it was back on the road for home.

Scott’s Bike

After arriving home we wasted no time in finding a bike on eBay for Scott. We picked it up the next weekend and have been riding together almost every day since. Here are some photos of the proud new owner of a Honda Nighthawk 750 in the rare blue color.

Loaded Up on the Trailer

We loaded the new bike up on the trailer after Scott took it around the neighborhood for a test ride. The bike is in great condition and although it has a lot more power than my Honda Rebel, they ride great together.

By Scott Fillmer | Posted in Travel | Also tagged baseball, florida, motorcycles | Comments (0)

Quick Trip to the Florida Keys

January 17, 2006 – 7:47 pm

Quick trip to the Keys

The weekend after we moved in to the rent house we (my husband, Scott and I) took my brother in law down to Florida to pick up a van that he had won on eBay. Since we were going all the way to Miami to get the van we decided that it would be pretty much mandatory that we stay the weekend and visit the Keys. Although the weather was cold and windy we all had a great time.

Me and Hubby

Me and my brother in law

The one full day we had in the keys was a Saturday. We spent the day slowly wandering down the keys, stopping so the guys could fish along the way at the various public fishing bridges.

The guys

Something took my bait!

I caught bait!!

We stopped halfway down the keys at Bahia Honda State Park to get a closer look at the water and possibly get our feet wet.

Old railroad bridge in the park

Could be warmer!

By dinner time we had made it all the way down to the southernmost point of the continental United States (or at least to the marker, the point is actually not accessible). We went by Ernest Hemmingway’s house and then went to dinner in Key West at Sloppy Joe’s, Hemmingway’s old haunt.

Me and my brother in law at the southern most point marker

The drive back 100+ miles to Miami was complimented by a pretty sunset in the rearview mirror and great music on the stereo. None of us wanted to leave, but hopefully we will go back again when it is a bit warmer and snorkeling is possible.

By Scott Fillmer | Posted in Travel | Also tagged Fishing, fla keys, Travel | Comments (0)