Campaigning For A Dream

2012 Honda Civic

In 2005 the newest shape of the well know Honda Civic was released and your boy Stunner immediately started to drool. Yes, This was the car I wanted, awesome sort shape, optional bigger engine rated at 1800cc, futuristic dashboard, yes all that I was looking for. But when it was time to sell my 1998 Honda Civic and buy the object of my obsession I was brought to reality! Yes, the cost of the new Civic certainly slapped me across my face like a brick of reality! I searched high and low, car lot to car lot and importer to importer but alas, the price was still out of my reach. I conceded and settled for the next best thing, a 2004 Honda Civic. It wasn't what I rally wanted, but it was close enough for my struggling pocket. But I continued to lust like a dog in heat every year that a new Civic came out. Wishing, and hoping. Would I ever be able to own a Civic, even more so that I was made redundant mid 2009?

Article on The Gleaner website

Jus when all seemed dismal and all hope had seemed to be dashed to pieces a glimmer of hope popped up just when I least expected it! There I was browsing The Gleaner online when I saw the article "Write to drive - 2012 Honda Civic Up For Grabs"! After reading the simple entry requirements I decided this was my ticket to fullfil my dreams to own the Civic I always wanted! How could I not give it a try! The timing of this competition could not be better as I am about to embark on my island photography tour! I immediately started to picture myself embarking on my journeys in comfort and style! Powerful 1800cc engine for when I need that extra kick, spacious interior to hold all my gear and controls on the steering wheel for even safer driving! Mi want it!!!

My entry page (in English)

For me to qualify to win I must be one of the top five contestants in Jamaica with the most points and I must test drive the 2012 Honda Civic! I gain points by getting votes on my entry page as well as from sharing my entry page and test driving the car. So I have embarked on a campaign to gain votes in a bid to rack up my points to ensure eligibility! I have also scheduled my appointment to test drive the 2012 Honda Civic at ATL and will be posting that experience in the form of a video for you all!

Hopefully all will go as planned and I will seize my chance to win the 2012 and realize my dream! However, hoping alone wont help, I need your help! Yes I need you all to help me to fullfil my dream by going to my entry page and cast your vote once per day, every day till March 31. It's so easy and takes less than 10 seconds. Jus click on the link below and click the "Vote for my entry button"

Go To My Entry Page*

*If the page is in Spanish, there is a link at the lower right hand corner of the page to change it to english.


Thank you all for your support and I will keep you all updated on the progress of the competition! So VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

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Wyndham Wedding Spectacular

One of the Wedding Cake decorations on display

On Saturday I went to the recently held Wyndham Wedding Spectacular at the Wyndham Hotel in Kingston. I have never been to this wedding expo before and in fact this was the first I was hearing of it. However, I am more familiar with the Jamaica Pegasus Wedding Extravaganza which is normally held a little later in the year. So even though I had an idea of what a wedding expo is all about I wasn't sure of what to expect of this new on. Will it be the same as the Pegasus show?

A model showing off one one the wedding dresses at the expo

The first thing I noticed about the Wyndham Wedding Spectacular was that it was not as large as the one held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, in fact it seems as small as a half the footprint. However, it had a similar theme, boothes setup throughout the venue featuring wedding photographers, wedding planners, makeup artists, decorators and even a somewhat new phenomenon wedding insurance. One thing that did stick out though as I entered the venue was the impressive Mercedes Benz that was on display in the centre of the wedding show. My, my, my, it certainly made me crave for some German engineering in my life!

One of the sample table decorations on display at the expo

Overall though, despite being a much smaller wedding show than the well known Jamaica Pegasus Wedding Extravaganza, it was pretty decent. It allowed me to get a feel of what's out there in the wedding business, in particular, wedding photography, a filed that I am very much a part of. I got to see what some of my competitors are offering and also helped me to network with a few potential allies in the wedding business. Hopefully it will grow and like the Pegasus' wedding show, give businesses an opportunity to display their products and services to potential clients who are considering making that big step in their lives. I did not go with the intention to take photographs per say, but I still walked with my camera... as all true photographers do... and took a few photographs to share. You can view the album on my facebook page in the album titles Wyndham Wedding Spectacular.

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Judgement Day Tomorrow?

May 21 Billboard

Harold Camping and his organization, familyradio.com, has been creating quite a stir the last few days with their Judgement Day prophesy! Camping and his believers have predicted that Judgement day will be not in the distant future, not in a few years, but they have given the exact date! Yes, they have predicted that tomorrow, May 21, 2011 will be Judgement Day, and that all those who find favour in God's eyes will be caught up in a rapture while the earth will experience great earthquakes! But it doesn't end there as he further goes on to predict that the earth and the universe itself will all be destroyed in five months time, on October 21, 2011!

It seems Camping has not only mislead himself, but has mislead many others in his delusion, even here locally, as one of his believers stole the show on Religious Hard Talk just a few nights ago. The May 21 believers are so convinced of this that they have embarked on a massive campaign, which has resulted in many large billboards being placed all over the US and even here in Jamaica! There are also floods of Google ads and other forms of electronic media being used to propagate this baseless prediction.

Camping and his followers, however, despite claiming to be followers of God has completely disregarded the very word of God himself, which states that only God knows the exact time when He will brig fourth his judgement on those who fail to serve him. The Bible states in several books that only God himself can say when this great day will be:

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
-Matt 24:36 (New International Version (©1984))

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
-Mark 13:32 (New International Version (©1984))

"He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority."
-Acts 1:7 (New International Version (©1984))

However, Camping chose to ignore these scriptures and feels he is more special than even God's only begotten son and has made his prediction for God's day of Judgment. So much so that he has taken it upon himself to predict that it will be May 21, 2011. The Bible itself did make a prediction that is certainly true, that there shall be false prophets that will mislead. Camping and his following have proven what they are since it is already May 21, 2011 in half of the earth and nothing has happened thus far. But Camping is not the first who thinks he can beat God's word with his own prophesy and he shall certainly not be the last. The Bible has warned against people like him and they have manifested themselves, misleading many.

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Carnival On The Road!!!

Miss Universe 1st Runner-up Yendi Phillips enjoying the music

On Sunday of this week the Jamaican Carnival season came to it's climax, the grade finale, the road march. The Carnival season started at the beginning of the year with the customary blow out nights and socarobics sessions at Mass camp then built up momentum with beach J'Ouvert over the easter weekend and then the final set of J'Ouvert sessions in New Kingston the Friday night before the Road March.

Revelers pose for a photo

I always look forward to the road march for the colourful costumes and also the colourful multitude of women that only seem to come out when it is time for the road march. What could be better than beautiful women dancing in scanty costumes? (heheehee) I was especially excited this year though since I had a new camera and also my prized possession, my 24-70mm f2.8 lens! So I was ready to take some great photos of the fun on the streets.

A reveler dancing to the Soca music

I had a rough weekend with a lot of work so my plans of getting up early to capture the event from the start was totally out of the question. I got up at about 10am  and decided I would catchup with the revelers and my fellow photographers after lunch when they were re-energized. However, things did not work as planned! by 12:00pm the sun was replaced by mean dark clouds which began to pour its fury on the road and it poured and poured! At this point getting any glimpse of the road march was just a dream.

More lovely females posing for the camera

However, just as how a bright sunny day changed to a deluge, it changed back to a very bright and sunny afternoon! the sun came back out with full force, almost squashing the memory of the previous rain. I met up with the revelers on Trafalgar Road in New Kingston and thanks to a fellow photographer I got an arm band which allowed me full access to the revelers! This year road march was much smaller than previous years, seems the recession has also hit Bacchanal Carnival. There were only about five trucks and the number of costumed revelers was very small and disorganized. Even the lead costume was almost nonexistent for the various groups. Nevertheless it was a fun crowd, lots of dancing, gyrating, scantily clad, sexy women were out on the streets. It was a much smaller road march than previous years, but it still provided a lot of photo ops and was fun.

This lady certainly turned several heads with her revealing costume and  eye-popping body!

See the rest of my Bacchanal Carnival Road March photos in the following albums on my Facebook fan page:
Bacchanal Carnival Road March Part I 01 May 2011
Bacchanal Carnival Road March Part II 01 May 2011

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St. Ann Explored

One of the series of waterfalls at Cool Blue Hole St. Ann

Once again it was time for the group of very talented photographers and photo enthusiasts to explore the beautiful island of Jamaica and to capture some of it's beauty in photographs. Yes, it was time for yet another monthly JWI/LOP Flickr Group photo trip. Our path lead us to the garden parish of St. Ann, the parish of the famous tourist resort town of Ocho Rios and the world renown Dunn's River Falls. However, these regularly visited places were not on our agenda, we wanted to see the less known places that Jamaica has tucked away in it's treasure chest.

Another waterfall at Cool Blue Hole

Our first stop of the trip was a return visit to the beautiful Cool Blue Hole. We have been there before, but not everyone explored the entire falls, including me. So this return trip was to not just familiarize ourselves with it's beauty, but also to further explore this lovely slice of nature. Cool Blue Hole certainly did not disappoint, as further up the falls was even more majestic as the powerful rushing water cascaded down smooth rock faces into pools of pristine blue waters below. As tempting as th water was, I opted not to swim, but yielded to the photographer in me and stayed satisfied with attempting to capture the beauty of nature and of Jamaica.

The old Spanish Bridge at White River

The next stop carried us even deeper into the heart of St. Ann to another spot that our group had visited before, the White river Valley, home of the old Spanish Bridge and Chukka Caribbean White River Tubing. Even though it was a short stop here and I didn't take much photos I was still appreciative of the rich blue, pristine water and the historic bridge that spanned the deep pool below. We even spotted a small group of tourists river tubing, something that I have in mind to do for such a long time now. hopefully this summer i will get the chance to do the Chukka Caribbean White River Tubing.

Small group doing the Chukka White river Tubing

Flames from natural gases at Fire Water

Fire Water, a small spring that has section that emits a flammable gas, was our next stop. I was excited to see this phenomenon for myself as I had seen a small feature on it some time ago. I must admit, that even though it was got to see fire burning on the top of a cool body of water, I was rather disappointed with the look of the place. The place looked really tacky and the area that the gas is released from was very tiny, nothing that would bring out the feeling of awe. Nevertheless, I satisfied my curiosity. There was also a Rastafarian roots drink vendor there at Fire Water who provided some entertainment with his mixture of singing and Dub Poetry, much to the delight of the amused patrons. If you are nearby Runaway Bay, then you can make a quick stop to feed your curiosity, but I would not recommend anyone travelling just to view it.

The Rastafarian Roots Medicine vendor performing at Fire Water

Airplanes performing stunts at the Air Show seen from the fishing beach

Our Final stop of the day was on the fishing beach at Oracabessa to get a glimpse of the air show that was scheduled for that afternoon. The fishing beach provided a very good view of the air show, which boasted some awesome stunts and thrilling flybys. I could not zoom in much on the small airplanes as the zoomed by, but I did manage to get a few good wide angle shots. It was a great note to end the trip on and to end another great day of exploring Jamaica! To see more of the photos I took on the trip please visit visit my fan page Joel Finnigen Photography in this album JWI/LOP Flickr Group Trip 24 April 2011.

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The Liguanea Arts Festival 2011

The Liguanea Arts Festival at the Liguanea Plaza St. Andrew

On Sunday April 17 the Liguanea Plaza came alive with the artistic expressions of several talented Jamaicans! It was the Liguanea Arts Festival a showcase that features some of Jamaica's most talented in the field of the visual and even the performing arts! Photographers, painters and sculptures turned out in their numbers to showcase their wonderful works of arts to an eager public in hopes of catching their interest as well as get sales from their pieces.

The large turnout at the Liguanea Arts Festival

I arrived at the Liguanea Plaza at about 3:00pm, however, on my was a bit disturbed as the rain started to fall while I was en route to Liguanea. I began to wonder it this rain would have washed out the festival and that I may have been a bit too late to see the pieces on exhibit or get to capture any shots of the crowd. Nevertheless I still made my way up to Liguanea and was pleasantly surprised that the rain eased up when I arrived. It seems the rain only cooled down the temperature as it certainly didn't deter people from turning out the the Liguanea Art Festival. A lovely turn out was there and so were the number of booths! There were different alleys that featured different aspects of the visual arts: photography, paintings, sculptures, etc, yes a belly full of artistic expression in every alley.

Photographer Howard Moo Young (centre)

Some of the art work on display

An artist and his work

There were several well known artists, photographers and sculptors with some awesome pieces on display and for sale at the festival. However the visual arts was not the only highlight of the festival as the Akivaaba Drummers entertained the crowds with magnificent drumming accompanied by the traditional dances of local folk dancers. no event can be a success without the sponsors and the Liguanea Art Festival had its fair share of sponsors including corporate companies such as JNBS. There were also other sponsors of that were present that did more than just display their products but also offered samples, such as Appleton Estate who kept patrons in "high spirits" withe their samples.

Akivaaba Drummers

Dancers performing to the music of the Akivaaba Drummers

Michael Collins of JNBS one of the sponsors of the event

The Appleton Estate booth with mixed drink samples

This was certainly a testimony of the caliber of talent that exist in this small country called Jamaica! My visit to the Liguanea Art Festival, especially the pieces of top photographers such as Franz Marcouza & Howard Moo young, has certainly encouraged me to continue to pursue my passion for Photography. Hopefully I will not just attend the Liguanea Art Festival next year but I hope to have some of my work there on display and also for sale! To see more of my photos of the Liguanea Arts Festival click here.

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