Pixiq

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Saturday was one of those rare days when I had to wake up with an alarm clock. Six a.m. to be exact in order to at Tropical Park at 7 a.m. to shoot the Start! Heart Walk for the American Heart Association.

Fortunately, I have outgrown my mandatory Saturday morning hangover, so it wasn’t that bad. And I actually got to hang out with a few local bloggers whom I had not met before, specifically Rick and Blind Mind, who came out to walk in honor of Fanless’ father, who passed away earlier this year from heart disease.

But Rick and Blind Mind both ran from my camera, so you won’t see them here. Regardless, I ended up walking the 3.1 mile Heart Walk with about 20 pounds of camera gear in 80 degree plus weather chatting with both of them for the last mile-and-a-half. And we didn’t even get into one flame war.

The Heart Walk kicked off with a start gun and a ribbon cutting, which I shot using a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L lens.

I was perched from atop a tall rock about halfway into the Walk when I shot this with a Canon 20mm lens.

Here is Fanless hanging out with the Miami FC mascot and cheerleaders after the walk.

Marlins cheerleaders who now have free time on their hands considering the Marlins are not in the playoffs.

Later on in the evening, I was still in the mood to shoot photos, but not in the mood to carry a ton of gear, so I left home with a special friend carrying one camera body and one lens, a Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens, which is one of my favorites lenses because it is also a telephoto lens.

We first hit Sergio’s, my neighborhood Cuban joint for a shot of Cuban coffee. Below you can see the macro element of the lens as well the telephoto element of the lens.

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Then it was off to Whole Foods for a few groceries where I photographed overpriced jellybeans and a bouquet of flowers, none which I purchased.

Then it was dinner at Swensen’s where I photographed some colorful ice cream and a bottle of ketchup, none which I ingested.

Then we got back to my place and decided to walk down Coral Way to Miracle Mile, so I switched the macro lens for my Canon 50mm f/1.4, which is excellent in low light not to mention extremely lightweight.

It turned out, they were celebrating Oktoberfest at Fritz and Franz Bierhaus with a lively German band called Gastein. The band’s singer is pictured at the top of this post.

Oktoberfest is one of those celebrations like St. Patrick’s Day or Cinco de Mayo where everybody celebrates diversity by pretending to be German, Irish or Mexican. At Fritz and Franz, there were plenty of Germans for a night, but I get the idea that the guy with the flag with an authentic German.

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But I’m not sure about these guys.

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Or this waitress who reminded me of St. Pauli Girl.

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Or even these guys.

But it really didn’t matter because the most important thing was that everybody was very camera friendly, as you can see from this bartender.

We got home before 11:30 p.m. only to realize that Saturday Night Live was a repeat. So apparently the 30-minute episodes they are now running on Thursday night prior to the election are replacing the regular 90-minute Saturday night episode, instead of running as a bonus episode.

I guess the economy is so bad that even SNL is forced to cut back.