Iain Leitch Photography

A tour of the city of Matanzas was the second part of the excursion I went on while on holiday. The first part of the excursion is talked about in my post, Cuba Part 2. During the part of the tour, we went to an old pharmacist museum from the 1800s/early 1900s. The first three photos in this post are from the museum. This museum is persevered excellently and looks stunning with all of the original bottles and labels. Right outside of the museum is the main square of the city where the following four photos are from. This city itself is very colourful with many buildings painted blue, orange, yellow, and green. The next part of our tour was to go down to the riverside where there is another square. The remaining photos are from this area. Overall I wish we could have done more of a walking tour of the city but what we saw was still quite beautiful and I had learned a lot.

In Cuba, my family and I went on an excursion to the Bellamar Caves and to the city of Matanzas. This post will focus on the Bellamar Caves, while the following one will focus on the city of Matanzas. The Bellamar Caves are a set of underground caves in Cuba near the city of Matanzas. They are a group of caves that had no opening in them until people found them in the 18th century. The only way to access the cave is by going on a guided tour as this is a national monument and the government wants to protect it. For this tour, you descend a set of stairs until you reach the bottom of the cave from there you walk 800 or so metres until you have to turn around due to the size of the tunnel becoming too small. The caves are all lit up with motion sensor lights that show off the amazing crystals inside the caves. There is also a couple of pool of water inside the caves such as the fountain of youth and the fountain of love. This was a genuinely great experience as I would love to go back. ...

Welcome to my series about my vacation I went on with my family in Cuba over reading break. We stayed in the tourist area of Varadero which is a peninsula jutting out from the main island of Cuba. The first picture is of the main market in the town of Varadero. I am not quite sure what this statue is supposed to represent as there was no sign but I thought it looked interesting. The second photo is of a lizard I saw well walking around the town. I'm not sure what type of lizard this is but it was very common in the Varadero region. The following two pictures are from the resort I stayed at. The first is of the beach at the resort which was very pleasant and because I went during the offseason their was always plenty fo chairs available at the beach and the pool. The final picture is of the pool at the resort but if you look in the clouds you can see the final remnant of a rainbow from an early morning storm.

The weekend of October 5th is Thanksgiving in Canada, that weekend I went up to Ottawa with my girlfriend to spend the holiday with her family. The first photo in this post is actually taken in Peterborough when I went on a walk in a local park. The Monarch Butterfly was flying around this pine tree until it landed and started sunning itself on it. The following two pictures are taken on the road trip to Ottawa. This was a rest area on the side of the highway which had some nice autumn colours and reflections going on. The final five pictures in this post were taken at Mer Bleue Bog Trail in Ottawa. This trail had some great fall colours going on. The final picture in this post is actually one of my new favourites with the colours popping and the popular trees providing some nice contrast. 

My birthday happened recently and for my birthday I was given a new lens for my camera. I got the  AF-P DX Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3G ED VR lens. This is the second lens that I have for my camera as I have an 18-140mm lens. This new lens allows me to get greater telephoto photos now which is key as I am an avid wildlife/bird photographer so this will help me in that regard. I took the lens out soon after I got it an managed to get these three photos with it. The first photo is of a mallard duck down by the river that I like as you are able to see the reflection nicely in the water. The second photo is of a monarch butterfly on a flower, I am not the biggest fan of this photo because of the lighting but I still think it is blog-worthy. The last photo is my favourite one of the day as I was able to get a great blue heron standing on a log by the river. I even added this photo to my portfolio as it is showing all of the colours on the heron and the longer feathers too.  ...