Alex the Photo Blog

This week and next week I’ll have lots of photos for the blog!  I’ve been busy getting my backlog of shots from the past month edited and uploaded to the client site.  We have an engagement session, a wedding, portraits, and another fun surprise I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of.

Saturday night I made the long trek up to Marietta (30 min) to stay the night with my good friend Curt.  We had plans to go mountain biking up there in the morning and I had no real plans that evening, so we decided to grill out and enjoy the amazing weather.  As it just so happens, all of the food we prepared was homemade:  homemade burgers, homemade buns, homemade fries, and homebrew.

After dinner, we packed our photo gear to check out the Super Moon.  It pretty much looked like a normal full moon, but it was bright enough out to throw a football.  After a few close-up shots of the moon (they’re actually on Curt’s camera, so I don’t have them for ya!), Curt discovered how easy light-painting can be with a cell phone.  Well… easy in that you can physically do it.  Making shapes and writing mirror-image messages proved a little tricky.  Here’s what we came up with at a 30 second exposure setting on a tripod.  None are perfect, but we had a good time!

The last one here is a composite of 4 pictures of our outlines.  Curt’s idea.  The ones on one leg were tough to hold for 30 seconds…

A few more photos from Friday’s Firenze post.

The hostile’s dining hall.

We kept wondering why the train stations kept saying “Firenze” and not “Florence.”  I can honestly say Keri and I gave Italian the old [community] college try before hopping on a plane overseas.  We found about 8 hours of Italian on CDs and listened to them all in about 2 months.  I knew 8 hours of listening in the car wouldn’t get me to conversational Italian, but I thought it would at least cover “why the hell isn’t Florence on the map?  Should we ask someone in what city The David is located?  We eventually figured it out… and arrived in the artist’s city.

To be honest, we were expecting something different.  We thought Rome was going to be a big, busy, bustling city; Florence would be a small, artsy city easy to get around; and Sienna would be just a big neighborhood town.  We were right about Rome and Sienna, but we overestimated the quaintness of Florence.  We’re not saying we didn’t like Florence, because we did experience some amazing art, stayed in a beautiful former convent, and Keri met “Bernini”- her new baby lamb leather jacket.  Florence just seemed full of crazy mopeds, long lines for museums, and a few unfriendly waiters.

I’ll start the photo series with our first moment of peace from the trip.  Between the 5 missed standby flights to Italy, going to Germany first, getting acclimated in Venice, and the sightseeing in Cinque Terre, we began Florence with our first moment of downtime- laundry day.  Because Keri and I flew standby, we had to pack roughly 3 weeks of clothes in a “carry-on and one personal item.”  Florence was about all our wardrobe could handle without offending the natives.  We settled into the Setti Santi Hostile (Seven Saints)- a former Catholic Convent- for a few hours of laundry, napping, and relaxation.  The window you see immediately below opened to an olive orchard.

The Ponte Vecchio and a close-up of the stilts supporting the retail shops that open to the inside of the bridge.

A random opera singer on the street.

And onto the market day 2.

This woman freehand embroiders fabric in about 20 seconds.  Pretty amazing to watch.

And of course, I had to include pictures of Bernini.  The coat that came to Keri by way of an Italian man that knows Keri’s style and size by just one look at her.  No joke.  It was pretty amazing.

Part II on the way…

Day two in the Cinque Terre consisted of a trail hike through the five towns.  You can read about day one and the Cinque Terre here.

Unfortunately we weren’t able to spend much time in the other four cities, though we got to see the sights and have a few bites of food along the way.  In Rio Maggiore (the fifth city) we even decided to take a break and cool down with a dip in the Mediterranean.  The water was so unbelievably clear I had to actually taste it to see if it really was saltwater (yes).  We could easily see 30 to 50 feet below us in the clear blue water… so clear that we got a little freaked out and only stayed in for a few minutes.  Yeah, we’re wusses used to the Atlantic ocean where the water’s too murky to see the imaginary sharks lurking.  I think the worst thing we really had to worry about were topless aging overweight Europeans (no pictures of those, thankfully).

I’ll stop with all this “wordy stuff” and aside from an occassional caption, let the pictures from the hike do the talking.  I am working on some panoramic shots I should have up in a few weeks of the views I couldn’t fit in one shot.

WC = Water Closet = Bathroom

Italian Mailbox:

Keri and my lock on the Via dell’Amore trail between Maranola and Rio Maggiore where couples “lock up their love and throw away the key.”  Keri’s idea…

Though apparently we picked the wrong spot.  Maybe we were blazing a new trail.

Keri and I were in Maine for New Years two weeks ago.  My brother just finshed up dental school last year in Augusta, GA and it just so happened that the residency he decided on to follow school is in Augusta, ME.  They seem to love it up there so far.  I say so far because of this week’s way below zero windchills.

We flew into Boston and immediately drove to Waterville, ME where Patrick, Jennifer, and Abby live.  Very cute town with a relatively fresh coat of snow everywhere but the roads (much more prepared than Atlanta).   We spend New Years Eve and Day in Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park with some cold hiking and beautiful scenery.  I would love to live somewhere that got a respectable amount of snow each year.  Maine may be a bit much, but an average Atlanta winter is usually pretty snowman-less.

Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park:

A cold Keri in Boston:

And this one isn’t mine, but I thought I’d let Patrick show you how much Abby likes the snow.

Along with Cloudland Canyon, GA, Curt and I drove into Tennessee to check out South Cumberland State Park.  The views there were breathtaking.  Unlike Cloudland, none of the overlooks had railings… which gave it another level of incredible.  Though we got freaked out a bit when approaching the edge, I couldn’t imagine anything better than taking a camping trip, waking up from my tent on a Saturday morning, and watching the sunrise with a cup of coffee.  It’s on my list for 2011.

The day following our two park hikes, Greg joined me in hiking up Brasstown Bald.  Though you end up driving up most of the way, there are still miles of trails surrounding Georgia’s highest point that can keep you busy for days.  The sideways ice on all the branches was as interesting as it was beautiful.

First up:  South Cumberland

And for those with vertigo…

And finally, Brasstown Bald:

And I had to put this one in there for fun…

I’m a good bit behind on this one, but it’s what always seems to happen to my personal photos.  Back in October, my good friend Curt Mayer and I took a day off of work to travel to northwest Georgia and south Tennessee to photograph a couple of the best state parks around.  Though the weather was a rough (snow/rain all day), we were able to crank the heater high enough and take the top down on the convertible we stole borrowed.   Cloudland canyon has numerous waterfalls and streams in addition to good foliage views- definitely a place I plan to visit again!