Chiara and I recently spent three days with her parents and their house in Umbria. (They’re interested in selling the house, and the website for the house can be found here.)
The afternoon light on an Umbrian hillside.
A relaxed time was had by all, and I got quite a few shots of the sunset and the surrounding countryside, as well as a few shots of the nearby city of Massa Martana. Massa Martana had suffered an earthquake several years ago, and they’re just now finishing their rebuilding of the old section of the city.
I finally got a chance to try some concert photography last night when Chiara and I went to see a friend of friends performing at the seaside outside of Rome.
We were outdoors and the seating area was pretty small, so my relatively short lens wasn’t much of a problem (although a faster lens and a body with better high-ISO performance would have helped). That said, I’m pretty happy with this shot (and I think it works in a square crop too).
Chiara and I are back from our Canada-USA trip, and to say that we had a great time would probably be a bit of an understatement. Thanks to everyone who hosted us, and to those we met along the way, you’ve all made our trip truly memorable!
the Chicago skyline
Chiara and I arrived in Chicago where we stayed for a couple of days with my Mom and Grandmother, then we went up to London (via Detroit) to visit Dave and Sona. From there it was off to North Bay to spend a few art-filled days and nights with Deanna and Brent, then to Dad’s before leaving for Coniston/Onaping, where we stayed for two nights with Uncle Victor and Aunt Pauline at their house on Windy Lake. During our stay at Windy Lake we visited Grandma, Uncle Terry, and much of the family in Coniston, and also had dinner with Auntie Mary and David in Sudbury.
the sunset over Lake Nipissing in North Bay
Then it was back to North Bay for a few days during which we spent most afternoons swimming in Lake Nipissing, before going to London to spend two nights visiting my thesis supervisor John Bell. Finally, we were back in Chicago for the last three days of our trip.
I’m back now from 9 days in Oxford, where I attended a couple of IB teaching workshops. The obligatory tourist photograph is shown on the left ;).
While in the UK I managed to get away to London for the day, and spent an afternoon at Tate Modern. Saw the usual stuff, but the works that most impressed me on this visit were the the photographs in the Subway series by Bruce Davidson.
Also while in London I stumbled upon a small skatepark, and two of my favourite photographs from the trip were taken there.
So, on my fourth trip to Pisa I finally made it to the Leaning Tower. The light wasn’t ideal for photography that afternoon (hazy, with brief moments of sunlight), but it left me with something to work on in Lightroom, and I’m fairly happy with the results.
Later that day the weather improved considerably, and I got a photograph of Chiara and Orsetta walking in the evening sunlight that I’m really happy with. I’m not sure which treatment I prefer (when I finally post a gallery of Pisa photos I’ll include another treatment), but here is the colour version.
Edit: I’ve added another version below on the right.
Orsetta was a great host (as always) and we also got to visit Chiara’s friends Pietro and Antonia and their two daughters Juliana and Ludovica. More photos to come soon!
Well, it’s been relatively uneventful for the past few weeks. We attended Mirella’s Birthday party in May, and I did manage to finally make it to the Caravaggio exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale. It’s the final week for the exhibition, and, despite having arrived about an hour and a half before the exhibition opened for the day, it was still a three hour wait in line. I’m hoping that having survived the wait in the 32°C weather makes me a better person.
I’ve also been playing around with the newly released Lightroom 3 photo editing software, and so, just to fill space and make this a slightly more exciting post, here is a random selection of photos that I’ve been editing over the past few days.
Stumbled upon a couple of cool short videos the other day (now that my laptop is back from repair). Check ’em out. Oh, and you’ll probably want to go to the Vimeo site to watch the second in HD.
Oh, and for those of you with your own blogs, check out the online tools at Tools 4 Noobs in order to generate valid XHTML code for YouTube/Vimeo video embedding.
Chiara was in Oxford for a teaching workshop Easter weekend, but when she got back we went to Elba Island (in Tuscany, off the west coast of Italy) to meet her parents, who have a condominium on the island. We only spent one full day on the island, but we still managed to see quite a bit. I’ve created a Flash gallery of photographs here, and I’ll probably add an HTML version (and a few more photographs) when I get a chance.
Below is a photograph of Chiara taken in Marina di Campo (the city on Elba closest to Chiara’s parents’ condominium), and it’s one of my favourites.
