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FacebookHurrying through the last of the summer
I have a bit of a confession to make. I've been back to work for over a month now, and while part of me is enjoying the routine chaos that is my job, the other part of me still wants to be footloose and fancy-free, traveling Europe with my backpack and rail pass. To be perfectly frank, I have not →
Euro Trip Day 40: Getting to indulge my love of Gothic cathedrals AND geology, all in the same day!
AKA, Why I'm the biggest nerd EVER. :-) On Wednesday we headed up to Prague Castle to check out St. Vitus Cathedral, a HUGE Gothic cathedral. Now, I've known since my freshman year of high school in Spanish class, when we learned about Santiago de Compostela in Spain, that I've been fascinated by cathedral architecture. But if I've learned one thing →
Euro Trip Day 38: No shower feels better than the one you take after stewing in your own sweat on an overnight train
John actually wrote the post title as a Facebook status update. Lovely, I know, but man was he right about that! We got into Prague around 7:30 AM, got our bearings, and hopped a tram to our night's lodgings, a guest house about a mile from the train station. We knew we wouldn't be able to check in until that afternoon, →
Euro Trip Day 37: Auschwitz: A world I can only envision in black and white
**Disclaimer: As the post title should indicate, this is kind of a downer of a post. Don't say I didn't warn you. Only for a bit, though -- then it perks up towards the end.** Sunday July 11th, we got up early and got our bags packed, then took them to the train station and stuffed them in a locker so →
Euro Trip Day 22: Bus ticket to Sarajevo, 24€. Watching men argue over a giant outdoor chess set: Priceless.
I'm posting early because we're leaving for Zagreb this evening and I don't know if I'll get a chance to get to wifi between now and then. This morning we hit up the National Museum and the History Museum. They were both good, but the National Museum was very stark and depressing: half of it dealt →
Euro Trip Day 11: Hoping that this is as unfun as it gets
I've had better days. We slept in a bit today, had a leisurely breakfast, and then decided to rent bikes and head out to explore the island a bit. However, we somehow took a wrong turn, and ended riding 3 kilometers up a REALLY BIG HILL. I know, only 3 km -- cry me a river, right? Well, it was 90F+ →
Euro Trip Day 9: In which we get to Korčula and I wonder why we didn’t just go straight here
(Side note -- the island's name is actually pronounced "KOR-chula" -- the č in Croatian is a ch sound.) So today I discovered one of the little problems with traveling and not really having a set schedule... one forgets what day it is fairly easily. This morning I woke up gradually shortly after 8, as the sound of jackhammers infiltrated →
Euro Trip Day 8: In which my camera never left my room
Both John and I woke up feeling kind of lousy today. His stomach, never all that settled when traveling, was being cranky, and I had a splitting headache, and that persistent cough I've had since coming back from London last summer that I've been chalking up to allergies has been getting steadily worse on this trip, for some reason. I'm →
Euro Trip Day 1: Philadelphia: Liberty Bell in Legos. Win.
Trip Day 1 - Philadelphia: Liberty Bell in Legos. Win., originally uploaded by Kari_Marie. Since today is one long travel day, I figured that for my picture of the day, I'd find something at one of our airports worthy of adding to my small yet growing collection of airport public art. As we have a three-hour layover in Philadelphia, I thought →
Euro Trip Day 0: Waiting for our first train of many
Trip Day 0: Waiting for our first train of many, originally uploaded by Kari_Marie. My goal this trip is to post a picture a day, so that I'm forced to think and write about some of this as it's happening, rather than waiting until I get home to look at my pictures and reflect. I mean, geez, I never did blog →
"…Her eyes as clear as centuries/ Her silky hair was brown…"
My post title is from a Paul Simon song that I've liked for years... it somehow seemed to fit for my coworker's lovely daughter, whom I was privileged to be able to take pictures of a couple of weeks ago. Kristin, she's beautiful. :-) . . . .
Fire dancing
I took some pictures of the fire dancer at Second Saturday a couple of nights ago--she was using a hula hoop internally lit by colored LEDs that had flaming wands attached to it. She was absolutely AMAZING. More pictures are in the gallery here. Oh, and these were intentionally long exposures--I wanted a motion blur. However, I had my 50mm →
Neighborhood night life
I never thought I'd enjoy living downtown in a large largish city, but know what? I really really do. Yeah, I hate it when the garbage truck shows up at 5:00 in the morning to empty the dumpster in the alley behind my bedroom. I'm not a big fan of the hipsters that hang out all day outside the business →
Some voices I could recognize anywhere
Totally randomly I ended up with a free ticket tonight to see Arlo Guthrie in concert at UC Davis. I grew up with both of my parents playing tapes (and then CDs, and now mp3s) of his music, and I've a huge soft spot in my music heart for him, but for some reason it never occurred to me that →
So many good pictures that I don’t even know where to begin
Here are the last of the pictures from Thursday's photo shoot -- the full gallery is here. I love all of these pictures. Thanks again for letting me take them, Holly! :-) .
I want to eat his cheeks
Holly is a friend of mine from... well, it's kind of a long story, but she grew up in Davis (just outside of Sacramento) and went to Cal Poly at about the same time as me, and now she and her husband live just outside of London. Anyway, last summer she and her husband generously offered to host John and →
They grow up quickly
I love taking pictures of people's kids, and it's been a privilege to take pictures of my coworker Laura's granddaughters several times over the past year. As I was working on processing the most recent batch from right before Easter, I was struck by how much the girls had grown up. I mean, I know that's what little kids do... →
Before and After
I don't usually do much Photoshopping of the pictures that I take. I shoot in RAW and I post-process, but that's only using Canon's free Digital Photo Pro app, and usually the only thing I really do in there is sharpen and tinker with white balance. But for the photo shoot I did of my coworkers grandkids a couple of Fridays →
Sisterly love
IMG_5566-2, originally uploaded by Kari_Marie. This was the last picture from my photoshoot of my coworker's granddaughters during spring break. Shortly after this, hunger- and naptime-induced meltdowns ensued. I love this picture, though. :-) .
I really need to learn how to use my flash
Pic from today. I call it "mistake with fill flash.", originally uploaded by Kari_Marie. I've got a great flash--Canon Speedlite 430ex. The problem lies in the fact that I really don't know how to use it. I can muddle through the settings well enough when I have time, but when I'm in a pressured situation (say, like when I'm working with →
Another teaser picture
So on Saturday we were just pulling into the small town where we were going to stop for lunch, when out the van window I saw these lovely young ladies clowning around on a wall outside a school. Our van stopped about 1/4 mile past where they were, and I grabbed my camera and bolted out of the van to →
Rome Day 7: Last Day in Rome :-(
I figure I'll get the announcement about who won my blog giveaway out of the way before I write up my last day in Italy, just because Brittney nagged me about it. ;-) I swear this contest wasn't rigged, but the winner is my mom, with her guess of 1,974! The total number of pictures I took was 1,989, putting her →
My niece, amused by the other baby in the window (her reflection.) :-)
My niece, amused by the other baby in the window (her reflection.) :-), originally uploaded by Kari_Marie. I took this yesterday on Christmas, when I was playing with my niece. I loved watching her fascination with the "other baby"--she was giving it big, sloppy kisses on the glass! I missed getting a picture of that, but at least I did →
Italy Day 4: The Amalfi Coast
The fourth day started out quite wonderfully. Why? Well, for the first time the whole trip, we slept in. Ahhh, sleep. We were up and out the door by around 10:00 though, so that we could catch a bus to Positano and then to Amalfi, to see what neat things there were to see. As it turns out, it wasn't →