Lisbon!

We concluded our twelve day trip to Europe in Lisbon.  Most of the two full days were spent in Alfama, the older section of Lisbon.  It was fantastic, with it’s narrow, winding streets and ancient history.  At one point, we wandered through Roman ruins that they were just uncovering.  Amazing.

We also walked along the harbor a ways until we got to the LX Factory.  A little hipster village in the middle of the city.  We had one of the best meals of the trip there at 1300 Taberna.  We were then blown away by the size and scope of the Museum of Modern Art.  I was enthralled by the way the museum played out the timeline of modern art, from it’s roots to present day.

Great little trip.

 

Paris!

Paris is beautiful!  The light!  The blue haze over everything!  Wow.

Despite the cold we walked miles and miles every day to take in as much as we could.  Montmartre is amazing and so inspirational.  The highlight for me, of course, was seeing the Cafe des Deux Moulins, the restaurant where Amelie was filmed.  (We also stumbled on the now famous grocery store also featured in the film.)

Another highlight was seeing L’Atelier des Lumières, an immersive, projector-based experience in an old warehouse.  There were three shows, one featuring the work of Gustav Klimt.  It was fantastic!  We enjoyed sitting through each show twice and wandering around the space to see it from multiple perspectives.  It reinforced in me the desire to create my own immersive experiences in a large space such as this.

Hometown Visit

Yesterday, I made a quick, nostalgic trip to my hometown of Lewiston, Maine.  I had hoped to take plenty of photos of all the places that fill my memories, but didn’t manage to do that.  I think I was just enjoying the moment too much to make an art project out of it.  Anyway, here’s the best I could come up with.

 

Fall Colors

I’ve been busy the past couple of weeks on an animation project for a local studio.  Outside my window, the colors have been changing from green to gold to red to brown.  Every now and then, latte in hand, I’ll take a break and walk around the yard with my camera to try to capture some of the beauty.

About the Bogs

This morning I decided I needed to clear my head.  I have too many things going on in my life at the moment.  They’re all good things, just too much for my little brain to process all at once.  It was time to force my brain onto one topic and one topic only.  So, while it was still cloudy and relatively comfortable, I grabbed the camera and headed out to the cranberry bogs.

This time, I loaded my Canon 60D with a Nikon AF-S 28mm lens that I bought for stop motion.  I really wanted to bring the Nikon 50mm instead, but couldn’t manage to get the adapter off the 28mm.  Whatever.

Again, I embarked on my mission to get up close and personal while reducing the background to a colorful haze.  The Nikon goes all the way down to f2.8 which gave me a nice, short depth of field.  I also prefer shooting on cloudy days as I find sunshine makes things to contrasty.  (I also don’t like the sun on a personal basis).  Clouds give objects a more pleasing diffuse shadow.

I admit, one or two of the images don’t quite fit with the others, but I liked them so I included them.