Last August, one of my friends offered to take me out to Hatcher Pass with her husband and nearly two year old son. It had been a miserable summer that was in the process of arching into an early fall, but I never pass up opportunities to go out there. It was to be one of their last trips out to their favorite place in Alaska since they were due to move back to the lower 28 in less than six weeks. I was exhausted on the trip since I had pulled a graveyard shift the night before and hadn't yet slept, but I find the area out there to be invigorating. Out at Independence Mine, I love to think about all the beautiful hidden lakes that are nestled in the mountains that surround you and imagine what season those lakes are experiencing at the time. That day, my friend's son was also acting as an energizing force - he was completely irresistible with his wooden sword and cute cabled jacket, his enormous brown eyes taking in all of the Adventure! that was all around him. He was too young to stiffen up in front of the camera, and later in the trip, the child's shoes sodden, his father stopped to help him out and I captured this shared moment between them.

Nikon D50 | 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF-S DX | f/5.6 | 1/250 sec | 55mm | manual mode

I don't think that there is much that our feet didn't walk over on our first day in Florence. After taking in the Cathedral, the markets, trying to get in to see David, eating the best pizza of my life, and taking in a food market that puts every single farmer's market I've ever been in to shame, we decided to go take in the Boboli Gardens in the southern part of the city. It was a scorcher (to this Alaskan, at least!) of a day, so we got off of the unshaded main paths as quickly as possible and tried to get lost in the wooded back paths. Considering we had never been there we found it pretty hard to actually get lost, but we did manage to find ponds with statues of Neptune rising out of them, terraces that offered stunning views of Florence, and a flat flower garden that looked over Tuscany. We rested there for a few minutes, taking in the scene, before heading back to the lawns surrounding Neptune's pond to take a nap under a tree.

It was a good day.

(Check out that bling bling he's got going on! Shiny!!!)

Nikon D50

This photo is from our honeymoon. If you'd like large resolution, enlargement-quality copies of any of the files you see from our adventures in Italy, please leave a comment and let me know.

A co-worker of mine recently had a going-away shindig, so naturally I brought my camera along. She also happened to bring along her two year old son, who happened to like posing for the camera quite a bit. I managed to catch him off his guard, and I shot this.

Nikon D50

I may have admitted earlier to having a slight gondolier obsession. I may have also owned up to standing in one place and shooting hundreds of pictures of them at a time. But never let them say that it was not a fruitful indulgence!

At one point I switched from wide-angle to high-power telephoto so I could snap close-up pictures of the things that were passing under us. I got lucky enough to catch the photo of possibly the most intense-looking Italian I saw in my time there. I think that the reason that I like this photo so much is because not only is he a gondolier, but he also reminds me so much of Cory -- if you see him sticking his tongue out like that, you know he's concentrating on something. And for someone who likes gondoliers as much as I do, what could be better than one who reminds you of your husband?

Nikon D50

This photo is from our honeymoon. If you'd like large resolution, enlargement-quality copies of any of the files you see from our adventures in Italy, please leave a comment and let me know.

The day that Cory and I arrived in Venice we made our way to Rialto and the Grand Canal. We were saddened to find the fish market closed (stay tuned for that spectacle!) and the would-be picturesque views destroyed by the angle of the sun. We vowed to come back the next morning.

Come back we did! I played European, completely disregarding anyone else's idea of a personal bubble, and shot off about, oh, two or three hundred shots of the Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge. After I tired of that scene, we went to side of the bridge that faced the other side of the Canal and watched gondolas and water ambulances glide and blaze by (respectively, of course) and while we were taking in the scenery I noticed that there had been some beautiful fiddle music being played all the while.

Not knowing when to leave well enough alone -- and having learned already that day that Venetians are outwardly very tolerant, if not supportive of tourists -- I snapped a couple of pictures and tossed a few Euros in his case. I had initially thought the light and the overal subject were what made the composition interesting, but looking at this photo, I realize that it is his contentment, his happiness in just being where is is, doing what he's doing. I think we all seek that measure of happiness that this man has nailed down on a bridge in Venice.

Nikon D50

This photo is from our honeymoon. If you'd like large resolution, enlargement-quality copies of any of the files you see from our adventures in Italy, please leave a comment and let me know.

I'll admit: I'm fascinated by gondoliers. Especially when they wear boating hats with a ribbon tied around them that matches the stripes on their shirts. Of all the pictures I took in Italy, gondoliers are probably the subject of an embarrassingly high percentage of them.

They weren't easy to get good shots of though. The water traffic is so heavy that timing is essential: hesitate half a second and the lazy whimsical shot you were trying to get will get ruined by a water taxi, or perhaps even a water ambulance. After many, many attempts, I finally achieved this shot: two gondolas, traveling in opposite directions in the Grand Canal, crossing under the Rialto bridge. I love the symmetry and the shadows in this picture, and hey, the gondoliers aren't too shabby either!

This shot is also proof positive that I married well: without seeing the entirety of the images of the memory cards I took to Italy this may not be apparent, but if you were to see the whole collection you'd realize that Cory has infinite patience with letting me stand in once place for what must seem like an interminably long time, all the while shooting enough photos to convince him that he must have married Japanese.

Nikon D50

This photo is from our honeymoon. If you'd like large resolution, enlargement-quality copies of any of the files you see from our adventures in Italy, please leave a comment and let me know.

As scores of people gathered around to watch the South Korean Color Guard perform, I caught sight of all that could be seen of a few spectators who were otherwise lost in a precise geometric pattern. The uniformity and humbleness of this seem distinctly Asian to me -- it's one candid I was thrilled to capture.

Nikon D50

I can't decide which one I like better -- the black and white or the color. I've included both so you can choose for yourself.

Nikon D50

There were some great candid moments during my last trip to Seoul, and I used some of these to photograph some Korean kids, who are really cute and exuberant. The first and third picture were taken using my ninja skills -- I'm somewhat reserved naturally, so the idea of a tall white girl in a homogenous Asian country oh-so-obviously putting a big expensive camera in front of her face and taking pictures of other peope's kids didn't sit well with me. Solution: using a neck strap, put on an 18mm autofocus lens and set the camera on shutter priority. You're now set to surreptitiously hit the shutter and steal candids to your heart's content.

The second picture was taken the in the old-fashioned camera-against-face method -- this kid obviously was thrilled at the idea of this white American girl taking his photo! While not technically a candid, I wanted to include it because this kid's exuberance is infectious.

Nikon D50

Had all gone as planned and I hadn't had to reschedule my trip to Korea, I would have found myself in his arms less than three hours ago.

However, this post is not meant as an angst-fest -- it's purely coincidental. I began contrast work on several photos last night and this was one of them. When I met someone today who happened to meet Cory last week he asked when I would see him next, and it was only then that I realized the timing.

Love you, Cory -- here's to waiting another five weeks.

Nikon D50

Sadly, it's been quite some time since I've sat down to take pictures. I'd been living in San Angelo, Texas for the last year-or-so and had been without my beloved Nikon FM for even longer. Faced with neither inspiration nor a satisfactory means to capture said inspiration, I had to go without.

Happier times are ahead, as I'm now living in Alaska and have had my camera returned to me. There could hardly be a more perfect place to go berserk with a camera!

In rememberance of days gone by, I'm going to post a picture from a roll shot in Summer 2002 at Cannon Beach. I promise it won't be the last.

Nikon FM

Several summers ago I spent a couple of weeks at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs learning to fly gliders. Free time was abound and thus, so was my camera. The following pictures were taken on a couple of hikes that some other cadets and I went on.

About this entry's photos:
Longtime readers of my prose journal may recognize Kevin's feet (in the first photo) from an old design of the site. The small resolution doesn't do the second picture justice, so click on it to view it in full resolution. The third is of a columbine, Colorado's beautiful state flower.

Nikon FM

Several years ago, my mom participated in the Reach The Beach bike race that spanned the 103 miles from Portland to Pacific City, Oregon (I know, she's totally hardcore). With trusty cameras in tow, my dad and I went to meet her at the finish line. Finding that we arrived a bit early, we brought out our implements and I began to surreptitiously sneak photos of unsuspecting subjects -- one of which was my dad.

Nikon FM

As my last installment of pictures from Spring Break, I'll be displaying candids and portraits of Mike, who was a common target of my lens that week. I've already posted two of him from Ice Cream Renaissance, but here are some other pictures I snapped of him (and one of us) during our week in the Pacific Northwest.

Nikon Coolpix 3100

As it happens, my friend John-Luke is quite photogenic when you catch him off his guard. I was lucky enough to do so in a beautiful environment - Oregon's Cannon Beach.

Nikon Coolpix 3100

Spring break was rife with photogenic opportunities. One evening, while sitting in one of my favorite spots in Vancouver, I snapped some candids of two of my companions.

Canon Powershot A70