Dean's Light Box

Firenze

While in Ireland, our very gracious hosts offered us a free flight down to Pisa and Firenze for the weekend. We gladly took them up on their offer and flew out Friday evening to Pisa. Shortly after landing we caught a bus to Firenze and spend the next 36 or so hours on a whirlwind tour of the most beautiful city I have ever seen. The highlights included seeing Michelangelo's David in person (though you are not permitted to photograph it) and visiting the Roman ruins in Fiesole, a small town in the hills outside of Firenze. We also had a very short visit to Pisa which also has a bit of charm though it is definitely more popular with tourists--that is good or bad depending on your point of view.

Because pictures are worth a thousand words, I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Ireland: Trip Two

Trip two to Ireland sped by as expected and I'm quite delighted with the photographic results. I spent a quiet day at home with EV yesterday and had a good start at processing the images from the trip.

The tripod helped quite a bit which I hope is reflected in the photos. The best thing about this trip is that I was able to get away from the the more touristy areas and have a look at the surrounding towns.

On my first evening in town, I wanted to stay awake until at least 10 PM in an effort to adjust to the timezone. I caught a taxi to Malahide and took a few shots out on the beach before heading to a nice Italian restaurant in town. I knew that I'd still have plenty of opportunities to eat in Irish pubs throughout the trip so I decided to take this opportunity to try something else. Italian food in Ireland is pretty tasty and as I learned later in the trip, also quite authentic.

The next evening, one of my colleague's and I headed downtown to walk around and get dinner. In the taxi on the way over, I jokingly mentioned that we might run into Larry Mullin Jr. (U2's drummer). The driver asked me who I was talking about and I clarified for him. He responded that he knew Larry Mullin Sr. as well as his brother and offered to take us by the home that Larry Jr. grew up in as well as the school (Mount Temple) where the band members originally met. I think the cabbie was the real deal because he seemed to get his story straight compared to the stories I subsequently checked online. Wow! What are the chances?

Downtown we paid a quick visit to Trinity College which was founded in the 1590s. The campus was gorgeous with all of it's very old but well maintained and modernized buildings. We also walked by St. Patrick's cathedral as the sun set. I assume that this is THE St. Patrick for which wear green one day a year in the US.

Later in the week, our customer graciously offered to fly us to any of the cities that they fly to in Europe for the weekend. We chose Firenze. For those of you as ignorant as I was prior to this trip, Firenze is Florence. Technically, we flew to Pisa and then caught a bus down to Firenze which was quite convenient. I'll reserve those photographs for another blog entry but I must say that Firenze is the most beautiful city that I have ever visited.

The following week back in Ireland was particularly busy in terms of work so I had fewer opportunities to get out and photograph. We did, however, manage to squeeze in a quick evening trip out to Howth, a fishing village outside of Dublin. The cliffs were stunning in a very Irish sort of way. The following evening back in Malahide, I chanced across the following door. It seems that many houses and apartments in Ireland and probably in most of Europe create character by using color on their window trim, shutters, and doors.

I'm very happy that our Irish customer needed a little data access business analysis work.

Violating the Rule of Thirds

Plans sometimes change. One of the secrets of life, I suppose, is to roll with the changes.

I happily accepted the assignment earlier this week to go back to Ireland for eleven days. Our customer there has some issues with the product I represent. My hope is that we'll be able to work together to make some substantial progress on solving their issues.

If things work out as we hope, a couple of my co-workers and I will get to do a bit of touring over the weekend. This time I'll take the tripod so I can have a better shot at some of the low-light scenes that didn't work out last time. All that overcast and rainy weather really subdues the light which is good and bad. The bad is that you have less light to capture photos so that holding your camera without a tripod produces blurred images. The good is that it makes for interesting, sometimes unusual, and often compelling light...if you can steady your camera. We'll take care of that this time even if I have to look like a tourist to do so.

All this excitement and activity surrounding the travel plans took up the little free time I had or hoped to have. Thus I did not get to make prints to enter into the state fair. Alas, there's always next year.

And now with all of that out of the way, I have a confession to make. I recently violated the rule of thirds in a photograph. Check that out--blatant disregard with the horizon slicing the photograph cleanly in half on the vertical axis! My photography instructor at the community college might cringe. Or would he?

I reasoned that it is, after all, only a rule and not a law. The question is whether I disregarded the rule in an effective way and I will leave that up to you to decide. Stick with the rule or throw it out from time to time when the right opportunity presents itself?