Saturday, September 30, 2017

Day 30 - Le Bignele

Both Mr and I love wine, so of course we couldn't resist going to a vineyard while we were in Italy. After doing a bit of research we visited the highly recommended Le Bignele. We were not disappointed. The people here really know their business and they're very used to visitors. They were very welcoming and professional. We got a great tour and the wine was excellent. I highly recommend going here.

So, today is the last day of the challenge. I've had a great time. It has felt so good to finally have gotten around to processing some of those photos I've been saving in my shoebox and, as always, I really enjoy chatting with the other participants, and getting inspired by their works. A huge thank you to all of you who have commented on my pictures and shared this experience with me. You are a talented bunch and you all rock! Now for the finals! May the best person win, I'm rooting for you guys :D

/MrsHjort

Friday, September 29, 2017

Day 29 - City Vista


I am sure there are a million pictures from this vantage point, but wow, with this view, how could there not be? Verona is such a beautiful subject, who could resist it? Not me! I must have shot a hundred pictures from up here. Experimenting with composition is a lot of fun with a cityscape like this - that provides both interesting buildings, and beautiful natural elements.

This is my favorite out of all the shots I got from up here. I love how the river mixes things up a bit and I like the placements of the key features. It was fairly easy to edit too. The thing I spent the most time on was the sky. A grayish hazy sky was just not going to cut it, so I had to tweak it bit. I hope you like it.

/MrsHjort

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Day 28 - Calm Alley

Like I said yesterday, I love cities that are not crowded. Part of why Verona is so nice and calm is Italy's policy about cars in the city core. You see, there are certain traffic zones where going through in a car without a permit will give you a fine. Love it or hate it, it has the wonderful effect of calmer city centers. It's lovely to be able to walk around without having to watch out for cars, and the almost nonexistent traffic means people can walk anywhere they please - so there's a lot more space for pedestrians! At the right place, this is a great idea, and I would welcome a solution like that in some places in Sweden, provided that traffic doesn't get clogged up at other places as a consequence of course - that's what would happen in my hometown, our city has grown too fast for its road network. Anyway, it seemed to work really well in Italy. Just don't go there without doing a bit of research about this first. You don't want to get a fine if you can avoid it.

/MrsHjort

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Day 27 - Verona



I was very pleasantly surprised by Verona. I've never been a fan of larger cities, but Verona is one of the ones I like. It has a lot of beautiful old buildings (I like!) and it didn't feel as crowded as large cities sometimes do. I always feel stressed out and uncomfortable in environments like that, where there are people everywhere, trying to get through, but I felt none of that here. It's a very pleasant place to be in.

As I said, the older parts of the city are gorgeous! Beautiful old buildings mixed with a bit of nature and there's history all around you. I love places like that. And they're a wonderful place to bring your camera too ;). This is Piazza Brà, one of the largest in the country. It's home to a lot of restaurants as well as an amphitheater and the town hall. A wonderful place to start your exploration of the city.

/MrsHjort

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Day 26 - The View



This is one of the things I miss the most about Riva del Garda. I've always been a sucker for hotels with great views and this one was something spectacular. I could live here all my life and never get tired of the light show that went live very evening. Wow... just wow!

/MrsHjort

Monday, September 25, 2017

Day 25 - Stormy Evening



I've always been fascinated by thunderstorms. As a child I'd stand in the window trying to catch a glimpse of a lightning bolt, and as an adult I do so still. I've tried to catch one on with my camera many times, and I've gotten a few shots, just none that look cool. One was just from one cloud to another, so no touchdown, and one was so far away it didn't look impressive at all. So I haven't really tried in a while...

This picture is not of a thunder storm but it made me think of that one evening at Lake Como when there was thunder for hours. We had a first class view of it too, sitting on the mountain side in a restaurant overlooking the lake. I'm sorry to say I left my camera at "home". Otherwise I would have given it a shot. I looked much like this though, only without the rays of light. Funny how a picture shot on a relatively clear day can make you think of a night of thunder :)

/MrsHjort

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Day 24 - The Old Road



Along the west side of Lago di Garda there's a road that must have taken a lot of time and care to build. There are tunnels upon tunnels built into the mountain. Roads like that always make me think about the wonder of modern engineering, and how much easier it makes our lives. Before that though, there was this - the old road... It runs above the new road and you can look down on it in quite a few places. The old road has a few tunnels too, but it's much narrower, not as straight and harder to maintain. Walking along it, it was hard to imagine that vehicles used to travel there. It looked more like it was made for bikes and trekkers. But to my surprise, there must still be some kind of traffic there at times, as I saw tire tracks in the mud, but I didn’t see what made them... The old road is a very nice place to walk though. It's quite easy too, since it was built for cars and is more or less flat. On a scale of one to ten I'd give it a 2 in difficulty, though don't walk it on a clear hot day if you're not prepared for it.

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Day 23 - Joy



If you like birds, Riva del Garda is a nice place to visit. Not to say that there are rare birds there, I really wouldn't know, but there are plenty of them and there were baby birds everywhere when we were there. Some of them were pretty used to people too, as you can see. Mr could hardly contain himself with joy as these ducklings marched towards him going "pip pip pip" :) The mother was nearby and kept a watchful eye on them, but she let him pet them for quite a while. If I hadn't had my camera so close at hand I would have been jealous, but getting to preserve this moment was a pleasure.

/MrsHjort

Friday, September 22, 2017

Day 22 - Superman



As we went out on our morning walk along the mini mountain path, I stepped up the last steps of the stairs and found this - the light shining down on my hubby as he stood there, looking out on the city as if he was its protector. An unreal sight, almost magical. "Hold it right there!" Guess if he was pleased as I showed it to him :D

/MrsHjort

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Day 21 - Riva del Garda



Out of all the places we traveled in Italy this time along, this is my favorite! Riva del Garda is fantastically beautiful, gives you a lot of options in regards to activities and has some really nice restaurants if you know where to go. One of them, called "Sud", has the beat pizza I've ever had... Gosh, my mouth waters just thinking about it haha.

A good rule of thumb when looking for a place to eat in this city is not to go to the places where the hosts are all over you, trying to get you to eat at their restaurants, instead go to the places that don't need that sort of thing, and are packed anyway - that's where you'll find the really good stuff :).

Also, if you're a person who loves trekking, this is a great place to go. This is shot from a trek up a "hill" (much more than a hill, this is at the foot of the Alps after all) in the middle of the city, which starts right by the hotel we stayed at. So, there are plenty of walks that provide great photo opportunists, as well as some good old exercise :)

/MrsHjort

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Day 20 - Cinque Terre



If you do an image search of "Cinque Terre" on Google you'll get a lot of pictures from Manarola and the other villages along the coast. I want to show you a different take on the area. The other day I told you about the drive along the small roads to Manarola. Well, this is very typical of how it looked along those roads farther up the hills. It's very beautiful too, but in an slightly different way. I'm not 100 about the location though, so please excuse me if this is shot from slightly outside the national park :)

/MrsHjort

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Day 19 - The Watcher on the Branch



It started with "The Watcher" and then, as a huge Game of Thrones fan, I simply couldn't resist the rest of title. It's no raven though, so it's not a good a connection as it could have been, but hey, why not :)

This is another one of those unplanned bird shots. This little fellow watched us as we sat down in the shade, and since he sat there so calmly, I got plenty of opportunity to get shots of him. He was quite close too, so I didn't even have to change lenses, even though I had brought my telephoto lens along.

Moving along the trail of thought about gear, I have to say I'm very happy with the CPL-filter I got before this trip. It has really helped improve the colors, and the general quality of the sky in my photos. I have no shot without CPL to compare this to in order to show you the difference (if you're interested, you can find plenty of that on Google, here's an example), but wow, compared to what I used to get, it's miles better!

/MrsHjort

Monday, September 18, 2017

Day 18 - Jump!

Here comes another one of those cliché travelling shots. It seems where ever you go where there are cliffs, there are always people willing to jump off them. As we sat down to have our lunch people started chanting "Jump! Jump! Jump!" as this woman stood on the top of one of the cliffs. So out went the camera, and this is the result.

I'm never really happy with these shots when I see them in my computer. If I get the person mid-air, the drama seems lost to me, and if I get them splashing down I think it looks like just another splashy wave. This one is one of the better ones though, since it genuinely looks like she is falling and not just resting on the rock in a funny position haha. Plus, I got her against the darker spot in the rock which made her stand out more. Yey :)

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Day 17 - Narrow

It's weird how foreign places can sometimes remind you of home. This made me think of Old Town in Stockholm - it has narrow alleys too, and both Old Town and Manarola are touristy places. I was very lucky to find this alley empty - the town core was totally packed as it neared lunch time. But then most tourists keep to the main street :).

Processing this shot was fairly easy - not many steps and not much tweaking. Only some lens correction, color enhancement and contrast adjustments. I thought about adding some blue to the blown out sky, but then it's not a large enough part of the image to matter that much, and I like the general balance of colors, so I left it. I hope you like it too.

/MrsHjort



Saturday, September 16, 2017

Day 15 and 16 - Picturesque




As you can tell by the top picture, this is a place that is a little crooked. Some buildings lean a little bit this way and other a tiny bit that way. It's unusual to work with, but what it lacks in straight lines it makes up in charm. So, since nothing is really straight here anyway, I decided to let it be that way and not correct it in post-ed. This feels more true to the real thing to me :)

There is only one main street in Manarola, and along it you'll find many small boutiques and shops. There are some nice places to eat too, and we were lucky to find an amazing ice cream shop a bit higher up, away from the main crowd. I'm sorry to say I don't remember its name but it was the best ice cream I had during our entire trip. I love cherry ice cream, but I often get disappointed since most of the time, it's really just vanilla with a bit of cherry jam in it. Not here though. This was the real thing! And they had really, really nice cinnamon flavored gelato too. Yum!

/MrsHjort

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Day 14 - Manarola



Cinque Terre is an absolutely gorgeous area, and Manarola is one of its jewels. As we looked at photos on the internet when we were planning this trip, I knew I just had to go there.

It did not disappoint! The town is nothing like anything I've been to before. The streets are narrow and the buildings are quite close together, built higher and higher on the steep cliff sides. I overheard a guide say that they build the city this way to hide it from pirates. Their hope was that the narrow valley would make it less visible from the sea. I don't know whether it worked or not but the way it's built is very unique. It's like a small town with very tall buildings, except they're not that tall at all, it only feels that way. Very cool!

There's only one small road leading to Manarola. It runs through the mountains and getting there took us longer than you'd think. It wasn't that far from the city we stayed in after all, but the winding roads meant the travel distance was longer. That didn't deter the tourists though. The place was packed and I hadn't seen so many people at one place in a long time. So, if you're planning on going here, set out early and you'll get a much better parking spot :).

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Day 13 - The Cliché



Being in this beautiful place I could not help but go wild when the sun neared the horizon. No matter how overdone sunset shot are, I have to confess I'm still a sucker for them. Also, the light here was simply too gorgeous to pass up. The way the sun beamed down trough the mountains was beautiful enough to make you cry... literally in my case haha - I stared into the sun too long as I shot this, and there went the water works. It was totally worth it though :)

/MrsHjort

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Day 12 - A Surrender to the Blues



I spent a lot of time tweaking this. The blue color drift and the gloomy atmosphere bothered me and I really wanted it to... I don't know... pop into my vision of the shot I guess? I wanted my Italy photos to be bright and colorful, but alas, no matter how much I tweaked and poked, I wasn't satisfied. Cranking up the saturation only made things worse and adjusting the hues manually only made it look artificial. Finally I decided to give in to the "problems" and embrace them. Let there be gloom, let there be "blue" and let there be less saturation. It's not usual my sort of thing but this shot seems to need it. So there, I surrender!

/MrsHjort

Monday, September 11, 2017

Day 11 - Tranquility

I processed an other lake shot today. It was a fairly easy one compared to the ones I've showed you the last few days. I just did the usual color and texture enhancements, and that was it.

Having grown up in a city by a big lake I always feel at home near water. I never grow tired of shooting it and I love just sitting and staring out at the horizon. The lake I live by is large enough for the horizon the water to meet the sky, but this place has prettier mountains. Not to say that the hills here at home are mountains - we only call them that in lack of higher things to compare them to.

Lake Como and Vättern are similar in other ways too. Both are very deep, and quite cold. Even in August it's extremely rare for Vättern to be hot enough for me to want to go in it, and I suspect the same i true of Lake Como. I didn't try though, but the pool at the B&B was lovely.

/MrsHjort

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Day 10 - On the Lake



If you're ever at Lake Como, I highly recommend going on the ferries! We spent a day travelling between Bellagio, Varenna and Menaggio, and it was one of the high-points of our trip. I love boats and it's simply wonderful to see the cities from the water. The boats go fairly often too, so it's a very convenient way to get around.

This is Varenna, as seen from the boat we were on. I just love the beautiful warm colors of the houses against all that green. It took me several sittings of post-ed to get it right. Sometimes I get a bit blind to my work you see, and I have to return to it later to get it right. This time it was the cyan color drift that bothered me. I brought it down two times after I first edited this, but I think I'm finally happy with the result. I hope you like it too :)

/MrsHjort

Saturday, September 9, 2017

Day 8 and 9 - Bellagio



After having spent a lovely day in Bergamo, our next stop was Lake Como. I love landscapes with mountains and water, and this place is absolutely stunning! The towns climb up the mountain slopes, so you have a wonderful view from almost anywhere, and there are so many places to eat where you wan marvel at it all.

We stayed in Bellagio for three days. Today's photos are from the fisherman's village, which is a five minute walk from where we stayed. A wonderful place to just sit down and take in the view....




The view wasn't just mountains though. Lake Como is also the home of many beautiful birds. I was so happy I brought several lenses along for the walk, so that I could get some closeups. It's like I said to Craig as he started his challenge; the only time when I get good bird shots is when I don't plan for them :)

/MrsHjort

Thursday, September 7, 2017

Day 7 - The Stonemason's Handiwork



One thing I love about Bergamo is all the stone. It's everywhere – the street, the houses, the statues, the walls... Neatly bricked with embellishments or plain and jumbled, like in this shot. I find the textures very interesting. Initially I had though to use this as a source and try my hand at texturizing images, but I have to admit, it also has a beauty in itself. Don't you agree?

/MrsHjort

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Day 6 - Up the Alley












So, today I tried out the lens correction tools in Lightroom, and as you can see, they work just fine. Compared to Photoshop's tools I would say they definitely work just as well. I did use the automatic crop though, and I think I'll avoid it next time - it left me with a slightly different composition than I started with. There's nothing wrong with what it left me this time, I actually think it's stronger, but I prefer not to have the software do the thinking for me - my picture, my composition :).

As for the post processing, it was quite simple this time - I mainly worked on enhancing the textures and colors - trying to make it look slightly less bland than what I started with, but not too wild. The sky was a no-go though, there simply wan't anything there to work with at all, so I had to fake it. I've been tweaking the color gradient a lot, and it took me a while to settle on this. I was constantly switching back and forth - is it too saturated, too dark, too blue, too grey? Finally I used the pipette tool, grabbed the color from the cobbles and chose a lighter more saturated nuance for the top gradient marker. I think I got it right... but then sometimes, when you go back to a photo later it's like "what was I thinking!?" Haha, I guess we'll see ;)

Cheers
/MrsHjort

My Father, a Tribute to a Kind Man

This blog post is going to be longer than usual, and even so, how can one summarize one's feelings and memories of a person within the p...