Saturday, December 22, 2007

Venetian Glass Blowers

Venice is world-renowned for their Blown glass craftsmanship. They had incredible examples of their talent. I was lucky enough to witness one of their artists in action. They seemed very weary of me and my camera and come to find out later they have had problems of people photographing technique and replicating the famous Venetian glass. There's only about 8 people in Venice that are skilled masters in this art.




Saturday, December 08, 2007

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Capri - us

Capri

Capri

Capri - I want to live there

I will go back there.

Capri - what a beautiful island!


Capri was beautiful. Words escape me as they often do but this island was made for the eyes.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Pompeii three columns

Pompeii - Vesuvius

I wanted to post this shot because it has the two peaks of Mount Vesuvius. The crater is in between the two peaks. This means that if you drew a line following the outer edges of the two peaks and intersected it at the top , thats how big this mountain was before that fateful day.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Pompeii

The city of Pompeii with Vesuvius looming in the background.

Meet a Pompeii man

This guy woke up on August 24th 79AD in his home town. A beautiful town that overlooked the Mediterranean sea. he had thoughts about his life and his children and then a massive volcanic eruption occurred. Him and his town disappeared .

Pompeii - the dead of pompeii


The dead of Pompeii. From what the tour guides told us the people died from asphyxiation from the wave of volcanic heat. They were then covered with volcanic ash. The ash hardened and the body decomposed. While they were excavating Pompeii a bright guy was finding these body cavities and thought it might be a good idea to pour plaster into them and create a mold of the tragedy of that fateful moment.

Rome Statues

Some of the many statues in Vatican city




Saturday, November 17, 2007

Rome - Vatican


This is the tomb of Pope Alexander VII, by Gianlorenzo Bernini. What I liked about this work was the skeletal arm of death holding an hourglass to the pope telling him that time was running out. I have worked with a deadline before but not like this.

Rome - Vatican

Ok, I have to make a confession. I am a sculpture nut. I love art in general , photography , paintings and all other avenues. But, when I stand in front of a statue I really feel it. So when I stood looking at Michelangelo's Pietà it was breathtaking.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Rome - Centurion

A centurion eating lunch. I never thought I would label a photo as such. There were many people dressed as early Romans. What they did was grab your camera and pose with you and charge you 5 Euro. I have to say that their costumes were very authentic.

Rome - The Colosseo


The Colosseum in Rome. What an incredible structure that was built by emperor Vespasian between 70 and 72 AD. It used to be covered in white marble. My question was how did it get in such disrepair? It's in the center of a thriving city. You would think they would have kept it in all it's splendor. I got my answer from the tour guide 'Georgio.' The Colosseum did well putting on shows of men fighting men, men fighting beasts, beasts fighting beasts, etc until around 500 AD when Romes economy went sour. Then the squatters moved in . They sold the white marble facade and turned it into a giant apartment building. An earthquake in 1349 caused the outer wall to collapse and the rest is history. I can only imagine it with the white marble and its silk roof . Please click picture for a better view. This was a panoramic shot that I used 5 separate photos to create.

This was our guide Georgio. He kind of had a 'Ben Stein' thing going on. He was really good actually. He taught art history in college until he retired.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Italy!

My wife and I just returned from a trip to Italy. We visited Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples, Capri and Pompeii. It was a great trip. I took over 800 photographs . Please be patient while I post them.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Street Festival - Palavas Les Flots






We had some free time so we took a drive to a neighboring town of Palavas Les Flots. As luck would have it we stumbled onto a street festival.

This is George Jettsons house, its right down the road from Spacely Spockets. . . just kidding.



Sunday, September 23, 2007

Happenings around town


This is a concert scheduled in October. The signs are hung everywhere. The mustache and the maniacal eyes give him a Salvidor Dali look.













And, again with the creepy-ass clowns.

Saturday, September 08, 2007

The day of the bulls in my village.

Today they were running the bulls in my village. I'm not sure what the objective was but I think it was to move the bulls from one end of town to other while generally irritating the bull. There was some stunning horsemanship displayed however.
Some glossary : ABRIVADO is taking to bulls to the arena.
BANDIDO is taking the bulls from the arena (back to pasture.)
ENCIERRO is the time in the arena trying to catch the bulls.

And, yes the bulls live to fight another day.

If you look carefully these kids have a hand full of bull. I would be a bit worried that at one point the bull would say to himself "ya-know what? I don't have to take this."
I was about 6 years old and I yanked a cats tail and received a nasty scratch because of it. Lesson learned: Mammals with tails don't like having them yanked by mammals without tails.

That rule has worked well for me.

The horsemen formed a u-shaped formation around the bull. It reminded me of the president and the secret service. They had long sticks with forked prods on the end to steer the bull. I don't think the secret service uses these. . . .although, they were affective. Maybe they should consider it.