I woke up this morning and something felt different. I felt lighter, airer and when I opened my shades there it was….crisp, light, flaky SNOW!!!!
Category: TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY
A Picnic Lunch in Paradise
Author’s note: This post is a continuation on my travel series hiking the Tour de la Vanoise. Somehow or another I had started this post and forgot to finish it! How dare it! This post should have occurred the afternoon before we arrived at our last refuge, Refuge Peclet-Polset, and should have been placed after my post titled “Into the Mystic”.
Have you ever been in a place that felt like it was out of a fairytale? A place that brought back memories of being a child lost inside some fictitious fantasy land? Well that is how I felt when I climbed over the low-lying hill and descended upon our picnic place for the afternoon.
As I walked over this hill….
This is what I saw….
The color of Advocacy in Guatemala
A Word in Your Ear, a fantastic travel blog that I adore, started a fun travel and photography challenge called “A Word of the Day”. Basically she lets her dictionary open to a word and voila. That is the challenge. Her recent challenge is “colorful” similar to a recent photo challenge I did.
I adore colors, especially on a gray, dreary day like today. They brighten my mood and make me smile.
These photos were taken back in April in Xela, Guatemala on the International Women’s Day. The entire town was involved in a grand celebration and a huge, colorful parade honoring women and advocating for women’s rights. In a country in which domestic violence against women is a significant, unspoken problem, it was wonderful to witness so many people coming together to share their voice and fight for women’s rights.
Here are some of my favorite colorful pictures from the event.
The texture of Guatemala
Its been five months and I still can’t stop obsessing over Guatemala. Lovely, picturesque Antigua obviously captivated my soul and has held it hostage. I can’t seem to break free from reminiscing about the past. You see, Guatemala is a land of a million colors and with color comes texture.
Texture can be found in nearly everything – from the cobblestone streets, to the peeling paint off of Antigua’s colorful buildings. Texture can even be found in the most unusual places too. In the lines and breaks along the tiled rooftops. Along the half-destroyed ruins of the churches and fountains. It is almost as if the earthquakes were intended to make Antigua truly a spectacular, textured place.
Follow me through the cobblestone streets of Antigua and see for yourself if you agree. I hope to see the lovely texture of Guatemala again soon.
The Power of Purple during Semana Santa
For centuries, the color purple has played a significant role in the Christian religion during Holy Week surrounding Easter. The color purple along with red, black, white and gold, has an important symbolic meaning as the color of royalty and suffering. It’s significance is not a coincidence given the expense and difficulty in creating the color purple in early times. Furthermore, the color has often symbolized the suffering of Jesus Christ during the crucifixion.
I had the pleasure of witnessing the power of purple during a recent visit to Guatemala a week before Semana Santa (“Holy Week”).
The Arts and Carts of DC
I recently spent five days in our nation’s capital, Washington DC for a conference, and had the interesting experience of staying in nearby Crystal City an “urban village” as it is called on Wikipedia that is located south of Washington DC in Arlington, Virginia.
I had spent some time there at a week-long conference years ago and that trip did not leave me with good impressions of the urban-suburban-feeling place. In fact, I hated it. Fast-forward ten years and I could not believe how much it has changed.
The color of Guatemala
Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. – Rabindranath Tagore
There is no place on earth that has as vibrant of colors as Guatemala. From the brightly painted buildings in hues of a brilliant rainbow to the intense, magical colors of the Mayan clothing and textiles, I’ve found no place quite like Guatemala.
Here are some of my favorite photos from my trip that burst off the page with color and imagination. Since I’ve already written quite a lot about Guatemala, there will be no descriptions of these photos and it will only be a journey of colors. Hope you enjoy!
Grand View Flowers
Nostalgic view of historic Grand View Lodge which was built in 1919 along lovely Gull Lake in Nisswa, MN.
It is our last morning at historic Grand View Lodge and it is time to pack up and leave for home. It has been another stellar vacation here and I feel so relaxed that I’ve moved on to my restless nature. It is time to leave.
Last night, we had perhaps the most beautiful, colorful sunset of our trip here. The heavy storm clouds that had been tormenting us for the last three nights finally began to lift while the setting sun cast hues of pinks, purples and oranges across the pastel blue lake. In the distance, I heard the calling wail of a loon, the Minnesota State bird. It was utterly unbelievable and quite a send off. I will be sharing those photos soon.
In the meantime, I thought I’d send some pictures of the beautiful summer flowers that dot the landscape around the Grand View Lodge. This year they are spectacular and the best I’ve seen since coming here three years ago. Enjoy!
Photography: If a rose could last forever
Remember back in early and mid-Spring, I did a series of posts on the perennial gardens over near Lake Harriet? (click here to see most recent post). I found some delightful surprises that captivated my soul and I’ve gone back several times since to see what new has come up.
The biggest attraction of all of course is the Rose Garden which blooms each summer in hundreds of colors and types of roses. When it is in full bloom, it is perhaps one of the most beautiful places in the city.
I’d been watching the Rose Garden often during my daily runs around the lake and nothing had transpired since the last time I’d checked. However, Monday was entirely different. Sophia and I set off on a bike ride along the lakes and on our way home I noticed a blur of color as we passed by the Rose Garden. I wondered out loud….is it ready?
Markets: An afternoon in the souq
A fellow WordPress Blogger, Ailsa over at “Where’s my backpack” did it again with this week’s travel theme of Street Markets. What a fantastic topic for who doesn’t love the vibrant colors and fragrances of a world market? Markets are amazing as they give you such a slice of culture. Whether it be the divine floral markets of Paris to the brilliant indigenous markets of Peru, a market always has a treasure to find.
One of my favorite markets of all is the souq. In the spring of 2011, I spent a week volunteering in Rabat, Morocco and had a wonderful time exploring the ins and outs of a Moroccan souq. You could truly find literally every thing for sale; pretty much whatever your heart desired. The colors, the sounds, the people, the smells and the diverse offerings of goods made the souq one of my favorite places to wander and buy gifts for my family and friends.
Follow me through the winding paths of Rabat’s central souq….
There is always a mosque shooting up towards the sky and summoning the daily call to prayer. The sound of the call echoes throughout the souq, bouncing off the curvy walls of the serpentine streets.
The Doors of Guatemala
Doors are fascinating. They are also quite mysterious for who knows what lies behind the doors of a place. They are the gatekeeper when closed. Yet when opened, they offer you a look into a whole new world of possibilities inside.
When I think of doors, there is one place in particular in which I was utterly blown away by the doors: Guatemala. This colorful country had perhaps some of the most unusual and interesting doors I’d ever seen during my travels. For those of you who have been following my blog, you have already seen these photos. However, I decided to spruce them up a little by playing around with the colors.
Come, take a walk with me and admire some of my favorite doors I found…..
The Magic of Torres del Paine revisited
Lately I’ve been having fun playing around with new iPhone applications like Snapseed and Instagram. For a novice photographer, these photo processing applications are a ton of fun. You just snap away and can process the picture into amazingly different styles right at your fingertips.
Since early spring, I’ve been using my iPhone a lot to take pictures, mostly of flowers. One reason is that it is so easy and portable. I always have it with me usually in my pocket. Another reason is that my iPhone actually zooms much better than my small, pocket-sized Canon Elph. I must admit that I am no professional photographer. I just love to take pictures during my travels and am actively working on getting better at it.
Besides using Snapseed for photos I’ve taken with my iPhone, I’ve also began using it to revisit older pictures I’ve taken from the past such as these ones I took back in 2003 in Patagonia. These photos were scanned since I didn’t have a digital camera at the time. I took these files and imported them into my iPhone into Snapseed and here is what I came up with. Not bad, huh?
