Kat Eye Studio

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Farewell, Assisi

At end of the day in Assisi, as we were heading back to il parcheggio (parking garage) we walked past this pretty entry way. Same place we walked past in the morning, same light (shade), but from this angle it looked totally different and caught my attention. Just a little reminder that sometimes we need to turn or look back to where we’ve been, for a different perspective. You never know what you might find.

With this, I’ll move on from Assisi, this wonderful town of stone and flowers and views of the Umbrian countryside.

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Time to PLAY!

Today’s image is from the Umbrian hill town of Orvieto. We had two rainy days based in this hill town on our spring break trip. I found I took fewer pictures than normal on these days, probably because it’s hard to hold an umbrella and take a picture and keep your camera dry all at the same time. This image normally wouldn’t make it to my blog. I would include it the overall album of the trip as a nice shot of the streets of the town and the weather of the day, but nothing special. But today, just for fun, I decided to play around with it.

You see, the Pioneer Woman Photography blog recently offered their free actions for Photoshop Elements. Yay! So today I played with them on this photo and was amazed at the all of the different feelings I could get with this one photograph. I view actions as a little like candy – easy to overdose on if you’re not careful, but a little bit is fine! I would love to hear your comments on these. Which do you like? Which don’t you like? Why not? (There is no special order to these, I’ve just uploaded them in alphabetical order by action name – because it was easiest!)

Boost

B&W

Define&Sharpen

Dim the Lights

Fresh & Colorful

Heartland

Lovely & Ethereal

Sepia

Seventies

Soft & Faded

Vintage

I didn’t include all of the actions here, just the ones that I thought “worked” in some way with this image. Some really didn’t work at all! What’s fun about all of this playing is that you learn in the process. I hope you have some time to play too!

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Mmmmmm….

Have I mentioned food lately? Living in Italy and travelling in Europe has been such a sensory experience, a delight for the tastebuds in addition to the eyes. It’s often difficult to capture the beauty of the food – the lighting, the crowd of people, reflections of glass – but this window display in Assisi let me capture it beautifully. All I can say is – Yum!

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Contrast

Behind the Basilica di San Francesco (Basilica of St. Francis) in Assisi is this courtyard. I’m not sure if it’s a cloister or what exactly it is, but it’s a beautiful little place full of contrast. I like the contrast of lines and curves, sun and shade, near and far, bright color and subdued neutral. See how many contrasts you can find in this one image!

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Spring Glow

A beautiful spring scene in Assisi. I love the contrast of tree practically glowing in the sunshine with the stone buildings in shadow. How the rock wall on the left turns into the rock of the hill, blending seamlessly. How, in a town made of stone and built on stone, little patches of trees and flowers bloom.

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Nature always wins

It must be spring, because I am seeing flowers everywhere. Flowers on the bushes and trees, flowers for sale from street vendors, flowers on our balcony. I love it. These flowers for you today are with some Roman ruins of Ostia Antica near Rome. Ostia was the first colony of Rome, a port town on the Tiber river. We spent a day exploring these interesting pathways and buildings.

Seeing the spring flowers in the setting of the Roman ruins makes me think. Everything man builds, once complete, starts to decay. It’s amazing that, two thousand years later, even this much of the Romans remains with us. But in nature, there is an ongoing cycle of renewal. After the darkness of winter comes the flowering of spring. After a severe forest fire comes the new trees. Nature’s creative energy always wins. It wins over these ruins, where the plants and trees have taken root and have been transforming the place back to a natural state. While for man, our creative endeavors begin a slow decay as soon as they are completed, we are constantly fighting nature.

Just something to make you think…