I’m heading out for a few days, and my presence here will be a bit sporadic while I’m gone. Unfortunately, not to the Greek Isles this time (isn’t this place dreamy?) but I’ll find some equally interesting things to show you while I’m gone.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, see you soon!
Remember my desire to photograph white, white houses and blue, blue sea? ‘Nuff said.
I’ll be back here tomorrow, full of all sorts of creative ideas from my retreat. See you then!
I am off on holiday for the next week. It’s Easter Break for my son’s school and we are headed to Greece. Before we left Europe I wanted to photograph a place with white, white buildings and blue, blue sea, so we will be spending the week on the island of Santorini with a day or two in Athens.
To give you a taste of the sea, here is an image from the Cinque Terre, on the Ligurian coast of Italy. This region is more pink and green than white and blue, but beautiful nonetheless.
Even though I won’t be writing here this week, there is a lot going on that you can participate in:
This image holds such a warm memory for me. As I shared the other day, I woke up before dawn this morning and watched the sunrise. I loved how the sun spilled over the edge of the mountains and clouds, and was happy to be able to capture the moment. It was such a warm morning, I sat out on the balcony in the sun and wrote my answers for Diana Mulder‘s interview series “Women Who Create Beautiful Things” which is posted on her site today. You can read about how I ended up in Italy, found my passion for photography, and what’s coming next for me.
It was a great experience to do this interview! I was nervous at first to put myself out there in this new way, but answering the questions helped me look at my story from a new perspective. Since I have enjoyed Diana’s art and her blog for nearly a year, I felt as if I was talking directly to her as I wrote.
Diana and I met during Kellie Rae Robert’s Flying Lessons course last summer, and connected to each other’s art immediately. Early on, she had looked at the photographs on my blog and asked me if she could paint this image of my son Brandon on the Oregon Coast.
I had forgotten about it until Diana sent me the list of questions for the interview, and attached her mixed media version of this image. I love what she did with it! She created a wonderful interpretation with the addition of the red and brighter colors. I also love that this painting links our art together, gives us a connection we wouldn’t have had otherwise. This is how artists inspire each other!
I am an early riser. This becomes very apparent when we are on vacation and the alarms are turned off, yet I wake well before the rest of my family. This morning on our recent trip, I woke to see the sky beginning to lighten, and decided to get up to watch the dawn from the balcony of our room on the Tyrrhenian coast of Sicily. I watched as the clouds began to glow and the fishing vessels came out to start their work day. This boat did an interesting circle before moving on, can you see the remains of the wake? Such a calm and peaceful moment, it fills me with quiet joy even today. I hope it does the same for you!
The Exploring with a Camera: Capture the Sky link closed this morning. Have you seen the amazing images that were shared? If not, I encourage you to take a look at this link up and see the wonderful interpretations for Capture the Sky. They were breathtaking. I so enjoyed this theme, and greatly appreciate the wonderful participation from all of you.
Tomorrow will be a new Exploring with a Camera, come back for an exploration of photos in Square Format. See you then!
Today I share with you one of the last images of our week in Sicily. Not because it’s one of the best images, but because I need to hold on to this moment just for a little bit longer. This was my view yesterday morning as I sat on the balcony of our hotel room in Taormina. I sat, reading in the sun, as my family lay sleeping inside the room. During these few beautiful moments in the sun as I looked out over the Ionian Sea, I finally got it – the difference between vacation and travel. I finally got why someone would go visit a place with a beach for a whole week without moving. Just sitting in the sun and reading.
You see, we’ve spent almost the last two years Traveling. Travel, by my definition, is where you go visit someplace new with an intent to see as much as possible. Learn. Move. See more. You pack as much as possible in to your visit, because you will never get to this place again. Life is too short, there is too much to see in the world. We’ve always travelled this way, even around the US, before living in Italy.
Vacation, by my new definition, is where you sit back and relax. You experience where you are visiting by easing into it. You do see new things, but you give yourself time to enjoy the moment. Sit in the sun on the balcony, if that’s what you need. You listen to your body, come back refreshed instead of worn out.
How about you – do you travel or do you vacation?
Slowly, slowly over the last year we’ve changed our style from our earlier frenetic traveling to vacationing. Instead of moving hotels every one to two days, we stay in one place longer. Moving no more than one or two places in a week. We opt for the “view” room if we can, to give us a place we enjoy staying “in” if that’s what we need. We check in with ourselves, and if we don’t feel like visiting one more Roman ruin or Medieval town, we don’t. Sometimes you just need to sit in a piazza and eat gelato. Or sit on the balcony and read.
We had a wonderful visit to Sicily, you’ll see the photos in the coming days. We slowed down and enjoyed our moments – rainy or sunny.. Maybe this is what the whole “Slow Travel” movement is about, I’ll have to look into it now. In the meantime, I’m going to gaze at this picture and remember these last few moments in the sun for a bit longer…
