lynn

Greetings... <BR> <BR>My husband used to do photography and specialized developing so when we take a trip, we take lots of pictures. Alot of them come out good but some are spectacular. <BR> <BR>Our Best: <BR> <BR> 1. PARIS - Pont Alexander III bridge at <BR> sunset, clear with no clouds, just <BR> after the lights on the bridge came on. <BR> The different shades of blues, the gold <BR> gilding on the bridge, and a string of <BR> 8 sparkling victorian-style bridge <BR> lamps reseding into the background; <BR> BREATHTAKING!! <BR> <BR>Taking pictures was one of the things I liked about Paris. Everywhere you turn is another photo op. We took 1,000 on our 10-day trip to Europe last year. It was wonderful. <BR> <BR>What's your greatest work of art on film? <BR> <BR>Happy Traveling... <BR> <BR>

lynn

Oops! <BR> <BR>Sorry about the spelling error. <BR> <BR>I got sidetracked and thought I had proofread my posting. That'll teach me to ASSUME... <BR> <BR>"Receding" - not spelled with an "s". <BR> <BR>Thanks!

Sandy

I was riding on the metro in Paris on my first trip there. I looked out of the window opposite me and there was the Eiffel Tower. I was so excited! I jumped up, leaned across the poor people in the seats across from me, and snapped the picture. At that exact moment, another metro crossed in front. I was so disappointed. <BR> <BR>When I got home and had my film developed, the one I took of the ET had the Eiffel Tower centered perfectly between two cars of the crossing metro! <BR>The moral--always take the shot, you never know what you're going to get! <BR> <BR>Sandy <BR>

Lee

Lynn: The topics just keep on coming... <BR> <BR>The one that comes to mind for me is a picture that I took on a whim. It was late afternoon in May and I was walking along a street in Vollendam, Holland. On my right, was a small market with several chalk board signs in Dutch, advertising the days specials and sitting on the steps out front, was an older gentleman of maybe 75, having an ice cream cone and his very old bicycle was leaning against the window. The sun was just to my left, so I stopped and snapped the photo. I couldn't believe it when it was developed! The light was just right, the depth of field was good and in one photo you could see so much: It was near summer on a pleasant day, at a dutch store, in a small town with an obvious local man stopping for a treat on his way home. <BR> <BR>I never duplicated that one. I'm trying, though. <BR>

Monica

My best picture is of a side canal in Venice with the reflection of the buildings in the water. Two of the buildings were yellow and and orange-red and the colors reflected in the water which had a slight ripple in it. And on one side of the canal is a small blue boat. Very colorful. It's not one of your typical Venetian pictures of the Rialto bridge or the grand canal, just a small canal that I discovered that day! I Haven't enlarged it yet, but I'm thinking around 18x24.

hamlet

My pride and joy...... <BR> I was in the middle of nowhere on the island of Naxos, Greece. We came across one of those little white churches along the path and my friend and I decided to take a break. A few minutes later a Greek man riding a donkey came along and I asked him if I could take a picture. The photo just gushes "GREECE" -- in the foreground is this dark skinned man in drabby clothes and a hat riding his donkey along a pathway in between farms, in the background is the little white, white, church under the blue, blue sky. Another one: in St. Petersburg, from the deck of the cruiseship I took a picture of the port, which was a major no-no. (Don't tell the Russian authorities on me.) I couldn't resist....the port area itself was ugly, all sorts of cranes or machinery etc..... it was summer and it didn't get dark there.... at about 1 AM the sun seemed to touch down and rise again and the sky was all different colors....and I took the picture and there is something so neat about it with the ugly machinery against the colorful nighttime sky. <BR> <BR>Now who has scanners so we can get a look at all these? <BR>

Paul Rabe

Since my wife and I average fifty photos a day, asking which is our favorite after 18 years of travel is like asking a parent which child is the favorite. NEVERTHELESS, I took a sunset photo at the beach at Olympic National Park, with the sun glistening on the ocean, and both a rocky island and a person (giving a perfect sense of size) in perfect silohuette.

s.fowler

Okay... here's a few of my favorites that I have scanned and posted to the web! <BR> <BR>Prague: Charles Brige in the fog.. <BR>http://www.ntsource.com/~dhfsbf19/images/karlov.jpg <BR> <BR>A reflection in the lake at Matka Canyon outside Skopje, Macedonia: <BR>http://www.ntsource.com/~dhfsbf19/eu.../MK/matka2.jpg <BR> <BR>A view from the Charles Bridge: <BR>http://www.ntsource.com/~dhfsbf19/eu.../CZ/praha2.jpg <BR> <BR>The Eiffel Tower obscured: <BR>http://www.ntsource.com/~dhfsbf19/eu...ges/paris7.jpg <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR>

lynn

S. Fowler... <BR> <BR>Your Eiffel Tower picture is a hit with me. I love the tree and the way the top disappears. <BR> <BR>Excellent!

dan

I looked at a lot of your photos, S. Fowler (sorry I can't remember your first name). I especially like the reflection in the lake. It has a very painterly quality about it; it reminds me somewhat of Renaissance landscapes. <BR> <BR>I am a fairly serious amateur photographer myself, and I usually take lots of photos when I travel. It is certainly hard to pick my favorites, but here are a few in no particular order: <BR> <BR>1. Sunset on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. The sun had just started to peak over the mountains, with a mist-enshrouded valley below, and a very black silouette of a treeline in the foreground. I barely made it to the spot in time for the sunrise. <BR> <BR>2. A group of uniformed school children on the Bund in Shanghai. A teacher and young assistant were getting them lined up for a group photo. Some were very "prissy" looking, some very bored, some playing with others near them, and one fairly chunky guy with his shirt hanging out. They also had a couple of flags. Not the best technique on this one, since I took it several years ago, but I love the subject matter, so I put it on the wall. <BR> <BR>3. A goat at Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland, who was holding a sign in its mouth that it had just removed from atop a picnic table near an outdoor restaurant. The sign said "self service." <BR> <BR>4. A shot from the Tuileries Gardens back toward the Louvre. A couple of guys walking toward the camera on the right engaged in coversation and a couple with a baby stroller doing the same toward the center after just passing through the Arc de Triomphe du Carrosel. The pyramid was visible between the arc and the Louvre. A beautiful purplish blue, very early morning sky. <BR> <BR>5. The Eiffel Tower, about thirty minutes before sunset. A vertical shot that emcompassed from the front edge of the fountain to just above the tower. A very typical shot, but the skies were so gorgeous that day with a great mixture of light and dark clouds (I have never been anywhere else that matched the skies of that week in Paris). <BR> <BR>6. Closeup of a waterfall in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Silky white water flowing over pitch black rocks. <BR> <BR>7. A sunset over the lagoon in Cancun, with a silouetted sailboat and boat dock in the foreground. Very reddish orange sky - sun in the picture.

s.fowler

Thanks for your comments Dan and Lynn! [My name is Sally.] I've had one person ask if the Matka picture was upside down! Macedonia is a beautiful country. <BR> <BR>While I take as much care with my shots as the context will allow [and bless the ability to crop in the scanning process!], my camera is just an Olumpus stylus with zoom. I used to carry two camera bodies and 5 lenses! Now I like a camera that fits in my pocket or purse! <BR> <BR>I have enjoyed reading the descriptions of your favorite pictures. Sometimes words are more evocative than the image. [Yeah I know... a picture is worth a thousand words... but sometimes the words are more evocative...] And I hope others will post a url or two! <BR> <BR>

Hyalker Amaral

I've been fortunate to travel for work over the last 4 years (now living in Budapest/Prague so I want to check on the Prague pictures above) but I've got a few to add (hard to pick THE favorite). <BR> <BR>1) Thira in Santorini (Greece) - A picture of a table on our terrace facing the volcano/over the Old Port with a wine glass and the sunset as the backdrop. <BR> <BR>2) Outside the train station near the top of the Jungfrau in Switzerland a picture of me with the rest of the mountain rising to my left and a wisp of a cloud off to the right. <BR> <BR>3) An obstructed view of the Treasury in Petra as seen through the Sikh (pathway through the rocky hills). A little cliche but still a moving memory for me. <BR> <BR>4) A view of Queenstown, New Zealand from the mountain standing over it with a view of the beautiful lake on which the town sits. <BR> <BR> H

lynn

Hey, Sally... <BR> <BR>We use little Olympus cameras too! We bought 2 (without the zoom because they were smaller), for our trip to Europe last year. That way we could both be taking pictures of whatever and not have to keep asking the other person for the camera. At $99 each, why not! It's the only way to go; being able to put them in your pocket. <BR> <BR>As I mentioned before, my husband used to do photography so he knows about this stuff. Not me. He says the glass lenses and optics used in these cameras rivals that of cameras 5 times the price. <BR> <BR>He tells me how he used to go traveling (like you) with 2 Nikon bodies and 3 lenses and how it was a pain in the butt lugging them around. He was shocked at how good our pictures came out from these little $99 cameras. And the night feature is an added bonus. You wouldn't think you could get great night shots without a fancy camera. I'll never forget standing on the Troc in Paris watching everybody unload camera gear from their backpack to get the classic Eiffel Tower shot at night. <BR>We took 1/2 a roll of film in the time it took them to set up and take 2 or 3 shots. <BR> <BR>We also take a small tripod (about 5" long with "snake light" style bendable legs) so we can set it up and get pictures of ourselves even on uneven surfaces. <BR> <BR>What a blast! I'm going to try to scan a few pics this weekend and post them on Monday so check back.

KRISTA

Well, since we're on the subject, I thought I'd add my two cents: <BR> <BR>I also have an Olympus Stylus (no zoom-$99 model) which does take great pictures. I get so many compliments on my pictures and people are always shocked to find out it's just a point-and-shoot camera. I'm going to buy an Olympus Stylus Zoom camera soon so I can carry both-one with color film and one with black and white for an artsy look to my pictures. If anyone's in the market for a good, inexpensive camera, this is it!!!

lynn

KRISTA - <BR> <BR>If you don't want to buy a second camera you don't have to. You can take color pictures and have them developed on black and white print paper (talk to your b/w lab; from a color negative you can have either color or b/w pictures developed and just about any effect created). If you want the other camera for the zoom, do it. If you're buying just to take black and white pictures, you don't have to. <BR> <BR>If you're really into picture taking, my husband recommends taking 2 cameras for 2 different speed films. When we were in Paris we often did this. Low speed for outside and higher speed for inside. At night, we would load both cameras with high speed film. <BR> <BR>I love taking pictures!

Barbara

It has been awhile since I have visited this forum, and I was delighted to find this wonderfully fresh topic. Most of the time, my husband is the photographer in the family and he has taken many memorable shots in our travels, most notably of interesting people we see against the backdrop of their culture. However, I sometimes take over the camera, usually to capture him in a shot or two. In 1990, we visited Sicily for the first time, and on a beautiful day, his cousin took us to see a piece of land that the family owns. A house had stood there in his grandfather's time, but had been leveled by an earthquake some 20 years before. My husband climbed onto a pile of the stones and sat gazing into the distance at the land he had dreamed about seeing since he was a little boy. I quietly picked up the camera and captured his contemplative moment. Last year, an artist friend offered to paint one of our special photos from Italy as a gift to us. Now a beautiful oil painting of this moment hangs in our home with the original photograph framed below it. <BR>

Kate

Lynn, what a great topic. It's a timely one for me too because my New Year's resolution was to organize ALL my European photographs from the seven months I lived there. I am just about finished... <BR> <BR>My absolute favorite is from Brugge, Belgium (a very photogenic town). An excellent painter had set up shop outside and was getting a lot of attention. I stopped by to see what the commotion was about, and found to my delight that he was painting the exact scene of the river and surrounding buildings. My photograph captures the painter, his painting, and the real scene in the background. It turned out beautifully. <BR>

KRISTA

Lynn, thanks for the info. on black/white pictures. Actually, my husband just got done telling me what you just did. However, I did buy the camera yesterday and I wanted it specifically for the zoom lens. Now I can travel with both cameras, color and black and white film, and the security of having a second camera in case something happens to the one. I'm so excited-the 80mm zoom is great! I know this is probably small potatoes to some camera buffs, but for someone who's never used a zoom lens it's like a whole new world has opened up. I can't wait to try it out on my next trip!

Zoe

This is a great topic. I have really enjoyed reading about--and seeing--these wonderful pictures. <BR> <BR>I have 2 favourites: <BR> <BR>1. Harvested cornfield in Orford, Suffolk, taken in August 1994 from my brother-in-law's holiday house there. The corn is glowing gold in the sunlight and there are just a few wisps of white cloud in the sky. The red and white lighthouse at Orford Ness can be seen in the distance. <BR> <BR>2. View across Villefranche bay from Cap Ferrat. I took this last July while visiting the Musee Rothschild. The sea is the most amazing blue, dotted with white sailboats. I was staying with a friend down there and he told me how much he liked the picture, so I got it enlarged and framed for his Christmas present. He loved it! <BR>