Scavenger Hunt Sunday–Stockholm

 

This week’s Scavenger Hunt Sunday themes give me the perfect excuse to show off more photos from our recent trip to Stockholm, Sweden!

Round – Part of the Marie Curie exhibit at the Nobel Museum.

Abstract – Art from the Nordiska Museet (museum)

Seeing faces in strange places – In the Stockholm Subway stations.

Fire

Stars – I had to dig deep for this one.  This is from our trip to Chamonix last winter and shows my favorite star…the sun!

More from Versailles–Marie Antoinette’s Estate

I don’t know why I keep going back to my photos from our trip to Paris this summer.  Even as I upload and edit my photos from our trip to Stockholm, Sweden, I couldn’t resist posting another couple photos from Paris.  These two are from Versailles and Marie Antoinette’s beautiful Estate.  While I love the big palaces and ornately decorated staterooms, these little cottages were absolutely gorgeous and we loved wandering around the ponds and cluster of adorable buildings.

 

Paris at Night

I don’t know how I forgot to post these night shots from our trip to Paris, Brandon actually had to remind me to do it.  I guess I got too excited about our next trip to Berlin or maybe, as usual, life and chaos just got in the way.  Anyway, here are a couple of night shots at the Louvre from our last trip to Paris.  The Louvre is amazing during the day, but it is even more beautiful at night when most of the tourists have abandoned it. 

Finding inspiration…

I’ve been in a slump these past few weeks and have hardly picked up my camera.  I’m feeling a bit homesick lately and even though I am grateful for the opportunity to live overseas, I am ready to move home and be closer to family.  Homesickness, lack of inspiration, and other life events had gotten the best of me lately and photography was not on my priority list. 

But, what better way to get out of the photography slump then to head to Paris to celebrate our 2 year anniversary!  Both Brandon and I have been to Paris before, but this was the first time that the two of us have gone alone.  We hit most of the major tourist attractions, but decided to make this Parisian vacation a relaxing one.  The first photo pretty much sums up our vacation.  We wandered around Paris and made several stops along our adventure to lay on the grass, chill in the park or dip our feet in the fountains.  This was exactly what I needed.

I’ve been playing around a bit with HDR and decided to try it with the scene below.  The lighting and shadows were extremely harsh with the mid-day sun so I was hoping that the HDR would bring back some of the detail lost in the blown highlights and dark shadows. 

 

No matter how many times I go to Paris, I always love to visit the Louvre.  Even if we don’t go into the museum, I love the scene outside.  The gorgeous architecture and pyramids still amaze me with their beauty; and I absolutely love watching all the people relaxing and walking around outside. 

A different view/perspective - The Eiffel Tower

This week’s photo challenge on LEM is a different view/perspective.  I immediately thought of our trip to Paris and our visit to the Eiffel Tower.  I have plenty of the standard shots of the tower, but I also took a couple from right under the base of the tower.  I thought it was an interesting perspective and like the lighting as well. 

Linked to:

Black and White Wednesday: Rainy Day

A rainy morning in Strasbourg, France made for a beautiful black and white photo.

Linked to:

Happy Monday: Yellow

We found this cute little yellow restaurant as we wandered through the city of Strasbourg, France this weekend.  It was a cold and rainy day, but it was such a cute little place that I had to get a quick shot!

52 week photo project: Week 7 - Strasbourg

Brandon and I took at little trip to Strasbourg, France this weekend since we had never been there together, and it is only about an hour and a half down the road.  Even though it was a bit chilly, we really enjoyed relaxing and exploring this beautiful city.  As we walked through the area of Petite France we found this very colorful bike and thought it would be perfect for the Simplicity photo challenge, not to mention my 52 week project.

Linked to:

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Here are my interpretations from this week’s Scavenger Hunt Sunday.  I shot most of these on our trip this past weekend to the wonderful city of Strasbourg, France.  I wrote down all the topics and I must say, it made for a fun weekend as Brandon and I hunted through the city for these items.

1. Chocolate: The city of Strasbourg is filled with chocolatiers and other delicious sweets and pastries, making it more than just a little difficult to stick to my diet!

 

2. Numbers:  We found these interesting Roman Numerals on a tablet in the Strasbourg Cathedral. 

3. Canned Food: My favorite canned food and soup is Kurbis Crème Soup (Pumpkin soup).  This is seriously the best soup I have ever had out of a can.  I love it when pumpkin is in season because there are so many restaurants around here that have incredible Kurbis soup, but this stuff holds me over when I can get the fresh soups.  I’m not sure what I am going to do when I move back to the States!

4. Music: The gorgeous organ inside the Strasbourg Cathedral was absolutely amazing.  I got this shot literally seconds before they turned out the lights on it.

5. Stack: In my quest for chocolate, I found a very colorful stack of chocolates that were just too cute to not get a photo.

Linked up at:

The quest for Mexican food continues...

After living abroad for so many years, one of the things we miss most about the States is good Mexican food. Not only are they hard to find over here, but most of them are sad attempts at good Mexican food. My local taco and nacho shop uses flour dough "tortillas" and ground meat seasoned with cinnamon. Topping choices include yogurt-cucumber sauce and goat cheese...I'm pretty sure that the Turkish guy running it has never had a real taco or he would never try to pass that off as a taco. And even though my husband loves the place, I cannot bring myself to waste my calories on something that is not a real taco. To get our fix, when Brandon and I travel we always try to find a Mexican restaurant and test out the local interpretation of Mexican food. It generally leads us to meeting some interesting people and sometimes we get lucky and find some amazing Mexican food in the middle of Europe. We've met a lady from Texas who met a Greek guy while on vacation and now lives on the island of Santorini, and this time we met a Parisian who moved to Chamonix, France and now runs a Mexican restaurant, hotel and club all rolled into one. He had a pretty cool staff and the food wasn't half bad.

I loved their Chamonix-stamped wine racks/crates that they had on their walls and had to get a shot of them.

New Year frustrations.

One of my New Years' resolutions this year is to work on my photography skills. I don't just mean that I want to take a lot of photos and try and get better, I mean that I really want to study, practice and learn more about photography. I want to improve my skills on both the technical and artistic side. Photography is, and always will be, just a hobby for me, but it doesn't mean that I don't want my photos to look like "just a hobbyist" took them.

I remember last New Years' weekend and taking photos of the beautiful Austrian Alps. I was excited about shooting in manual and exploring and controlling my settings and I felt as if I was making some improvements. I also remember being frustrated with my white balance when I unknowingly switched the WB to "fluorescent lighting". Needless to say, those photos did not look good and I was extremely frustrated trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. As a beginner, I couldn't even identify that it was a WB issue and I had not dabbled in editing or RAW, so I had no idea how to fix it in post-processing. This is a photo I took last year after being so frustrated with the WB that I flipped it into auto.



Maybe it is a New Years' funk, but I am experiencing more New Years' frustrations as I look at my photos from this weekend. We spent this New Years' in the Alps in Chamonix, France and I cannot even describe the beauty and grandness of this place, it is beyond gorgeous. We spent most of our time snowboarding on the incredible slopes, but I did get one full day of shooting when we took the cable car up to the summit of the Aiguille du Midi. At 3,842 m (12,605 ft), the view is stunning. I don't think it is possible to take a bad picture from this place, however, I'm not just trying to take nice photos anymore. I really want to take great photos, something that captures the moment or the place, something that makes the viewer actually feel or think something besides, "hmmm, that's nice". I know that I may never get to the point where all, or even a majority of my photos do that to viewers, but every once in awhile I would like to get one or two. Yes, these are nice photos, but really, with a view like this, how can you go wrong?



I will say that my almost paralyzing fear of heights didn't help me maintain a steady hand when it came to taking some of these photos. I also wasn't the quickest to react and move when trying to get the perfect shot of the birds flying overhead. I am just happy that I got a couple of decent photos and I didn't faint or throw-up...it's the small victories.