Silence all Around

There are two things that seem to always help me think: 1) music and 2) being a place with fresh air and little noise. One of the places that I seem to always find these qualities are in cemeteries. When I’m in a cemetary I always find myself thinking about how pretty this grave marker looks or how much time and effort must have gone into craving the marble. I walk through them like a museum and then I take out my cameras and start shooting.

While in Paris, my friend, Christine, and I decided we wanted to go to Pere Lachaise to visits some different people’s graves (David, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, and of course Jim Morrison). Like usually my D 40 came out and I took tons of pictures approaching different grave markers from many different angles. Below I am including some of the pictures I took . (I’ve done a pervious post with a similar subject matter when I first began blogging.)

 

 

Not such Disney Movie-esq

I was flipping through the 200+ pictures of my second trip to Paris looking for my pictures I took with my D 40 at Pere Lachaise when I found this picture of the Notre Dame Cathedral. This is one of my favorite pictures I took on this trip because of the way the lighting turned out. The lighting does not look artificial or the picture has not become a lighter color due to the camera’s suggestion of aperture and shutter speed. The pictures feels like you are actually standing at near the entrance of the central nave looking down. There is also this eerie feel because it is still dark and the air looks still, very unlike the depiction of the Cathedral in the Disney movie “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”  (I love my Disney movies so I had to mention it.)

My D40 Takes on Florence

Two days ago was my fifth day in Florence, but my first day without some orientation meeting to go to. Of course I headed out to the Uffizi with my roommate and my D40 tucked safely in my purse. But in the end I only took three pictures of a deserted alley with it (I did however take some stealth photos from inside the Uffizi my little camera and I will post those later). I was disappointed with my lack of use of my D40. I love the camera and I know it wants to be used here.

But yesterday, when my host mother and her son took us to the Piazza Michelangelo, it was pulled in to excessive practice. I took colorful pictures of amazing views of Florence and black and white photographs of churches and marble.

Although the view was amazing, and those pictures clearly show the city I will be studying in for the nest 3+ months, I like the black and white ones a lot better. The first is a section of the façade of a church near Piazza Michelangelo. The second is the back of a grave marker at a cemetery at the same church; supposedly there are a lot of famous people buried there. The last picture is of staircase and marble banister leading down ward from that church to Piazza Michelangelo. My D40 is enjoying all the sites that Florence has to offer.