Travel Photography Archives - Page 3 of 4

Gulf Shores Food Photography Workshop

May 1, 2013 By Paola 10 Comments

Sometimes you have weekends that are almost impossibly inspiring; good for the deepest depths of your soul and quite possibly life changing.

This last weekend I attended a food photography workshop in Gulf Shores Alabama, with the amazing Helene Dujardin of Tartelette (and Senior Photographer at cookbook publisher Oxmoor House) and the equally amazing Seattle-based food photographer Clare Barboza.

I’m still processing what exactly the workshop meant to me (there’ll be a blog post with the images I took later this week), but one of the most quietly inspiring and good-for-the-soul aspects was the location. Who knew that Gulf Shores, Alabama was so incredibly beautiful?

Every day, we took walks on the enormous, blindingly white, sparkly sand beach – like dunes of soft sugar – and admired the seabirds and the soft pastel colours of the seagreen waves, the seashells and the pretty wooden houses on stilts, lined up like so many macarons on the water’s edge (I’m clearly in a dessert-y frame of mind).

It was one of those places that always looks different depending on the light, but always equally enchanting.

Gulf Shores, I’m so sorry I doubted you.

Come take a walk with me.

The name of the house where we were staying seemed hugely appropriate.

And I wondered if the clouds on the flight back were telling me something.

Check out Clare Barboza’s blog post, to see what fun we had. And here’s another blog post from my lovely classmate Jerry Deutsch. I met such fabulous people on this weekend.

Amtrak Train Journey from Seattle to Vancouver

April 17, 2013 By Paola 1 Comment

On Friday I did something very extraordinary and made the trip from Seattle to Vancouver ON. THE. TRAIN.

Of course I used to take trains all the time when I was in Europe, but here on the West Coast (is it different on the East Coast?) trains seem to be few and far between and are a very much mistrusted form of transport.

You have to time your Amtrak train trip to Vancouver perfectly – the train only goes once a day, though there is a bus service.

Which is the most tremendous shame, because once on board you are rewarded with the most stunning journey.

The clouds and rain on the way to Vancouver were quietly beautiful, as the train hugged the coastline and seemed to fly across the water, before turning inland past the pastoral idyll of Skagit County.

And then on Sunday I was welcomed back to the US by the most glorious sunset imaginable.

It really was ridiculously beautiful. Pacific Northwesterners, you have to do this journey at least once.

I’m back in the CreativeLIVE studios once more doing a Lightroom workshop with ace photographer and Lightroom genius Jared Platt. I highly recommend you download this course if you want to get to grips with Lightroom once and for all.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland in Whistler

January 2, 2013 By Paola 4 Comments

Good morning dear hearts and a happy new year to you all. I am BACK. Thank you so much for all your good wishes and butt repair tips here, on Facebook and via email. This thing has been a complete BITCH but I’ve got it down to mild sciatica in the morning and a sort of bruised feeling in my bum at all other times, so definitely making progress. I can also sit which is a Christmas miracle in and of itself.

In case others think they might have the same problem I’ll be writing a post in the near future about all the treatments I did and how they did or did not help.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season in the meantime. We made our annual trek to Whistler, wherein I pack the Husband and the Minx off skiing and then take myself off on snowy walks with my camera and my thoughts. This year we had plenty of snow and plenty of sunshine and it was quite breathtakingly beautiful.

One thing I did in Whistler was to read This Year I Will… which is full of tips and tricks for actually sticking to New Year’s resolutions. One tip that is resonating hugely with me at the moment is to concentrate the mind and give the year a title.

So for me this year is going to be The Year of Getting Organised, The Year of Photography, and The Year of Getting Fit. I like the idea of not making specific resolutions, but instead choosing areas of focus and attention. That way I can accommodate my butterfly mind by doing lots of different things in a certain category and not have to beat myself up if I fail to keep specific resolutions.

Have you made any resolutions for 2013? What will be your areas of focus? Do you think I’ll actually manage to tidy my desk this year?

The End of Summer

September 6, 2012 By Paola 2 Comments

It’s a sparkly, warm day today in Seattle but the leaves are turning just round the edges, the evenings are growing cooler, the Minx and I spent yesterday picking blackberries and there’s definitely an undertone of autumn in the air.

We’re back after an incredible weekend at the Labor Day Family Weekend at Canoe Island French Camp in the San Juans and the Minx went back to school this morning. My little tiny, itty bitty scrap of a baby has just started third grade.

It’s been a wonderful summer, but I can’t wait to start a new year for me too. I have BIG PLANS and maybe this year I’ll even get to execute them.

In the meantime here are some photos of our weekend on Canoe Island. Man, that place is good for the soul.

London 2012: The Olympic River Part 2

August 22, 2012 By Paola 2 Comments

Here are some more photos from our trip up the River Thames during the Olympics. I’m assuming that the whole light show will stay in place now, minus the Olympic Rings of course, in which case I can’t recommend a night time visit to the river highly enough if you happen to be in London.

Magical is not a good enough word.

Here’s what we had all come to see.

But in every direction the river looked amazingly beautiful (that’s the home of the French Olympic delegation).

London Bridge has got itself a groovy new lighting scheme.

The Mayor’s Office had a laser light show featuring cyclists and tube trains amongst others.

Remember I blogged about the incredible new light show they’d installed on Tower Bridge? Well for some they flipped up the rings and then put the light show through its motions. HMS Belfast to the right also changed colour too.

And then the rings flipped back on and the Bridge turned gold to celebrate Mo Farah’s win in the 5,000 meters.

Here’s the view from the restaurant we dined at in Hay’s Galleria.

Finally, at midnight, we stopped off at the London Eye.

Slightly awesome n’est-ce pas?

Here are some more shots from my boat trip along the river.

London 2012: The Olympic River

August 15, 2012 By Paola 5 Comments

Hey honeys, I’m home!

It’s rather a long time since I blogged here isn’t it? Apologies for the radio silence but we’re just back from three weeks in Europe – two in London for the Olympics and one in the South of France for some sun.

I had all sorts of good intentions of blogging gently along the way but a) always much trickier blogging from an iPad and b) I was having too much fun (such a bad, bad blogueuse). I hope you were following along on Instagram instead.

I was so glad we went back. I was worried that the weather would be crap, it would be impossible to get around, the opening ceremony would be embarrassing and there would be all manner of chaos and craziness.

Instead, and I hope this made its way through your TV screens, London was beautiful as I have never seen it before, festive and glorious with everyone in a jolly, celebratory mood. It was, quite simply, magical.

Let’s go for a little trip upriver and you’ll see what I mean.

We’re starting at Greenwich. Home of the erstwhile Millenium Dome, which has now been reinvented as a massive concert arena, and one of the main Olympic venues. Here’s the view from the new Thames cable car. See that boat at bottom right? We’ll be going on that to wend our way up to the centre of town. Can you see the Gherkin in the distance?

While we’re waiting for the boat we have the perfect opportunity to look more closely at the Dome, and watch the people climbing the new walkway. Wish we’d had time to do this. It looked very fun.

There’s also the chance to watch a parade of tall ships going past – it must have been amazing when all river traffic looked like this.

And we’re off. Spot the tiny Gherkin to the left of the picture.

Getting closer.

This is what we came for. Also loving the newly-opened ‘Shard’.

This was quite literally breathtaking. So beautiful.

Going under the bridge. One of the most wonderful things I’ve ever done in my entire life.

More pics of magical Olympic London tomorrow.

BTW my fancy pants new camera with all its fabulous ISOs and low light photography capabilities died an ignominious death the day before we were due to leave. So all pics are taken on my little Canon Rebel XSi (450D). You could almost hear it straining.

That Was The Week That Was: California Spring Break Edition

May 7, 2012 By Paola 2 Comments

Oh goodness, it’s been ages since I did one of these. I’ll fill you in with Spring Break pics today and then maybe do another one towards the end of the week.

Not sure if anyone else likes them but it makes me happy to keep this little visual diary. Our Spring Break was a week of soft clouds and soft pastels, sea creatures and great food, with quite a lot of knitting thrown in.

On January 1st I started posting daily pics to Instagram. I’m @mirrormirrorxx. Come and be my friend.

Portland’s Japanese Garden

April 4, 2012 By Paola 7 Comments

Just before spring.

It’s been a day of soft April showers here in Seattle and I thought I’d share pictures of another such day we spent a couple of weekends back in Portland’s Japanese Garden.

Of all the Japanese gardens here on the West Coast, Portland’s is by far my favourite. Not as flashy and gaudy as San Francisco’s, but bigger and more peaceful than Seattle’s, Spring had not yet fully sprung when we went, though everywhere soft young leaves were starting to peek through, as the hailstones fell and the sunshine glinted through the raindrops like so many crystals on a chandelier.

Some places are good for the soul.