Sometimes you just miss the shot. My wife bought a ring in Florence, Italy, at the shop of Alessandro Dari. She picked out a Venetian Wedding Ring which was slightly large. Allesandro offered to size the ring as we waited. I asked Alessandro if I could take a few pictures which he said was okay.
I was shooting through an opening between the showroom and his work area, hand holding the camera in the dim lighting, trying not to put too much weight on the glass display case under my elbows. The slow shutter speed introduced blurring, and his work light resulted in that blown out area. The work light also put a lot of glare on the ring he is holding on his finger. That ring was meant to be the focus of the image, with his tools softly blurred in the background. No way to rescue this image in post-processing.
However, my wife loves the ring and this is one of her favorite snapshots of the entire vacation.
You must visit Alessandro’s website, absolutely fantastic work. If you get to Florence, go visit. You can get a beautiful piece of jewelry for a reasonable price. Much better than any shop on the Ponte Vecchio. Finding his shop was a happy accident as we wandered upon it while walking to another destination.
Location: Via San Niccolo, 115R 50125, Firenze, Italy
Posters make a nice reminder of a special trip. During your trip take lots of pictures with a theme of some sort. Better yet, pick several potential themes since you never know how many images you will get of one theme, or if that theme will even work once you start building your poster. Everyone has seen posters of Irish Doors, many towns have posters of the various bars. You should build your own posters to personalize the memories hanging on your walls.
The poster above has the signs of various gelateria we visited during an Italian vacation. Along the edges of the poster are the flavors of gelato we enjoyed (I should say thoroughly enjoyed!). Yes, we had over 50 different flavors. The signs are from gelateria in Venice, Florence, Sienna, Manarola, Bellagio, Vernazza, and San Gimignano. Not a bad gelatto among the entire bunch!
The best? Far and away Vizio Virtu in Venice.
This poster is 24″ x 36″. I had it printed out at Costco for less than $10, a real bargain!
Another panorama image using my Really Right Stuff PG-02 Pro Omni-Pivot Package. This image was taken from a promontory overlooking the the town of Manarola, one of the “Cinque Terre” (five towns) along the Italian coast in the Liguria region of Italy. It was taken just after sunset during the “blue hour” which has become my favorite time of day to shoot.
This panorama consists of six images in two rows with three images in each row. The long exposure gives the water that foggy look. In actuality, the waves were crashing into the stone coast but the 30 second exposures softened those.
By the way, I took this image after a great meal at Trattoria dal Billy which is HIGHLY recommended. The view is spectacular, make sure you drink the local Cinque Terre wine. We brought a bottle home to drink a year later and the memories flooded back.
Location: N44 06 26.85 E009 43 32.38