I know I haven't updated in, like, forever. Last month I entered the DCist Exposed Photography contest and one of my photos was chosen! It'll be on display for two weeks starting February 20 until March 7. There were 44 other photos chosen as well and they are all incredible. If you get a chance I definitely recommend coming out to see it!
I've been playing around with some expired film and after years of not using film I've forgotten how to use it. So I took the camera up to Piazza Vanvitelli and sat down on a bench to take pictures of people walking by. I find pictures like that to be very interesting, I'm not sure why. Anyway I started pointing the camera at the ground waiting for people to walk through the frame. I wasn't looking through the viewfinder I just had to camera sitting on my bag on my lap. I took a couple shots of people strolling along when I saw this girl running up the street. I quickly refocused the camera on the ground and pushed the shutter. Being film I couldn't see what the result was until I got it developed. I was so excited at how well it turned out! The movement and the fact that I captured the moment just after she jumped in the air is so cool! I love it when a photo turns out better than I thought it would.
Finally after 4 trips to Naples I'm taking an Italian language immersion class. It started on Monday with a placement test and then two hours of class. I managed to place into the Elementary 1 class. They seemed surprised that I knew so much Italian (which is very little) for someone who doesn't speak the language. Everyday, Monday through Friday, we have class from 9am-1pm and we only speak Italian. Okay sometimes we speak English but only when trying to figure out what a certain word or phrase means, otherwise it's all Italian. The classes have two teachers each - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Our teachers are great, they are so nice and absolutely hilarious. They speak slow enough for us to understand and don't get upset if we slip up and speak English. Amazingly enough I can understand about 80-90% of what they say. I'm not sure how I can do it but it's pretty cool. My ability to respond to their questions or make commentary is still frustratingly limited but after only 3 days I can say so much more than I could just last week. I'm looking forward to seeing how much I can say after the month is over.
I found this site called Poladroid offering a download that allows you to drag and drop your own photos into their program and you get high resolution Polaroid like photos in return. It's pretty cool! The photo is cropped and has that random colorization that real Polaroids get when they develop. I've only been playing with it a little while but I imagine using it more in the future on photos that I just can't get to look quite right. The funnest part is that you can "shake" the photo to get it to develop faster.
My Mom's Italian Adventure was a success. We managed to fit in almost everything we wanted to do. Two visits to Rome, a couple days in Siena, Pompeii, Capri, Positano, Ravello, and Napoli. All of that in 10 days. The most challenging part was getting around with her heavy roller bag suitcases. Italy is not designed for rolling luggage. Lesson learned: if you can't fit it in a backpack and carry it on your back you probably don't need it.
The second most challenging part was being responsible for everything. My mom speaks zero Italian and I speak very little myself yet we managed to do just fine. I also had to keep track of trains, buses, etc. which I've never had to do before. I didn't realize how much I relied on Greg to do everything when we travel until he wasn't around. It's hard to keep everything straight especially when you've never done it before and you're responsible for someone else. I mean, I can do this kind of stuff for myself when it's just me and no one else, but doing it for two people is much more of a challenge. Half way through I started getting mentally and physically exhausted which caused my attitude to become increasingly rude and negative. I tried very hard to stay upbeat but it was hard. Instead I got quiet in order to keep from saying anything rude but that turned out to be just as bad. I need to work on that whole bad attitude when tired thing, it's not a very attractive quality to have.
Anyway I've been going through all my photos and posting the best ones. At this point they're all out of order because I was skipping around and didn't have a lot of time to look at everything before I posted them. Of all the shots I took I think this one of the train station in Chiusi might be my favorite. The lines and the light look like a lot of the photos that others have taken that I really like. I have the same shot on film I just haven't gotten it developed yet.
Thinking about everything we did makes me feel tired all over again. I take that as a sign that it really was a success.
Tomorrow I'm meeting my mom in Rome. I need to catch a 7:10am high speed train out of Napoli Centrale and I'll get into Roma Termini around 8:30am. But seeing as how the funicolare doesn't open until 6:30am I'm probably not going to make it. The alternative then becomes the 7:30am slow train that gets to Rome at 9:33am or the next high speed train at 7:48am that gets in at 9:15am. Of course I could bypass all of this and just walk up the hill and take a cab to the station so I could get an even earlier train but what fun is that? I'm cheap and would rather deal with inconvenience than pay for something I don't really need. It's more interesting to tell the story of how I had to run to catch such and such train in some ridiculously short amount of time, etc. Besides her flight gets in at 7:55am but by the time she gets her luggage (Rome takes FOREVER to move luggage to the belt) and goes through Customs it'll probably be around 9am. Then if she takes the train from the airport to the main station in Rome we'll get there around the same time. Is it rude that I'm not making more of an effort to meet her at the airport? It probably is...
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