last night my fellowmammoth manjeff newsom came to town and made me stay up waaaaaay past my bedtime for a little night shooting. it blew my mindhole watching him create his AMAZING GOLD RECORDS!!! running around shooting at night took me way way back to my days as a young photo student...totally creatively invigorating!!! here's a couple of my favs...
ater much maxin and relaxin in tuscany we waved bye bye to the hill country and zip zoomed our way up to florence for another day of italy adventures! ok, our journey driving into the bustling city of florence was BANANAS!!! driving in italian cities should come with a health advisory...i almost killed us a billion times, nearly killed dozens of bicyclists, pedestrians, and the gazillion people on scooters...i think i lost at least 5 years off my life due to stress! to make our adventure even more amazing, our hotel was excellently positioned in the busiest part of town but only had a small sign on the wall that was about 1x1 foot! so after a death defying dash through the city we heard the welcome "arriving at destination on right" from our trusty garmin GPS...only to not see the piss ant sized sign...then it got really fun, with a journey of lostness through all of florence trying to find our way back to where the hotel was supposed to be. anyway...after much sweat, many swear words, and 45 minutes of the most stressful driving ever, we eventually made it! whew :)
they upgraded us to a two bedroom suite on the top floor with an awesome view of the duomo!!! here is jaclyn playing tourguide...shouting DUOMO!!!DUOMO!!!!DUOMO!!!!
on our way out of the hotel...heading to the duomo!
first stop...lunchytime...OH LOOK!!! it's jaclyn....TWITTERING AGAIN!!!
for some reason in italy jaclyn wasn't receiving any of her @replies on twitter on her iphone so she felt very sad :(
!!!DUOMO!!!DUOMO!!!DUOMO!!!
man alive this place was AMA-FREEEKING-MAZING!!!
click the video below for a little 360 degree view of the duomo...the end is really good :)
inside the duomo....there we a bazillion people everywhere...so i wedged my sandal and a wallet under my camera for a makeshift tripod so i could take a 30 second exposure and motion blur most of them away :)
setting the camera on the ground and shooting up towards the dome of the duomo is a surefire way to get LOTS of looks from other tourists :)
after touring the inside of the duomo, we decided to hike to the top of the dome for an unforgettable view of florence. disregaurding the multiple warnings about the 463 steps up we embarked on looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong hike up! holy crap. it was hot as hell inside the teeny tiny stairwells that spiraled straight up the side of the cathedral...they seemed to go on FOREVER and definitely kicked our arses...twice. check out the little video below for an idea of how fun it was :)
my calves they were a burnin!!!
the first leg of the hike up drops you just below the dome, many stories above the floor of the cathedral...
...then it was on to more stairs, and finally to the top!!! we. were. pooped. luckily we found a shady spot to sit and just take in the magnificent views of florence and the surrounding countryside :)
video of the view :)
and video of the view...with me scaring jaclyn :)
this is the stairwell back down off the roof...it's kinda like just taking a step of faith, then falling down...with stairs kinda near you.
towards the top of the climb you're actually walking through the "gap" between the outside of the dome and the inside...it's pretty cool...and claustrophobic. in this pic, the wall my back is on is the outside of the dome, and in front of me is the inside of the dome.
the painting on the inside of the dome is AMAZING!!! i could have looked at it for hours!
after our day trip around amalfi, capri, and ravello we photographed the shipley wedding, then the following day boarded a bus back to rome. once we arrived in rome, we threw high fives and parted ways with the shipley crew to embark on our 6 day whirlwind road trip vacation through italy! we rented a car at the rome airport and set out for the hills of tuscany!
after a few hours of driving we arrived at the AMAZING borgo la fornace resort and spa. for serious, if you're planning a trip to tuscany and dig clean, contemporary design, this place is the shiznit!!! the morning after we arrived we spent the first half of our day relaxing in the spa, getting massages, and chilling in the private cabanas by the pool :) :) :)
after a much needed relaxing morning we headed out for a drive around the hills of tuscany. i could have spent weeks there just speeding around and exploring all the side roads. as many of you know, i am a car/driving freak and the roads there were puuuuuuurfect!
a few miles outside of our resort we found a picture perfect tuscan scene :)
after driving around for a couple hours we (luckily) stumbled upon the ancient hilltop town of san gimignano...truly one of the coolest places we visited in all of italy!
being vegetarian in italy is haaaaaaaaaaard!!! luckily we ate plenty of gelato to make up for the lack of food choices :) this pic of jaclyn is pretty descriptive of our whole trip...camera around the neck, gelato in hand, and iphone out ready to twitter :)
i accidentally stumbled into the hallway of the torture museum...completely covered in real human skulls...jac freaked out and ran out while i of course had to take some pictures :)
there were endless alleys and streets to explore!
more self timer portraits :)
i loved how all the towns in italy were centered around the churches.
my lovely wife :) :) :)
a little video...chiggy check it :)
our trusty steed for our adventure! bmw 318 diesel wagon with a manual :) rear wheel drive with a stick shift was the perfect recipe for fun while speeding and sliding around the dirt back roads of tuscany :)
fighting for the last bits of daylight we kept exploring down back road after back road for the "perfect" tuscan scene which we never actually found...but we did find a cool field to take some pictures in :)
jaclyn, the most beautiful girl in the whole wide tuscany...she could be a part time model...or an air hostess in the sixties.
remember that one time we went to italy to photograph the shipley wedding? ya, well we're finally getting around to editing a the gigantor amount of pictures from the rest of our travels around italy :) we met up with the whole shipley crew in rome at the airport, then hopped on a bus down the coast of italy to the small towns of amalfi and ravello. the day before the wedding we accompanied the shipley gang on a little outing around amalfi and over to the island of capri. this was our first taste of italy and boy oh boy was it sweet :) here we go!!!
the amalfi waterfront...
before we boarded the boat over to capri jac and i wandered around the town of amalfi for a little bit...to find "local typical food."
our first view of an italian church...which at the time looked pretty amazing...little did we know the many more amazinger churches we would see on the rest of our travels through italy!
on the ferry boat over to capri...
the docks at capri.
from capri, we rented another boat to tour around the island and see the blue grotto...this is us...on a boat :)
the rocky coast of capri was AMAZINGTRON!!!
this is me doing my "I'M ON A BOAT!"...then promptly almost following off the boat after hitting a wave.
arriving at the blue grotto...where there were a gazillion guys waiting to take our money and take us into the grotto.
inside the grotto...and yes, it really is that blue...apparently there is a really good explanation for why it's blue...i personally believe this is where smurfs go to heaven.
riding back from capri to amalfi we got to see a bunch of the coastline we couldn't see while we were driving down in our bus at night...i want to live to there!
back in the town square of the mountaintop town of ravello, we spotted a very fashionably dressed american tourist :)
then we headed up to villa cimbrone (where the wedding would be the next day) to have a little looksy around. after cruising through the endless acres of beautifully manicured gardens, we made it out to the cliffs overlooking the ocean...it was seriously BREATHTAKING!!! pictures can't even begin to capture the scale of this place so check out the video below :)
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