Riding Run Trail

Today I went hiking on the Riding Run Trail in the Valley - I was actually hiking in the "back woods" but I found the trail and followed it for a while. I found lotsa old trash(bottles, tires, and the like)and some old building foundations. It was getting late in the day when I was out though and I had to cut my expedition short - I plan to head back here when I get the chance.

Tivoli & Ostia Antica

These are my last few shots of the Rome area on 35mm - these are on Fuji Neopan 400 and developed in Kodak HC-110(b). I'm just about out of my bottle of HC-110 and I'm debating whether or not to try a new developer or to buy another bottle of this syrup which has worked so well for me over the last year. I'm starting to lean towards trying something new. I have one final roll of film to develop from my trip to Italy - Its 120mm shot with my Browne Hawkeye Flash Model. 

Above is a statue in a piazza in the hill town of Tivoli. I took two shots of this - one without the kid on the bike and one with - I preferred the above - it ads more scale and life. 

Although I tried to keep my film from going through X-Ray machines at the airports and museums it still happened a few times(at Fiumicino Airport in Rome and at The Vatican Museum) - I didn't seem to notice any ill effects on the images. Both machines said they were "safe for all film". The security personal in Philadelphia and Akron-Canton Airports were very nice about hand checking my film - the opened a few boxes and swabbed the rest - but didn't give me any trouble.

UltraMax

These are a few photos that I took to finish the roll from St. Patrick's Day. Above is part of my collection of old bottles mostly found around the Cuyahoga Valley.

St. Pat's on Film

On St. Patrick's Day I continued my three year tradition of shooting my Nikon L35 AF with color film. Its actually a "new" camera as my old one quit on me. The film is Kodak UltraMax 400 which I believe at some point replaced Kodak Gold 400. I like this little early 80's Nikon - its Auto-focus is pretty good, its exposure meter works for most situations, and it has a convenient pop-up flash.

Parco degli Acquedotti

...or Aqueduct Park - is a short subway ride outside of the city center in Rome - and it is an amazing place. The main sight is the longest section of standing, ancient aqueduct near Rome - the Aqua Claudia ruins - and there is also the 1500's Acqua Felice running through the park. I happened to visit on a beautiful, weekend afternoon(which after days of rain was very welcomed) and people were out everywhere enjoying the weather. As the sun lowered in the sky I clicked off two rolls of Fuji Neopan with my Minolta X-700 and also snapped some shots with my Canon 7D to capture the 'magic hour' colors(and for insurance in case something happened to my film).  

These shots are some of my favorite from my trip to Italy - I absolutely loved this place and spent at least 3 hours walking around the ruins and shooting. To anyone spending more than just a couple days in Rome I would definitely recommend finding your way here - its was awesome to see the ancient, engineering genius of the Romans in a peaceful setting without the hustle and bustle of central Rome.  I found it hard to wrap my mind around the age of the ruins - I was starting to think of things like the Acqua Felice as "new" even though it was built at the same time as the oldest standing European structures in the U.S.  Also how can you relate to 2000 year old structures when you're used to thinking of a barn from the 1840's as old?!

Germinating Too

What a cute title! 

Anywho - got some more seeds in the soil - this time I did eggplant and two kinds of tomatoes. I can't wait to see if they pop up! 

Chips & Salsa

'Tito's Study v.3'
Three things I love, Mexican, Photography, and graphic design.

Baking 101

...or maybe 'Baking Autodidactic'? I've decided to teach myself how to bake bread - a combination of the internet baking forums, recipes on packages, and a bit of my own ideas.... So far I've done alright. Below is my Oatmeal-Stout Banana Wheat bread. I found a recipe online and then altered it for ingredients I didn't have(butter instead of oil/threw in some nutmeg/left out the pecans/used wheat gluten instead of wheat germ(whatever that is)) and poured some home-brewed oatmeal stout in too. The photo is another example of CS6 making my 7D work like a new camera - this was shot at ISO 1250 - but who could tell? I would never add vibrance and saturation to such a high-ISO photo in past versions of Photoshop but here I have a decent amount of both... 

Baking, gardening, Rome, video, CS6, new job - 2013 is shaping up to be a very learn-ed year for me....

Germinating

Laura and I have been planning our garden and I decided to get a little head start on the actual thing tonight. I bought some green pepper seeds at Acme the other day and I placed them in some most soil to get them started germinating. You can expect many more gardening posts as the weather (hopefully) improves. Maybe even some video(!)

Wooster Day Trip

On Saturday Laura and I took a trip to Wooster, OH and the Killbuck Marsh State Wildlife Area. We went for a short walk in the Wildlife Area, which was kind of strange. I guess it is basically a public hunting/fishing/trapping area - we found skulls, skeletons, and not much else. It seems like it might be a prettier place to visit when it comes alive in the summer. 

After that we walked around downtown Wooster stopping in some antique shops and the like. We were surprised how full of shops, restaurants, and people Wooster was compared to many of the other small towns in Ohio. We had dinner at The Muddy Waters Cafe and Grille and then headed over to the JAFB-Wooster Brewery - a newish craft brewery that we had been wanting to visit. JAFB had really great beers - we were especially fond of two of the wheats they had. Its a little bit of a hike(about an hour) but definitely worth the trip. 

Rome in Monochrome Roll #3

Another roll of Tri-X 400 shot with my trusty Minolta X-700 in and around Rome, Italy. One more roll to go(but it will have to wait until I get the plumbing in my house fixed).

Fat Head's Brewery and Saloon

Last night Laura and I went out for beers and diner at Fat Head's Brewery and Saloon in North Olmsted. Their beer has a great reputation so its a place that we have been wanting to get to for a while - and it did not disappoint. We had almost an hour wait to get a table but it didn't bother us because we had a few beers in the bar area - many times when you try to do this at a crowded restaurant you always feel like you are in the way - but not at Fat Head's - the bar area is very large with plenty of places to sit and plenty of room to stand if you would have too. When we did get a table we were amazed at how large the rest of the place was - not to mentioned all the brew kettles and fermenters in the front. The food and beer were awesome - Laura had a pulled pork sammy and I had a prime rib burrito.

More Rome Coming

Tonight I developed another roll of 35mm Tri-X 400 from my trip to Rome - those will be posted after the weekend - they are hang drying in my bathroom right now...

Sign of Life 2013

Every year I do this post - last year's was earlier than ever, the year's before was wetter than ever - this year it seems like the nice weather is never going to come. The flowers decided to make a go of it anyways....

Roman Mementos

A scan of some things from Italy....

Rome in Monochrome

OK, so this is how I really wanted to capture Rome, Italy - on Kodak Tri-X 400 with a 35mm SLR. For real - this is what I saw in my mind when walking around. Sure, I'm very happy with my digital images(really, really, happy in fact) but how many great colorful images are taken in Rome everyday? No idea - but I bet its a lot. Not to say that millions of great images of Rome haven't been made in black and white on film - but how many were made in March of 2013 - considerably less I'd bet. Anyways - none of that matters - what matters is my first statement - this is the way I "saw" Rome - or saw it in my mind through a camera.

These photos are from my first two rolls which were shot in "Ancient Rome" and across the Tiber in Vatican City. Two more rolls are on there way. The equipment was my usual - a Minolta X-700 with my early 70's Rokkor 55mm f/1.7.

I love the above photo.

Digital Rome

This is a slide show of some of the shots I took in Rome with my Canon 7D(you can view it full screen). I also shot five rolls of film which I am currently working on. With these I tried to really make the colors pop to contrast them with the film shots that I made. It was hard to decide what to post and edit - everywhere you point your camera in Rome makes a great photo. I took over 600 digital images and if the weather was better I can imagine I would have taken far more. I tried to delete the pointless ones and duplicates(setting testing shots) as I went to not wind up with a mountain of images to sort through - but I still did. 

Anyways - I was really happy with what I came home with...

Back

I'm back from Rome and trying to sort through and edit tons of photos - I'll have posts on them soon....