2007 Award Winner - Super Sorprese & Trip Notes

Note: Accepted as one of theworld's finest People Images of 2007 for Canon POTN Book to be published in the Fall of 2008.

<- Click here

Shocked: Tessio watched Umberte make the signal.

Rome, Italy. 10/01/07:12:09pm

---

BACK-STORY: As some of you know, Rita and I travelled to Italy with Beth and Chris Herr, October 1 - 14. The first week we were based in the Albian Hills south east of Rome, the second week we were in an apartment along the Arno River in Florence. We took day trips to Tivoli, Pompeii, Spoletto, Sienna, and Assisi, and a part of Naples. I took approximately 18 gigs + of RAW images. Rita took another 2 gigs of jpgs. At first I backed up the images each day on: my MacBookPro, a portable external HD, and on an iPod. However on October 8, the MacBook crashed and from there we kept everything on Compact Flash cards. No images were lost.

On the evening of October 8, master photographer Andreas Mannessinger & Irene drove down from Vienna to join us in Florence for wonderful dinner at the Nanamuta Restaurant, and the next morning we met at Sunrise to begin a mano-a-mano shoot at the Duomo and then worked our way through the winding ancient streets to the Ponte Vecchio (see my posting for October 7, the day before the MacBook crashed).

I'm slowly working my way through the images in chronological order (with the one exception of October 7) - and it's so much like reliving the trip and its ideas and feelings. I hope you'll enjoy this after-the-fact journaling as I match my notes (I always carry a small spiral bound notebook) to the pictures. Eventually we'll get to the results of the photo-shoot with Andreas (note, he's already posted a spectacular image from that morning - that includes a sort of portrait of me at work - which you'll find by clicking here.).

A last point: In a couple of days, I'll give you the names and contact information for the places we stayed and our hosts (along with pictures). Both the Byrnes and the Herrs will recommend them enthusiastically.

---
NOTE: You will also often find in-depth descriptions of this Italian visit among the daily comments below both as I add onto them and as you prompt my memory. I'll try to restrict my thoughts exclusively to today's image here on the home page. Those Italian comments begin here.