Weekly Photo Challenge: Sunset

Ooh, I totally love this topic!  I must have repeated myself numerous times, not unlike a broken record, of how I love the twilight hours, sunrises and sunsets included.  There’s just something intricately romantic about the hues of the skies during those moments, especially sunsets.  Then again, I could prefer sunsets over sunrises simply because it is such a constant struggle for me to rise early in order to catch sunrises.

The moment this topic was posted, I excitedly went through my archives and shortlisted 5 pictures.  Too many, and somewhat too repetitive was what I thought after reviewing them through.  I agonised a biit over the selection, and finally decided on 2 personal favourites.  I hope you like them too!

Ah, Venice… my favourite romantic spot.  This was taken atop Campanile di San Marco after I camped out there for almost an hour, braving the strong winds and loud peals of the bells.  All alone.  You see, the hubby, little sis and I scaled the tower together slightly before sunset for the breathtaking view of Venice from the top.  And then I decided I wanted to chronicle the whole sunset pictorally.  I can be quite a fanatic when I set my mind to it.  They couldn’t stand the winds and the bells, and hence they left me there all alone while they proceeded to one of the cafes at the piazza below.

Although my nose had started running due to the cold, I had no regrets.  It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I’d ever seen.  Almost all the time while I was up there, I was witnessing the beautiful sunset through the viewfinder of my DSLR.  1/3 of the sky, 1/3 of land, 1/2 of each… I was mentally going through these words as I shifted my DSLR up and down.  Eventually this picture worked, for me, despite many others that correctly utilised the 1/3 rule.  On the other hand, this picture is more like a 3/8 shot.  Still, I liked it the best.  If anything, it was a reminder to me that all these rules are just guides.  Trust your eye and follow your heart – that’s my personal mantra where photography is concerned.

And this was taken midway of the hills at Vernazza, Cinque Terre, amidst fending ourselves from the famished mosquitoes that were obviously having a feast with us there.  Another of my favourite place I hope to revisit.

Out of the 5 villages at Cinque Terre, Vernazza has to be my personal favourite.  The hubby and I raced up the hill when we realised that we might be late for the sunset.  I barely had seconds to catch my breath by the time we reached this vantage point.  Again, it was a clear day and I witnessed another beautiful sunset.  If not for the mosquitoes and foul smelling dung nearby, I would have found this quiet time with the hubby exceptionally romantic.  It was one of the rare moments on the trip whereby the little sis was not with us.  Guess it was just not meant to be.

Piazza

Felt like posting a picture today, just because.

Took this at Piazza San Marco in Venice at twilight.  Despite claims of what a huge tourist trap it is, and how commercialised it has become, Venice remains to be one of my top favourite cities in the world.  There is much to discover about the charms of this city on water if you venture out of the usual tourist traps.

I hope it will still be around the next time I’m ready to revisit.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

I’ve been rather intermittent where the weekly photo challenge is concerned.  It has come to a point where I only join in when the topics interest me.  It becomes too burdensome if I resolve to partake every week.

So, this week’s topic kind of caught my attention with Up.

I chose to interpret it as ‘looking up’.  The hubby and little sis were looking up at something when we were up at St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice.  Or they might be posing for the camera.  I can’t recall.

It’s rather fun to travel with the little sis, because she’s always a willing model for my camera.  The hubby, less so.  A lot is dependent on the stars i.e. his mood.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Morning

As an avid novice photographer, I have my favourite time of the day to take my pictures – during twilight.  By Wikipedia’s definition, twilight is technically defined as the period before sunrise and after sunset during which there is natural light provided by the upper atmosphere, which receives direct sunlight and scatters part of it towards the earth’s surface.  Photographers refer to twilight as ‘the blue hour’.  The ambient light at the hour is uniquely different, and it shows up in the pictures.

So much for twilight.  I wanted to pick a picture I took at twilight for this week’s photo challenge of Morning, but decided against it.  Part of the reason being, I can’t locate my favourite picture taken at twilight.  I suspect I lost the whole set of pictures when my PC crashed several years ago but am too afraid to investigate.

This is my favourite morning picture – of Santa Maria della Salute in Venice.  It was an accidental shot.  In a way.  I don’t usually take pictures of such composition and I was just trying my luck because the hue of the sky was so pretty.

I’ve noticed that most of my weekly photo challenge pictures depict places out of Singapore.  This is so not healthy.  Am endeavouring to take more pictures of my homeland.  There have to be nice places to take pictures of.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Water

Speak of Water and quite deservedly Venice, my absolute favourite city in the world, comes to mind.  Venice is arguable one of the most romantic cities in the world, and the whole city resides on water.  How apt it is for me to think of Venice, I thought.

I’d visited Venice twice in my entire life –  once during our honeymoon in 2005 and once in 2009.  It was a hit-and-miss destination the first time round, but while planning our visit the second time, I accorded 4 days to the beautiful city.  Some say that Venice is way too commercialised and there is really nothing much to see or do there.  I beg to differ.  I was not just there to see or do – I was there to soak in the atmosphere and live the way natives do on the island.  Never mind that most of the natives have moved out of the island to live on mainland due to the rising costs of living, leaving only the young and old behind.

Admittedly, hoards of tourists arriving via those huge cruise-liners during the day does make Venice a little too crowded and noisy for comfort.  But come night-time when the tourists who only wish to boast that they have stepped foot on Venice have left, the city is transformed into a lady of the night, ready to unleash its charms on you.  And you will be awed, that I assure you.

The period between dusk and dawn is my favourite because that’s when the tourists leave and the natives come out to play.  You’ll see young children playing at the piazzas, the old men walking their dogs and old ladies chattering.  I like this side of Venice.  And I am so itching to visit again.

The above shot of a typical scene in Venice was taken on the Rialto Bridge one night during our second visit in Oct 2009.  I was without a tripod and was riled at the hubby for forbidding me to bring one on the trip.  Like any resourceful photographer should be, I started looking around my environment to find a suitable support.  And voilà!  The bridge itself was a natural support!

This is the quieter side that one gets to see on Rialto Bridge.  We often see the other side, which is bustling with activities including cafes by the sidewalks but hardly see pictures of this side of the bridge.  Void of people, I thought it formed a rather picturesque image that is atypical to the images of Venice we are used to seeing.

I dream to visit Venice again, during the Carnival of Venice.

Atypical No More

Oftentimes I see married couples going to work together in a car on my way to work, and occasionally I find myself envying them.  If you don’t already know, I work normal office hours (much more normal nowadays than in the past 3 years, thanks to a portfolio change) while my Significant Other works shift hours.  It is not that we never had the opportunity to leave for work together (we were in the same shift for the whole time I was an air traffic controller), but we were sometimes not rostered for the same shift duties and we certainly do not always work at the same location.  So… it’s different.

So, while waiting for the red lights to turn green, I start thinking about how nice it would be if we could go to work together, with him driving and dropping me at my workplace before proceeding to his office.  Then I think about how we are going to spend a lot more time with each other and I freeze.

No.  Bad idea.  Very bad idea.

I love my husband.  I would like to see someone dispute that.  However I’ve also gotten so used to having my own time and space I actually quite like this atypical arrangement we currently have.  Take a typical Sunday, for example.  I would be obviously free to do what I want to do for the whole day while he would have left home at 2pm to report for work.  So from 2pm till the end of the day, I would actually have a lot of time to do my own stuff without 1) getting angry with him for playing his computer game, sleeping or watching tv instead of spending time with me, and 2) feeling guilty about not spending time with him.

It’s an unconventional marriage by normal standards, but it definitely works for us.  He has the freedom to do whatever he wants when he’s off duty during my office hours, and ditto for me.  We were never quite the lovey-dovey kind of couple who are inseparable to begin with, but we do cherish the days when both of us are not working, which is typically one weekend per month.

Of the many good things which came to after I left ATC, I think giving ourselves space away from each other is one of the accidental best.  We have a lot more topics to talk about instead of confining ourselves to the daily happenings in the little local ATC community.  It’s a huge world out there, and I wouldn’t ever have found out if I had not mustered the courage to step out of my comfort zone.

But that is all about to change.  In approximately 8 hours’ time, that is.

For years, he refused repeated offers to be put on office hours because that meant that he would be performing tasks of administrative nature.  He maintained that his first love would always air traffic control and he wasn’t ready to give it up.  Till recently when he finally realised that age has caught on.  And that his wealth of experience could also be put to better use.

After much contemplation, he graciously accepted the most recent offer.  His transition to office hours officially commences on 1 Mar.

We had a glimpse of how this new arrangement would affect us last year, when he was put on office hours while attending a course.  It drove me mad because I saw him all the time when I was away from work.  You see, I’m a homebody and I like to stay home after a long day at work.  We saw so much of each other I swear I was beginning to love him lesser as a result.

{A New Dawn Breaking over the Venetian Lagoon}

The sunrise we saw at Venice was one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.  Considering that today marks a new beginning for him, I find the photo an apt accompaniment to this post.

Spread your wings and fly, for the sky’s the limit!

Errr… I’ll figure a way out to restrain myself should I wish to go for your throat.  We’ll find a solution along the way.

Favourite Destinations

I asked the hubby to name his favourite destination from the places we have ever visited.  He must be feeling generous, because he gave me 3.

1. Saint-Paul de Vence
2. Isola Bella
3. Tokyo

He said he likes Saint-Paul de Vence because it’s ‘up there on a hill and it’s by the sea’ and if he has a choice, he could live there for several days.  I frowned in response.  The Saint-Paul de Vence I remember it as, is decidedly not by the sea.

‘You sure you are talking about Saint-Paul de Vence?  It’s not by the sea you know,’ I answered, half-guessing he mixed it up with another place.  And I have a good mind where the other place might be.

‘It is!  We took some photos sitting on the ledge with the sea behind us!’  He insisted.

Bingo!  He got it confused with Peniscola in Spain.  And I know it for a fact that he wouldn’t choose any cities in Spain as his favourite destination.  Many friends loved Spain, but not us.  Barcelona was… nice, but we found the other cities just slightly bearable.  Was it the summer heat that got to us, or that we just couldn’t appreciate the culture and cuisine?  I’m not entirely sure.  Suffice it to say that revisiting is most certainly not on our immediate agenda.

He wasn’t fully convinced that the sea part was Peniscola, but he got the rest of Saint-Paul de Vence quite right.  And I could see why he mixed up both towns.  In some ways, they are both rather alike (if my memory serves me well) – situated on a hill, fortified against invasion, no motor vehicles within the town and… very medieval.

Isola Bella too, located within Lago Maggiore of Italy, has some medieval elements to it, notably buildings made of stone.  And it’s surrounded by waters.

From his top 2 choices, I made some deductions.  For some inexplicable reason, I have a husband who has a fascination with medieval towns near the sea.  I myself am not so keen with the medieval; I find stone buildings… cold.  On a school-organised UK literary tour when I was 17, we dropped by several universities – including OxBridge – to touch base with our seniors.  I thought I would like the history-rich Oxford, but I found myself preferring Cambridge because Oxford was stone cold.  Not the ambient temperature (since it was June), but the overall atmosphere at the university town.

I’m now twice the age that I was.  My perspective might have changed.  Perhaps our next destination should be the UK.  For one, I know he would be excited at the prospect of visiting Manchester.

His 3rd choice of Tokyo is a no-brainer.  We both love Tokyo so much that it’s a default choice if we cannot make up our minds.  The people, the culture, the food, the sights, the shopping and the lavatories… nothing could go wrong with choosing Tokyo.

And my favourite destination?  It’s a tie between Cinque Terre and Venice.  Incidentally, both are near the sea as well.  It must be something to do with living in Singapore our whole lives – the sea is always within reach.