Day 22 Pictures

Alright, so here is a chandelier. This was right in the middle of the Catholic Church in Fira. Sorry, I completely forgot to crop this one. I like the blues and yellows along the top, near the windows.

This was the doorway to Art Space. How awesome is this? It looks like you are stepping back in time, which you kind of were since you were seeing and learning how wine was made way back in the day.

Here was a flower on the grounds at Art Space. All the foliage was beautiful and grapes were starting to grow to trellises overhead. These grapes were for eating and not for wine though.

This is walking down a tunnel at Art Space. You can see what having the shutter open will do to pictures when walking. It gives it a mysterious, maybe even creepy kind of vibe.

If anyone out there is a cat lover these next photos are for you. This little guy was just chilling on a wall on our way out from Art Space. He (or she) was purring up a storm for us.

He (or she) was apparently tired though. However, I was able to get a picture of him (or her) mid-yawn. It makes him (or her) look like a real lion...except not really.

He (or she) was then tired and then curled up into a little ball on the ledge and started to snooze. Overall, this cat was the most awesome cat I have seen here.

This here is a HDR shot of the Catholic Church in Fira. With HDR you take many photos with varying levels of exposures. You then merge all these photos together and in this final image you have all the shadows appearing that would normally be lost when just taking a regular photo. The chandelier also looks good with HDR. You really can see the detail in the cut crystal and it makes it look very cool.

A Ride With Some Friends

Well today we had class, I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that by now. But we also got to go out and shoot some photos today. We went to Fira today so that I could get an HDR of a church that I saw yesterday. I was very happy, and the people who own the church didn't mind at all. It was a Catholic Church, just so you know what you're looking at.

We also went to a neat little place called Art Space. Yes, we finally got there. The artwork was amazing! The owner was a little hard to understand, because he had a very thick Greek accent, but we got through it. He was an extremely nice person and even showed us what his personal art form was: wine making. It was also cool because the location was an old winery. So throughout the whole gallery you can smell wine everywhere. He told us all about the different wines, and the other alcoholic beverages made from the grapes. For instance, Vinsanto is a brand of wine that is dried in the sun for 21 days and then the juice is pressed from it. It has a very sweet taste. But what is interesting is what is made after the grapes are pressed. The pressed grapes are then distilled and they make Raki (he said it is the equivalent of Moonshine). The Raki can then be infused with Anise or other flavors and then it is Ouzo. Who knew you could make so much from grapes?

When we finished up at Art Space we walked down to the bus stop and waited...and waited...and waited. A man, who was a friend of the owner of Art Space, drove down and stopped to say hello to a friend across the street from the bus stop. Seeing that we are lost and forlorn he pulled up to us and told us to get in his car and he would take us to Kamari. We were very hesitant, since we didn't want to get into a car with a person we didn't know. However, there was a small child in the back seat (which we later learned was 5 years old and his name was Helea - and we got all this information by speaking Greek with him since he didn't speak English) and there was five of us (2 of which were guys). So if anything bad was going to happen there would be quite a struggle.

It was fun to cram 5 people into only 3 empty. There was some lap-sitting. We also got to work on our directions in Greek. So it was a fun experience to travel down the winding road all the this little car. We also got a great story out of this whole ordeal. We also gave him some money for going out of his way to bring us home, even though he didn't want to accept the money. He was more than willing to drive us, but we just wanted to show just how grateful we were that he gave us a ride.

After that we just got some dinner and now I just finished editing my pictures for our final round of pictures tomorrow. Hopefully I will sleep like a rock tonight and then tomorrow is the end of classes. Whoo! We will then be able to absorb Greek fully being class-free. 

Holy Illness Batman!

So turns out my cough is getting progressively worse (whomp whomp). Hopefully it gets better quickly and is just a phase of this sickness. The last thing I want to do is try and get some antibiotics in Greece. In other news we made some stir fry tonight. It was delicious, but not as good as my mom's. We didn't have soy sauce so it lacked that Asian flare. There was olive oil though, so maybe the Greek stir fry?

There will be some more photos from today posted later possibly. I just wanted to get those ones up before everyone got back from hiking and bogged the internet down. I was successful, but there were more pictures that did not make this round of photos, but that I would like to try and see get online.

Day 21 Pictures

This was a flower in Perissa. I bumped up the colors to really make it awesome. It apparently is a Petunia, I just learned this.

This was a little boy that was playing on the street. We came upon him and when we started shooting pictures he got really shy. This is him peaking out to see if we were still taking pictures, and we were.

Another sign for our assignment. I bumped up the reds and brought out some of the contrast between the colors to make this sign just pop.

I found a little Vespa and had to take a picture of the word "vespa" on it. When I was editing it the glint on the "a" was really bothering, but now I like it, because it shows that it is a metallic surface and not just a piece of plastic glued onto the vehicle.

Here was a beer bottle I found on the ground. It was classily amongst building equipment. I brought out some of the wrinkles in the label. You can even see that the label is starting to peel away from the  bottle.

Another sign for the project. This one is clearly saying that no cars and motorcycles are allowed. Are these signs followed? Rarely. It is just best to always be on the lookout for anything moving faster than you are.

This was on a dirt bike. I brought out the rust a little bit. One of the things that drew me to this was that fact that it looks like it is raised off of the surface of the bike. However, it is not, but the sun damage around the edging of the label makes it look like it is.

I license plate. I like it, because it says "YEA" and I also like that the numbers have some rhyme of reason to them, or it at least appears so. 

Here was a sign in Perissa. I messed with it a little so that you could see the brush strokes in the red, and even a little bit in the blue. The top word is a little slanted, but there isn't much that I can do about that.

Yup, I found some old beer bottles. I'm not going to lie, I was completely creeping in someones little property area. Don't worry. It wasn't gated or anything. More like a quad between buildings. I bumped up the red to bring out the peeling sealer.

Well this is a pay phone booth. I actually took this from inside the pay phone booth. I messed with this one a lot to just give is a different feel. The letters almost look neon now. It was a little bit of a bother though, since the red letters caste a reddish tint within the whole inside of the pay phone booth.

We found a bakery. I liked the fact that some of the letters were missing, but due to some glue you could still tell were they used to hang on the sign. The "B" is in the worst condition and the "R" has gotten a little too much sun.

This is not something I drank. You can tell from all the dust. This was actually at an outdoor bar that looked closed down. Their whole top shelf was lined with these empty bottles of Jagermeister. But I chose to put this photo in for class since it was different. I personally liked how you couldn't see the whole name of the label, but the bottle next to it has the name right on the side of the bottle.

Here is an ashtray. It is even complete with clothes pins and used Q-tips. I bumped up the red in this picture some, and it really brought out all the dust that was on the ashtray. When I was editing stuff I really noticed just how almost everything was covered in dust. It makes everything look so much older than it really is.

I stumbled upon this cactus and it made me laugh. I just loved how it was "JK." It was probably supposed to symbolize peoples' names, but all I could think about was "just kidding."

This pretty much has been our whole situation the entire time here. This wasn't taken in Kamari, but our beach is pretty dang close to our hotel. Since we are on an island I thought it would be appropriate to throw in a picture of a beach indication.

This is my low perspective shot of "Tonys Art" There was another word, but the was just too much space, so I cut it out of the picture.

This was drawn on the side of the wall in Perissa. I just like how it can be interpreted in a few different ways. It was really awesome coming upon this.

We are now in Fira, which was actually harder to get pictures in than I thought. I didn't to just go around and take a bunch of random photos of signs, so I had to look for the more random and unique ones. This was a more unique looking one.

So I bumped up the orange on this one some, but it was already pretty much this orange today. It is just being built, so the sun hasn't had time to bleach the letters yet. I also chose to take this shot from an angle because it really gave it some movement to it, even though it is completely stationary.

This was the logo for a random store. You think it would be for some fancy jewelry or something, but it was just a generic souvenir clothing store. I turn the color down, so it wasn't blindingly white. It actually brought out the marbling in the stone, so that was awesome.

This was a store called Milo, clearly (pronounced "Mee-lo"). Milo is the Greek word for apple, so it is actually quite funny that they have an apple next to the name. All the tourists who can't speak Greek will know this place because of the apple, but all the Greek see the apple with the name and think, "no duh, milo is the word for apple."

Photo Day

Today we did some exploring. Today for photography class we went to Perissa and Fira to snap some photos for our signage project. We also were to take some photos for our final six pictures that we will then select from for a gallery this fall at Concordia.

We wandered the back streets of Perissa and even caught a shy kid on camera. I always love exploring the residential areas here. They have so much more character to them. While in Perissa we mostly just aimlessly wandered, snapping pictures when they came into our sight. We then moved onto to Fira. Being a more touristy city they had something different to offer. We got a little graffiti, but there was also much more signs in general. They were everywhere. So I got of those, but they all still need to be edited tonight, since we will be turning them in tomorrow.

We got back late and missed the hike to the monastery. To be honest we weren't too heart broken, but we all still want to go. After being in the sun for pretty much 5-6 hours we were already spent. We all decided that if we are here we are just going to herp-derp (take our time) our way to the top. This also gives us all time to get our pictures onto our computers and edit them before we need to turn them in. So I am off, hopefully the internet isn't too busy tonight, but you never know. Stranger things have happened while I've been in Greece.

Day 20 Pictures

Okay, so I was out shooting for: Lines, Shapes, Textures, Patterns, and Negative Space. This road leading into distance has some good texture in the middle ground. I had to lay on my stomach for this one. This one also has some lines in that are pulling you forward to the destination.

So I'm not sure what this falls under, but I really like this photo. I edited this one and the previous one. Actually, all the photos today are edited in some way, minus the last one. I may go onto my professors computer and clone stamp that little plant out of the way, but I like the circular shape, but I also like the line that is pulling your eye all the way to the end of the tube.

The other part of our assignment was signage: license plates, signs, graffiti, advertisements, etc. This clearly is a license plate. I snapped this one because I liked that it was close to being something. It was close to being the word "Yes" and it was also close to being the numbers "3333." Each of these is just one letter, or one number, off.

Here is another sign. I cropped off the pole some since it wasn't really needed. I brought out some of the texture in the sign and saturated the colors a little bit.

I have a mild obsession with locks and stuff. This was just a great chance to snap a picture. I like how the wood of the door behind the lock still looks new and fresh, but you have the lock attached to it with rusty hooks and whatnot.

This picture is for the texture of the rust. I personally like the photo when it is bigger. You can really see into the little parts of all the rust. I also like the little cobweb strand that is hanging down right in the middle.

Here is my attempt at some negative space. Personally, when I zoomed in my eye was bouncing back and forth between the actually pattern of the bricks, and then also the pattern where the bricks are not. I may crop this some more later.

Here is some more texture. This comes from a palm tree. When new parts of the tree branch out it gets all hairy and whatnot, so you get all these strands coming from the tree. I also like how it looks like there is this strand sticking out of the tree and the rest of the tree is trying to reclaim this straying branch.

This was on a car. I personally just loved that is said "Picasso." I cropped it so I only got the word "Picasso" in the photo and nothing else. This will also be in my signage photos.

Here is some patterns. I cropped the photo to appear as if this pattern kept on continuing forever and ever. I also bumped up the texture of the pillars. Originally they just looked a little too washed out, but when I toned everything down their textures emerged.

Here is a pink flower that I took a picture of. I have been leaning away from flowers for some time, but I decided to take some more shots of some flowers. This is the one photo that I have not edited. I probably will go back and make some of the colors pop more.

It Has Finally Happened!

What have I done today? Well I had some Greek class, which I loved as usual. I wish I could study this language even more. I also heard Swedish today, so I need to add that to my list of languages that I want to learn. We will be going out for dinner tonight, so hopefully I can put some of my new vocabulary into practice.

We went out and started shooting some stuff for our final project, so there will be some photos being posted tonight. I will probably be sneaking down to use the cable to upload the photos faster. I am also going to embed a link into this post. I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nJcmLMb5to&ob=av3n

The song is called "Euphoria." Its lyrics totally encompass my life right now. Everything is just so beautiful and unbelievable. It is like a constant state of euphoria. The beat just drives you through the song. This gem was found the other night when we went out and saw the singing competition "EuroVision" playing all down the boardwalk. All the contestants were so good that I had to buy the CD. 42 songs for only 15 Euro! Not bad at all. "Euphoria," by the Sweden singer Loreen, actually was the winner of this year's EuroVision, so that means next year EuroVision will be held in Sweden. A fun fact too: Israel takes place in this competition too, so that means I will be able to watch it next year too!!!

It other news, dealing with intense feelings of awesomeness, I went cliff jumping today! Yup, can check that off of my bucket list now. You know, I am usually afraid of heights, but when I know that I can't be hurt I am good. I just lept off and enjoyed the ride down. If anyone reading this ever comes to Santorini this is must activity. It is about 30 feet up maybe. Hopefully someone caught a picture of me on the way down. I didn't have my camera with me when we went to the beach, so I don't have any pictures of me on my camera. I will go again though, so you can bet that there will be some pictures in this coming week of me jumping again.

I am in the super sensitive cough stage of my cold, so I hope that means that I am on the mend. It is isn't impeding my life too much, but it wouldn't anyways. I'm in Greece! I can't let a stupid cold get me down. On a less exciting note, I did laundry today. To be honest, it is exciting to me. It means I get clean clothes! So hopefully all my shirts and stuff will be dry by tomorrow morning. That would be awesome.

As of now I don't know what the evening will have in store. I most likely will be in working on class stuff. I haven't decided if I want to go into Fira tonight and get some more shots at night. It always adds a different feeling to pictures. We also may spend some time figuring out what we will be doing this weekend. We may be going to Crete this weekend (which would mean no blogs, sorry. Don't want to lose my laptop.). The long ferry there (which leaves at 3:00am) is only 18 Euro, so 36 Euro round trip. Not too bad. We may spend one night and come back, so we have one last day to explore the island some more.

Either tomorrow or Thursday we will be hiking up to the Monastery (finally). I have been waiting for this. I will probably be taking lots of pictures there (if I am allowed). Wednesday is a free day, so we don't know what we will be doing, but we will be doing something. It may be a drive out to the lighthouse past Akrotiri to watch the sunset. Or it may be staying close to Kamari and doing something. I will keep you all posted.

Snorkeling Adventures and A Reality Check

Well it is only 2:45pm here, but we have done so much today. Today we went snorkeling. For lack of better words it was freaking awesome. It was sweet to get to see all the little animals in the water. Our guide found a sea urchin and brought it out of the water to show us. It was cool seeing its little body pulsing.

We went to three different sites, the first two being part of the volcanic flow, so there was some really interesting rocks, but not as much sea life. The second of these two sites was cold, but it was still awesome. We came across an octopus just chilling on the rocks. The whole excursion was incredible. Sure, I've gone snorkeling in a lake in Minnesota every now and then, but nothing compares to the mighty ocean.

Despite being here for so long I am still not used to the salt water. How that is possible I have no idea, but it is. When you're in a lake you aren't really worrying if you get a little water in your mouth, because it's just fresh water. Clearly not the case with the big blue. You get some water in there and you are spitting out super salty spit for the next five minutes. We've started bringing gum with us to help rid our mouths of the taste of salt water.

Also, we will be leaving our wonderful home at Studios Marios in a week. This is extremely saddening, but coming home will be an adventure. We have already talked about how it will be weird not to walk everywhere to get our things. We probably won't be walking to the market (which is conveniently next door for us) every morning for a 60 cent loaf of bread and some orange juice. Coming home will be a complete readjustment, but perhaps there will be some things that change, who knows.

As of now, I am going to be enjoying this last week to its fullest. There will be plenty of photos. We are already planning our last week here and figuring out when we want to leave and everything. On the list is a Monastery, which I am really excited for. We also want to go to this art place called Art Space, which some have already gone to and they said it was awesome. We will be making a trip out to the lighthouse past Akrotiri to watch the sunset. We will be soaking up some sun before we leave.

A little side note for anyone reading who is thinking of coming. May is a perfect month to come. Sure, the ocean isn't the warmest, but there is a lot less tourists here. Generally speaking we are technically tourists, but you know it's a good sign when the money collector on the public bus begins to recognize you. Well, I hope it's good. But being here has been interesting. We have really seen the beach evolve. there were maybe two places that had lounge chairs out when we got here, but now almost all places have lounge chairs out. There are life guard towers positioned on the beach. Little changing huts have been erected. So much has changed in just three weeks. Walking around Fira one weekend when no cruise ships were in port was wonderful, but the next weekend there were three. The city was completely different. There was definitely a different vibe. It also has been difficult for us, since we are trying to use the Greek that we are learning, but since it is getting so close to tourism season many people are just defaulting right to English. So it is really hard to come up with Greek when someone just talked to you in your native tongue.

Day of Relaxation

Yesterday was a day of relaxation. We had our Greek lesson in the morning and then essentially everyone checked out. We went to the beach, then we went to the pool, then we made dinner and watched some movies. Yeah, we had an extreme lazy day, but today we are bussing all over the island to go see some awesome things.

This morning will be spent doing some cleaning, probably a little bit of laundry and dishes. Other than that we are playing the day by ear. The blogs have been short lately, I know. But we have been homebodies for the past couple of days. Also we took a couple days away from taking pictures. We want to make sure we absorb some stuff, rather than always be trying to capture the image of where we are. Pictures will recommence today though. 

Clearly Enjoying Paradise

Yowza! Completely forgot to blog yesterday! Sorry everybody out there. Yesterday and today are more along the lines of chill days. Yesterday was good for a few reasons.

One: class. Yes, I'm one of those dorky people that like school, especially other languages. I always love our Modern Greek lessons, I just wish we would be able to spend more time doing it.

Two: lunch. I'm a fan of food, but let's be honest, who isn't? We had our leftovers of our mac n' cheese, but with a twist. We had a leftover sausage with leak that we cut up and fried and then we added the mac n' cheese. It was almost like hot dogs and mac n' cheese. It didn't last long. We devoured that meal like nobody's business.

Three: free time. I love our hikes around the island and everything, but it is always nice to have a day where we can decompress from everything. I know we have weekends and everything, but I don't like spending the whole weekend decompressing. I would much rather be out doing something. It is often just one afternoon that we need to just soak up what has happened in the past week.

We came to the realization that we have less than two weeks left. Sad sad day. However, we did not dwell on this reality, but chose to remain in the present and continue absorbing everything we have right now. We will cross the bridge back to the reality of going home when the time comes. Until then we are enjoying everything that Santorini has to offer. Yamas!

Those Days You Feel Epically Lame...And Then Awesome Again

The morning started off rough. I fought my cold oh so valiantly, and now it is almost gone (Thank God). We had our Greek language and culture section and then we were off to Ancient Akrotiri. Ancient Akrotiri was a city most likely inhabited by maybe up to 10,000 people, which in ancient times is a crazy big deal. Their civilization thrived from about 2000 BC to about 1640 BC. I don't know about you, but my mind is always boggled by ancient civilization (like the Aztecs, they had a population of about 200,000 people making them the sixth largest civilization in the world at that time, yet no one from Europe and Asia knew that).

One of the craziest things about the Ancient Akrotiri civilization was that they were peaceful. No evidence has been found that indicates a militaristic nature, which is awesome. These are the people that were intense traders. There are highly intricate paintings on their walls (which are preserved in museums) that depict women in the finest clothes (like silk, which had to have been traded with from Asia Minor since silk is not, and has never been available on the island) as well as plucked eyebrows (they have found ancient tweezers) and even painted nails (how crazy is that!). It just reminded me a lot of the beauty industry today (minus the fact that everything the ancients used was solely derived from natural means).

The site is called Ancient Akrotiri only because it is located by present day Akrotiri. No evidence has been found to give us any indication to the name of this magnificent city. And when I say magnificent I mean magnificent. This city had three story buildings, which in ancient times was a big deal (also keep in mind that this island had earthquakes too). One of the cool things that the excavators do is they fill in parts with liquid gypsum. This city was literally buried in the ground, fully preserving everything. However, wood decays (it didn't burn). So when excavators come across of pocket they fill it with the gypsum and then dig out the object that was once there. They have found intricate wooden tables with highly detailed clawed legs and beds. They have also reconstructed the doorframes with the substance, and then (for people on tours to get a feel for it) painted it to look like wood, so we could get a picture of what it would be like.

This city also had indoor plumbing, seriously! This just makes me look at current civilization and think about how long ago indoor plumbing has been around. Crap it made me feel lame. We were thinking that the time most people spent thinking about military and stuff like that these people were able to focus on making a more egalitarian society. So that was our morning in the smallest nutshell.

Tonight for dinner we made mac n' cheese, since we were really craving something from home. I actually learned how to make it too on the way back from the grocery store from one of our professors. We used three different kinds of cheese (Edam, Non-dyed Cheddar, and Mozzarella). The result was awesome, we may just use more milk next time. But it completely hit the spot. It feels so good being able to make food, especially when abroad in a different country. I'm glad we have the privilege of a kitchen in the room.

I did the other half of my laundry today, so that was exciting I guess. I am getting used to doing laundry by hand, but I am not making promises that that habit will continue once I get home. We have our wonderful clothesline stretched across our balcony twice, so we can fit more clothes on it. I have everything pinned twice (I call the second one my "contingency pin") just in case the wind decides to be extremely agressive. I haven't lost anything yet, so let's hope that continues. Well I will probably post some pictures from Ancient Akrotiri later tonight (or tomorrow, depending on the internet). 

Day 14 Pictures

We had a windy day yesterday, so we actually had some waves. Turned the shutter speed way up to catch these bad boys rolling in.

I had to get one of the wave curling. It is may favorite part of watching waves come into shore.

We played a game yesterday called, "Stand Your Ground." We all plant our feet in the sand and resist the waves the hit us. When we got farther out (since we would progress further out) we would like arms and form a wall, that way no one got pulled out to sea. Best game ever.

So it was a little foggy when we started our walk to Oia, but if you look closely you can see some white buildings on the edge of the land. Yeah, we walked there. It was about a 3 hour hike, not too bad, but there were some rather interesting trails that definitely would not fly in the United States at all, but they were really fun.

So if you can sea the little mountain-ish thing in the upper right side, just right of the white building, that is Imerovigli. There is a tiny white speck on the right side of that mountain-ish thing, and it is a monastery. Imerovigli was a city that we walked through, and one we also this past weekend.

So this was one of the pictures that capture the essence of leaving the Shire. I just love the waving grass in the wind, with the sun in the background.

One of my classmates held his ground so that I could catch the sun right above his head. It shines awfully bright over here. Many got burned, even me.

Here is a super vivid flower. It almost looks like I edited the color, but no editing was done. So much beauty packed into this little island.

Here is a snapshot of Oia through the plants. All the white buildings below make up the city of Oia, the city on the North-Western tip of the island of Santorini.

These are where the sunset photos commence. I have to get a shot of a cross on top of church. We learned today that many of the churches on the island (a whopping 550) are privately owned. That explains why pretty much every single one we have come across is locked. Sorry if anyone was looking for pictures of the inside of churches.

I got the sun between the church and also a rock jutting from the side of the mountain (they tend to do that here).

This is the location that I staked out at. So this is where the photos get real cool. I personally like that the windmill is in the picture, but since it is just rope linking the support it doesn't dominate the photo.

Some of these may look very similar because I was playing with different shooting styles. Bumping up ISO, changing aperture focus, longer exposure, etc.

I like that the windmill is almost just a silhouette in this photo. This sunset was just awesome. I was extremely happy that there was some clouds, because they always make sunsets that much better.

So this is when I switch to my small lens (18-55mm). I was able to get all the clouds of the sky, and I also got to keep the ground nice and dark, since I didn't want to highlight the ground, just the beautiful sunset.

I like this one, because I can't see any one the ground in this picture, so you are left wondering if it's part of the island or is it a man-made island out on the water.

Switched back to my bigger lens (75-300mm). I also changed the quality of the photos to RAW.

You can start to see the sun setting here. It actually sets behind an island, so you don't get that thing where the sun hits the water and you get a line in the ocean, at least not at this time of the year.

I like that you can see the different layers of light in the sun, and also the mountainous features of the island that it is setting behind.

This is a picture where I wanted the focus to fight. Is the focus the setting sun (which creates all the painting in the sky) or is the focus the alost silhouetted windmill (which dominates the photo)?

Catching the last bit of sun setting. It happened so quickly once it got to one point. Cameras were clicking everywhere. There must have been at least 300-500 people all over the coast line (in between buildings, on the sides of mountains, on the stairs leading further down to the ocean, everywhere).

So this was taken about 5 minutes after the sun set. I like the pink to purple coloring in this photo. I don't like to post edited photos, but this one will be editing, mostly just straightening everything out.