Category: Travel

Photo Friday – St. Emilion Church

This photo is from St. Emilion, a famous wine growing region just outside of Bordeaux in France.  I loved the way the sun was shining through the tree and the great texture in the church tower and the sky.  This shot has so much dynamic range that the camera couldn’t capture it all so the highlights are blown out and the tower was deep in shadow.  I fixed it as much as possible but the sky still wasn’t working for me – black and white to the rescue!

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Photo Friday – Sydney Sunset

This is an older photo from my trip to Australia in 2013.  This is the Sydney skyline at sunset and I’m really happy with it – especially the God rays shining through the buildings.

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Photo Friday – Marseille Boats

This was taken on a recent trip to France.  After presenting at a conference in Toulouse, I went to Marseille for a few days to explore.  While it wasn’t my favorite city, I did get a few great pictures and got to see the Chateau d’If.  The light was hard because it was the middle of the day so I converted to black and white to try to give it some drama.

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Photo Friday – Chateau d’If

One of my favorite books is The Count of Monte Cristo.  I might go so far as to say that it’s my favorite book not written by Isaac Asimov.  If you’ve read this book you know that the first quarter or so takes place as the main character is in prison at the Chateau d’If in the Marseille harbor.  One of my favorite moments of this trip was getting to go see the Chateau d’If and even read the book on my kindle while in the prison.  This photo was taken as the boat left the island to return to the harbor.

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Photo Friday – St. Emilion

This photo was taken when visiting the small town of St. Emilion on a tour a several vineyards in the Bordeaux region (btw, I would highly recommend BordoVino Tours).  This is a stitched pano made from 5 separate photos taken at 27mm equivalent focal length.  In hindsight, I wish I had made it a double row pano at a larger focal length.  But, it still turned out pretty well considering I didn’t have a tripod.

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TripIt vs. Kayak My Trips

Almost a year ago I wrote the post The Best Travel Itinerary Manager and it quickly became my most popular post.  In that post I gave my preference for Kayak over the established TripIt for managing itineraries.  Since then I’ve used them much more and they’ve both had updates so I thought it might be a good idea to review them again in a little more depth.  I’m covering TripIt since it is the entrenched favorite and Kayak My Trips because it is second place in google searches and is my favorite. Continue reading “TripIt vs. Kayak My Trips” →