Falling Behind; Catching Up

Well, it's certainly been a few days since my last blog post. Things just picked up so quickly, once again. However, this time I have less of a realization and more so some photos. On Friday my parents and their good friends Kathy and George came out to visit. They are taking a little trip through Italy and stopped into Firenze for two days.

So, I spent all of Friday with them which turned out to be a really great day! We went to a little local restaurant for lunch, which was spectacular. This little place opens at 12, closes at 5:30, takes no reservations, and is literally packed by 5 minutes after opening. While waiting for a spot to open up for the five of us, we visited the indoor market right across the street. Really quite an interesting place; here's a few shots from there.

After the market and lunch, which turned out to be some of the most amazing food I've had here yet, we took a tour of the villa and then later went to dinner at Il Latini. Let me say this first: I wasn't aware food could taste so amazing. Il Latini served their food in the traditional Italian sense; the waiter comes up to you and rattles a few names of food off and seconds later, the table in front of you is filled with two or tree plates of various foods. This pattern now continues on for approximately five to seven times. I lost track, but I'm pretty sure we stopped at our sixth course. Regardless of numbers, the food was out of this world; easily some of the best food I've ever eaten in my entire life. On that note, we said our goodbyes and I was back to being on my own once again. Quick shout out to my mom, dad, George and Kathy: Thanks for the great night!

Last night my friend Cristina and I walked around town after dinner; I took it as a photo opportunity. I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to shoot, but I try to keep an open mind going into these kinds of situations so I can see different things as I go. We ended up at Piazza Republica, somewhere I've been wanting to take pictures for quite some time. This goes back to my "digging under the skin of firenze" theory. I like exploring the same parts of the town at different points in the day or night to see how the crowd changes, how the activity changes, and how the overall atmosphere changes. There were some street musicians, as always. however, at this time of night, their music really sets the mood. In my case, it even affects my thinking patterns; I found myself continuously at a loss of words in mid conversatio, distracted by the music.

Lastly, here's a photo, one of my favorites at that, to finish off the post. Compared to the busy photos I've taken near the duomo, this one shows the difference of the night life vs the day time here in firenze. Also, it's one of my favorite photos I've taken here in Italy.

As always, all of these photos can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mloiacono/. Also, if you are on facebook, please Like my page. I'm trying to reach out to as many people as I can with my photography!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/ML-Photography

Grazie!

-Matt

The Journey to Find Firenze's Voice

Now that I've been her for nearly a month, I've gotten past the "honey-moon" stage and I'm beginning to see more of the real Italy. Don't take this the wrong way though. The more I find out the more fascinated I am. The viewpoint of locals, their attitude towards any given situation, their mannerism; it is all interesting on so many levels. The more I find out the more I desire to know. As a photographer, I've been wondering "How can I show Italy from a different viewpoint?" Part of being a photographer is being able to get a point across via an image, even if that point is not what one would think of without the photo to aid them.

Rather than looking at Italy from the typical beautified tourist perspective, I want to dig down deep under its skin and find out what really lives behind this fortified wall that I've been looking at for the past few weeks. Every place has its own unique voice and attitude. It's now become my desire to find out what Italy's, or at least firenze's voice is. I've taken a new approach with my photography, as I was trying to say before. I've been looking at the little details that most people are overlooking. Let me present these photos that I took today:

Here's one to start with. What do you see? Why of course, it's a seemingly beautiful and extravagant shop with a intricate looking façade. However, behind it you will see graffiti. Such a stark contrast exists between the shop and the door, only a few feet (well meters, since I should probably comply with the European standard) apart. It's not as if this is a rare occurrence though.

Now, here we have just another street artist. In the background you will see some magnificent sculptures as well as people passing by with nothing more than a glance at either the sculpture or the artist. These people that occupy the frame are, for the most part, not locals but tourists of some sort. However, many of these street artists are locals, Florentines. It's these men and women that speak with the voice of firenze that I'm searching for. They speak the language, as well as understand it.


I'm not yet exactly sure where all of this is leading to yet, but I'm currently on a path towards this near impossible goal: to discover what it is to be a Florentine, in a matter of (let me count quick) 85 days. There's much to be discovered and uncovered. As time goes on, I assume I'll learn more and hopefully get even 10% closer to my goal. After all, that 10% is more than I would've had otherwise.


-Matt

No Time for Photos!

As the days go on, I'm finding I have less time to take photos that I'd like to. That huge gap of 6 hours I have between classes seemed like so much, now it's just enough... between laundry, reading, and catching up on my homework, photos are having a hard time finding space in the mix.

Today started like a pretty typical day. Alarm rang at 7:45AM, ate breakfast, then went to art history class. Afterwards, we got sandwiches from this little deli right up the street. Two words: too delicious. I got a sandwich with provolone, panchetta, and mortadella. Such a simple yet fantastic combination. I've a new-found love for such simple pleasures. After indulging myself, I eventually headed to photo class.

Our photo teacher just gave us actual pinhole cameras to work with for photo class! I've worked with homemade pinholes in high school photo class, but I've never worked with a real one. For those of you who don't know, a pinhole camera is essentially a camera without a lens. It's simply a box with a tiny tiny hole that the light goes through which will cast an image onto film of the other side of the box. The most basic form of a camera. I'll be out shooting with that soon, so hopefully I'll get some photos up here and maybe I'll even be able upload the film images from the pinhole camera!

Tonight, we went to see an Italian film. At first it was a bit of a pain with the captions and what not, but soon enough, I found that I was watching it like any other film. We also met one of the actresses from the film which was pretty interesting.

Despite how busy I've been, at the end of each day when I decide it's time to write my blog I always think "Well... what did I do today?" Just an interesting point. Probably because so much happens in such a short amount of time, it's hard to recollect every single detail.

Off to bed for now, I'll be back soon with photos!

Ciao!

-Matt

On to Fiesole

Today turned out to be more exciting than I had planned on. After getting to bed late last night, I woke up around 1pm today (which certainly was welcomed). I then had to finish reading my novel for writing class. Finished reading at 4pm, and I certainly didn't want to waste the rest of my day.

So, I hopped on the bus and I was on my way to Fiesole. This public Transportation is really beginning to grown on me. When I realized the bus was climbing up the mountain, I knew I was going to like Fiesole. As soon as I got off of the bus, I could feel an immense difference compared to firenze. Less tourists, higher elevation, and much more quaint. Also, the majority of people I saw were higher up the age bracket as well as the financial bracket. I definitely wasn't in the "bad part of town". What this meant to me? I felt much more safe walking around there alone compared to firenze, even though I feel relatively safe most of the time.

I ventured up every road which took me to a higher elevation, looking for the best view I could find. Then, I found this:

I highly suggest you check out that photo in the super high resolution it deserves to be seen in. It will take long to load since it is such a large image, but click here to see the full resolution.

Here's another view from up there:

And lastly, this photo needs a little background story. As I was walking towards the bus stop, I heard all of these air horns blasting off. As I followed the sound, I heard music and people cheering. I peered around the corner and what was it but a wedding! How great it must be to have a wedding in Italy! Everyone was so happy, cheerful, and full of energy. What I found interesting though, was the little boy peering over the edge as if he's overlooking the entire celebration. There's just so much going on in the photo that I ended up being able to pick out numerous things in the photo that I didn't even notice in person!

I sat down and watched their celebration for a little bit, then I hopped on the bus and was back on my way home (it's weird calling it home, but it is starting to feel right). The rest of the day was relatively uneventful. I edited the pics you are seeing here, and that's about it. Tomorrow I'll have to finish up my homework, then back to class for a few days.

If you haven't already looked, check out my flickr to see all of my photos since I don't always post every photo here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mloiacono/

Hope you enjoyed reading and check back again!

-Matt

Nighttime Shooting!

I've talked about it a lot, but I finally got around to doing some night time photography. We headed down to the Arno River around 7pm and I took some photos down there. I took a few more of Santa Croce, but I forgot to focus (I know...) and they are all slightly out of focus. So, I'll have to re-shoot those one of these days. 

Anyway, back onto the topic. Here's some new photos for all of you to admire. First, let's start with the road that goes along the Arno River:

And here's two shots looking down the Arno:

Today we visited a church which had an amazing view over the town. It killed me that I forgot my camera, but I'll surely be revisiting that site sooner or later.

As always, check back soon and thanks for reading!

-Matt

Something Different

Today I had a lot of free time. Too much almost. But, it's certainly not a bad thing. I'm, for once, ahead on my homework. I'm writing my post now since I won't have time tonight most likely. I've been reading almost all day, finished my photo project, and finished one of the videos I took here. Tonight, we are going to watch an Italian Film for one of the NYU courses.

Now, let me explain the title. Usually I post photos, as I'm sure you're aware. Well, I have a video for you guys today. Nothing incredibly artistic, but rather than taking photos, I thought I'd take a video (since I figured no one else would be). On Saturday we celebrated Alex and Taaj's birthday, we got them a cake and everything. They were totally surprised! Anyways, here's a short little video I put together:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mloiacono/6143546025/

Sorry, I can't directly embed it into the blog for some reason (probably because Yahoo and Google are basically arch enemies).

In addition to this, I'll be modifying my blog for probably the next few days. I'm still trying to decide on a look I want. I got tired of the photo for the background, I prefer a more minimalistic approach.

Well, that's about it for today. Hopefully next time I'll be back with photos!

-Matt

Warped Speed

Now that we are all settled in, time is certainly started to move at a much quicker rate. When I first got here, the days seemed to go by at a very moderate pace. Today, I had to second guess myself when I saw that today was the 12th! So, I have a bit of catching up to do.

I had planed on doing a blog post yesterday, but there was a rather large change of plans. If you remember, I said that I was going to Lucca yesterday. Well, I'm not much of a morning person, if you were unaware. I got to bed at what I recall being 3-4am Sunday morning, and we were supposed to be leaving by 9am. I had planed to just tough it out, but when my alarm went off at 8am, there was no getting me up. So much for the Lucca trip. Although, on a more positive note, I think it was to my benefit. I was able to get all of my extra work finished up, sort through photos, and, more or less, knock a ton of things off of the to-do list.

And that now leads us to today. I was experimenting with a new photo technique (at least new to me) called free-lensing. In simple terms, you unscrew the lens from the camera and move it around until what you want is in focus. It yields some interesting results, but I don't have any proper shots worth posting yet. In between my morning class and afternoon photo class, I snapped a few shots and not too much more. I really need to do some night shooting rather than this mid day shooting. I also need to go shopping for clothes... Ok, back on track.

I've wanted to do this shot every time I walked by the duomo, so today I finally had a chance.

Also, here's yet another view of the duomo (sorry if you're getting tired of it, but I'm always hovering around it and it always looks so good!)

And a shot I forgot to post from the Villa La Pietra Garden... just one of the many sculptures there

And that just about warps it up for today's post. Hope you enjoyed reading!

-Matt