Time sure flies, as it has been nearly six months since I traveled to Germany for drupa. After the trade show I took some vacation time solo and hopped a train to Munich to immerse myself in Bavaria. Although this was my fourth time to Europe, it was my first time in both Germany and Austria. For those of you who aren't much into reading I'll sum it up succinctly - beautiful country, wonderful people, and delicious beer!

Looking out towards the Alps in Salzburg

Being a frugal traveler and one who enjoys experiencing as much of the local culture as possible it should come as no surprise that I decided to stay in a hostel. They might not be for everyone, but I just can't understand why you would want to pay hundreds of dollars per night for a bed. It's not like you'll be spending any time in your room if you're out bumming around the German countryside all day! Personal rambling aside, I ended up staying four nights in a three-person room located one block from Munich's central train station for all of 86 Euro. Honestly, can you beat that?

About two feet from plummeting down a cliff at Neuschwanstein Castle

On my first full day in Munich I went on a tour of Dachau. If you ever have the chance to visit a concentration camp, go. No, it's not likely to be an uplifting experience but it's certainly an experience you will never forget. There's a real sense of the horror and atrocities that were committed there over sixty years ago. You can look around and see tiny beds where four or eight people were forced to sleep, the gas chambers, the crematoriums. I wouldn't call myself a history buff but I do have a deep appreciation of it and it's hard to explain the feeling you get in such a place. If nothing else, it reminds you of the many dark times we have overcome in this world. Our guide was excellent and I truly enjoyed every somber moment in Dachau.

The famous entrance, proclaiming "work brings freedom"

Over 4,000 people had to share this one bathroom

My grandpa was stationed in Austria during World War II and his stories about how beautiful it was always made me want to go there. So on my second day I took a tour to Salzburg and the nearby Lake District. He may not be around to tell this to, but I know he would appreciate me saying how incredibly beautiful it is. Honestly, it's got to be my favorite place in the world right now. The city was clean, the architecture awesome, and anytime you give me mountains I'm pretty satisfied. I hope to get back to the region some year with my family for Christmas, as the holiday season in the Alps would be breathtaking. We spent half our day in Salzburg and then went to the town of Wolfgangsee to take a boat ride across Lake Wolfgangsee, which is nestled in a valley in the Alps.  Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful - I don't even know what else to say.

Salzburg, birthplace of Mozart

Salzburg Cathedral

Downtown Salzburg and the River Salzach

The town of Wolfgangsee, in Salzburg's Lake District

Crossing Lake Wolfgangsee

The third day took me all across Bavaria. There was a lot of driving (well, riding...) but it was interesting to see the landscape. Each village or town was very distinctly located on the rolling hills, unlike here in the U.S. where places often tend to run together. I found it incredibly interesting that you can tell whether it is a Catholic or Protestant community by the design of the steeple (Catholic round, Protestant pointy) of the town. We stopped first at Harburg, a small fortress constructed nearly 1,000 years ago that has never seen major damage during any war. Then we to Rothenburg, an incredibly charming and well-preserved medieval town where we ate lunch and had a few hours to explore on our own. I climbed the many, many steps up the Town Hall's tower to gaze out on the town and surrounding countryside below. Along the autobahn on the way back to Munich, we passed by countless fields of hops that are all-so-crucial to the German beer industry.

The town hall in Rothenburg

The beautiful medieval castle in Harburg

Walking the cobblestone streets in Rothenburg

On my final day touring around southern Germany I visited some of the famous castles. First off was Linderhof Palace, a smaller building nestled in a valley near the Austrian border. While small, it is very ornate and fully furnished inside. No photos were allowed indoors but let me tell you it had the most elaborate bedroom I've ever seen.

The only palace Kind Ludwig ever lived to see completed

You're likely familiar with the Cinderella castle at Disneyworld, I assume? Neuschwanstein Castle is considered to be the inspiration, and is certainly an impressive sight in person. Set up high on plateau with cliffs all around it is hard not to wonder how they were able to build such a palace. Interestingly enough, it never was fully completed because money ran out following Kind Ludwig's death. I hiked all the way up (talk about a workout) and took in the views of the surrounding Alps and forest while snapping plenty more photos than necessary. Then I hiked across the famous bridge, the Marienbrücke, and climbed higher up a cliff to take more photos. Maybe not the safest thing to do in the world but you only live once and the view was breathtaking.

A great photo for sure, but it's absolutely spectacular in person

The Marienbrücke as seen from the castle

The Alpsee and Hohenschwangau Castle

Lastly, I have to say that I generally am not the type of traveler to take guided tours. I prefer to plan it all on my own and have a more "authentic" experience and chance to see more of the local culture. But on this trip I simply did not have the time to plan it all out on my own. Instead, I took the tour route and was able to find a bunch of tours with great guides that honestly did not cost me much more than I would have paid for the transportation on my own. So the moral is that no matter how you decide to go about it, get out there and experience all the world and its people have to offer!

Comments (6) | Permalink

Continuing along the aviation theme from my last post, I have made it to some great airshows over the summer. As much as I love flying around in a small plane, I also love the roar of two afterburning jet engines zooming by at nearly the speed of sound. Thankfully I am able to get my fix at a handful of airshows around the country every year. It started off in Louisville back in April, went through Traverse City in July, Cleveland over Labor Day, and culminated in Virginia Beach at NAS Oceana.

The Aeroshell aerobatic team performs in their T-6 Texans

Blue Angels solos 5 and 6 cross in front of the crowd

Combining things I love is definitely a recipe for an awesome time. More than just watching the planes rumble around me, I enjoy going after the "perfect shot" of a maneuver and also taking videos to truly capture the experience. You have to develop a feel for your camera and know exactly when to press the shutter to catch the subject perfectly in the frame. Videos also take practice since panning and following airplanes going over 600 miles per hour and passing right in front of you is harder than it sounds.

If you've brought a camera to an airshow before and have had trouble getting the shots you want, I'll leave you with a couple thoughts. First, a good zoom is always helpful so the bigger the better as long as you have steady hands or the camera has image stabilization. Second, I wouldn't actually recommend a tripod as it can hinder your ability to move quickly enough to follow the planes. Third, try "Sports" or "Action" mode on your camera if your shots are often coming out blurry. Last but not least, use Manual Focus if your camera has this option and set it to infinity to save time by eliminating the auto-focus lag.

An F4U Corsair lifts off at Cleveland's Burk Lakefront Airport

Showcasing the USAF's past and present in the Heritage Flight

Comments (4) | Permalink

Long time, no blog from me here. The last time you heard from me, I had just returned from Germany and said my next blog would go into more detail about my travels in Bavaria and Austria. Well, you're still going to have to wait on that one but I do intend to talk about some of what I did all summer in this post.

Standing at the Fortress in Salzburg with the Alps behind me

If you go way back to my first blog, you know that I have always wanted to learn to fly and planned to write about my flight training. While I went through ground school last fall to do much of the "book work" to learn the general knowledge necessary for flying, I had not yet taken to the sky. However, back in June after returning from Germany I finally got started. I have indeed been blogging about it after each lesson all summer long, just not on here. If you're interested in all the details, check it out at http://amileofrunway.blogspot.com. I've even managed to record a few videos from various flights that are posted on the blog.

That's me flying an Aeronca Champion near the airport

What an amazing thing it is to be able to fly. I still can't say for sure exactly what got me into aviation, but I think it's fair to say that it is my ultimate passion. Out of over 300 million people in this country, only about 600,000 are pilots. It's hard to believe how few people have ever tasted flight from the cockpit. In a stroke of incredible fortune, there is a wonderful old airport near here named Red Stewart Airfield. It has been family owned for four generations ever since Red Stewart himself was a barnstormer many years ago. Here they start pilots off the old-fashioned way in a taildragger, also known as a conventional gear airplane. Instead of two main wheels and one under the nose, there are two mains and one under the tail. It takes a little more training to learn to properly fly one but I'm told you end up a better pilot for it.

Looking down on Red Stewart Airfield from 1,000 feet above

Since June I have accumulated nearly 30 hours in the air. I also made it to the first important (and one no pilot ever forgets) milestone when I soloed back on August 3rd. You can hear a thousand times how much better the airplane's going to perform when you're in there without the instructor's weight the first time, but I was still blown away by how quickly the Champ climbed. Since then I have transitioned into a Cessna 150 and am now working on other things I need to learn so I can pass the checkride for my pilot's certificate. You know, there sometimes really are no words to describe the beauty and joy that can be experienced, photographed, and filmed in the air. If you've ever thought about being a pilot or just going up in a small plane, head over to your local airport and sign up for a lesson today - you won't regret it!

A beautiful summer day over Caesar Creek Lake

Comments (0) | Permalink

For those of us in the Graphic Communications Group at Kodak, the quadrennial trade show known as drupa might best be described as our Olympics. If you have not seen it in person I do not know that any words can truly do justice to the sheer size of the event. Close to half a million people from over one hundred countries attend the show in Düsseldorf, Germany to see the latest in printing technology. From giant offset printing presses to prepress and production software packages to Kodak's latest digital inkjet printing technologies, if it's printing related it's probably on display at drupa.

The Kodak booth at drupa

Many other people from Kodak have been writing about drupa over at our new blog, GrowYourBiz, so I encourage you go there and read some of their great stories yourself. What I am hoping to do here is give everyone who may have never heard about drupa or visited GrowYourBiz a little insight into life at a trade show - specifically, my brief time at drupa.

Looking out over the Kodak booth during setup

Outside of Hall 5 - Kodak was inside of this building

So why exactly was I shipped off to Germany? Here at Kodak, I work in R&D on our new Stream Inkjet Technology and was helping with the setup of the Stream Concept Press. It is very exciting to be demonstrating this new technology that produces offset-class quality images to the world, which we did for the first time publicly at drupa. Thanks to being there before the show started I also was able to see the logistics behind such a massive trade show. Two weeks before the show began it was an empty building and when I got there with a week to go the entire booth was still completely under construction. Even the night before the show opened there was dust and boxes and packages all over the place. Yet we walked in the next morning and it looked like the cleanest showroom in the world - and it probably was. Amazing is an understatement to describe the amount of work, thought, planning and execution that goes into making drupa a success for Kodak and any other company out there.

Stream Concept Press during setup

Getting the Stream Concept Press ready for its world debut

Any regular readers of my blogs know how much I love to travel and this was my first trip to Germany. Simply put, I loved my time there. Great country, great people. If you haven't been, go!

Signs for drupa were everywhere!

I just couldn't get over the stack of Smart cars

While much hard work goes into the show, we did have time to get out and see some of the city most nights. One of the best places in Düsseldorf is the Altstadt, or the old town. Aside from a plethora of restaurants, bars, and nightlife it is historic in its own right with many of the oldest buildings in the city. It runs right to the edge of the Rhine, which curves through the city and is a beautiful place to take a stroll or river cruise on a warm summer night. Overall, the entire city had a fun vibe to it and I enjoyed many of the places Düsseldorf has to offer. And yes, the beer was quite delicious.

Düsseldorf and the Rhine

Statue of Prince Jan Wellem in the Altstadt

After my work was done in Düsseldorf I actually took a few days to go on vacation down in Munich, Bavaria, and Austria. It was absolutely beautiful in Southern Germany and the Alps and I cannot wait to get back over there as soon as possible. I only returned home to the U.S. about five days before I am sending this blog in to be posted and, to be completely honest, have barely even begun to sort thru my hundreds of photos. Accordingly, look for a lot more stories and photos about the vacation portion of my trip in my next blog or two. Until then, thanks for reading and safe travels!

Comments (1) | Permalink

I don't think I need to tell you that a cruise ship off the coast of Grand Cayman is a great place to be in February, especially when you live in the Midwest. Luckily that's where my girlfriend and I sailed off to a few months ago. Best of all, and contrary to my usual luck with Mr. Murphy's Law, we even managed to skip out on a giant snowstorm back home - score!

This happened to be my first time on a cruise and I have to recommend the whole cruising thing to those who haven't had the opportunity to vacation on a floating palace. Seriously, it's kind of ridiculous what they put onboard these days. Our ship, the Norwegian Pearl, had a four-lane bowling alley, 14 restaurants, and a two-story tall video wall with a Nintendo Wii hooked up to it. Needless to say, it was a very fun vacation, the food was great, and I ate way too much of it.

The goal is for this to not end up as your souvenir, k?

Nintendo Wii wall on the NCL Pearl

Sunset over the Caribbean

Aside from the laundry list of things to do on the ship, half the reason to go on a cruise is all the places you visit. Our itinerary took us from Miami to Cozumel and the Cayman Islands. Thanks to the tips and reviews from the many people who frequent the Cruise Critic forums, we found great excursions for the day in both ports.

In order to take photos in all the warm tropical waters, my nice (but very hydrophobic) digital camera was not the best option. Leave it to Kodak to save me a lot of hassle here. Instead of having to buy an expensive waterproof case for my camera, we just picked up two Kodak Sport Single Use cameras that are designed for underwater use. They worked out great and took some wonderful photos - the rest of the images in this blog were taken with those Kodak Sport cameras.

Cozumel was our first port and we docked early in the morning, had a quick breakfast, and then headed into town. Following some quick shopping and a short cab ride we arrived at Playa Uvas. They offered a great little package where we were able to go snorkeling, take a guided clear kayak tour, and have lunch and drinks before we left later in the afternoon.

Looking out on the water at Playa Uvas

Some sort of old fence we saw while snorkeling

Mexican Piranhas, a.k.a Bermuda Chubs

In the Caymans, we had an even better time with a group of people we met on the ship. Stingray City is a very shallow sandbar in the waters of Grand Cayman where a ton of stingrays have grown accustomed to humans. We all took a boat excursion together through Native Way and got to swim and snorkel with the stingrays. They've got a very slimy feel to them and it is indeed a little creepy to have a bunch of them swimming around you since they're rather touchy-feely creatures, but it was an awesome experience. After the stingrays we went snorkeling a little ways away, had a delicious Caribbean lunch, and headed back to the ship even tanner.

Stingray City from the boat

These three rays really seemed to love our group

You have to love the warm Caribbean water

Snorkeling in the Caymans

Rum Point Beach

Hopefully these photos have shown you some of the great things you can do with a Kodak underwater camera. I had never used one before and was very pleased with all the great things I was able to capture with the two disposables we took along on the cruise. That said, I thought it would be great tidbit of information to share with the world on here. As always, thanks for reading and safe travels!

Comments (5) | Permalink

Last time I discussed using Macro photography and shutter speed to enhance your photo-taking abilities. If you didn't catch that blog you might enjoy checking it out before you read through part two. Again, I'm no expert here - these are just some things I do and look for when taking my own photos. 



With the sun directly overhead the lighting and Macro bring this ant on
a flower to life while the mountains in the background provide perspective

Perspective and framing is an area I love to play around with, probably just as much as Macro mode. I often try to line up the subject so part of it blurs into the foreground or background when I focus on a specific point. There are a couple ways to do this and your average camera in Auto mode will work just fine on a basic level.

You simply aim it at where you want to focus and, provided part of your subject is relatively close, achieve a focus on parts of the image while blurring out others. The auto-focus is basically picking a distance at which to focus the camera's lens but at some distance away (commonly anywhere from 15 to 35 or 40 feet, I'd say off the top of my head) it reaches a point where everything is in focus. So don't try to do this with subjects that are too far away from you, like mountains in the distance or some other landscape photography.

 
The wing and plane compose most of the picture,
but it is enhanced by the control tower in the background

Another easy trick is to pick an object, say a tree, that is a set distance away from you and press the shutter halfway down. This locks in the focus at that distance. Now you can move the camera (keep that shutter button where it is!) and take a photo of something else while maintaining that old focus. In the airplane photo above, for example, I aimed at part of the wing but then took the picture while looking at the control tower - this keeps the focus on the shiny wing close to me while bringing that secondary subject (the control tower) into the frame.

If you have a camera with manual focus ability you will be able to simply pick whatever focal length you want and won't necessarily have to use any tricks. Nonetheless, it can be helpful, quick, and fun to try your luck at messing around with the autofocus to create different perspectives.

 
Mushrooms on the log that fades into the foreground,
giving a more "dimensional" feeling to the picture

 
Chicago skyline from the sidewalk - taking the photo
low helps enhance the path's movement towards the city

Aside from focusing tricks on the camera, you can work to frame your subjects in all sorts of interesting manners. This is another one of those areas where there is no real "how to" or specific instructions. It really is more a feel for the subject, your location, and whatever mood you happen to be in. Basically I just look for a unique way to capture a moment to better incorporate the surroundings - the next two pictures might help you understand what I mean by this.

 
Dallas skyline reflecting on Reunion Tower, which
allowed me to capture all the major buildings in one shot

 
Framing the Italian beer with the beautiful cliffs
of Sorrento slightly blurred in the background

As you may figure, most techniques can be combined in a multitude of different ways. Maybe you use a long shutter speed with a subject framed from an interesting perspective like a sideways capture of a city skyline at night. Or you can do something like I did below, where I got up close with the shells using Macro mode but allowed the frame to include sticks that fade and blur into the background. Again, mix and match and play around and you'll probably come up with something cool.

 
Perspective + Macro on the beach helps focus your attention
on the colorful shell while blurring the rest out towards the ocean

Of course, sometimes I take a break from any of the aforementioned methods and just find things that are funny to me - like in the picture below. Maybe it's a sign on a building or someone or something in a funny position. Really it can be anything, but don't hesitate to snap a quick photo when you see something that's humorous to you.

So we're already trespassing?

Well, that concludes my two part blog series on how my mind often works when taking photos. I'm sure many of you will agree or disagree, and plenty of you (this is Kodak, after all) will probably have other great ideas and suggestions. On that note, I know I left out countless things to try to keep this simple but hopefully I didn't overlook any glaring details - so please post a comment if you've noticed I did. And more than anything, go out there and have some fun with your camera!

Comments (1) | Permalink