#MyOldSlides: Italian Campaign

Again the work of my #MyOldSlides project continues, and here are a few highlights from the Italian part of the job.


These are some pics from around various south-central areas of Italy, from a trip in the mid-nineties.  First in Rome, where we (and everyone else who visits) explored the Colosseum and environs.  I was intrigued to see the feral cats running about.  I remember thinking that cats living among humans have been a common thing for tens-of-thousands of years, and there is no reason why these cats we were seeing could not be direct descendants of pets in the courts of the Caesars during the height of the Roman Empire.

Indeed, as this calico princess sits among the ruins of her empire, it's not hard to imagine.

Near the Piazza Navona, in the middle of Roma, we explored the side streets, to finally sit for a beer.  It was more than 15 yrs ago (can hardly believe that) - and I can remember enjoying a Leffe beer and snapping this pic of a resplendent floral situation on this little balcony above an entrance.   With a bit of virtual exploration, I located the same spot again today (well, StreetView pics from mid -2012)  You can see that the palm trees have done well, though the floral diversity is reduced.

From StreetView (Jun08 data)

I can back-project the photo angle, and from another pic on the roll see we were sitting for our beer at the "Antico Caffè della Pace" which I see online has been present on Via della Pace since 1800.  It was redecorated in 1900, so I guess we're good.

Along the coast near Amalfi and Ravello, we stopped for lunch.  This is one of the pics from the parking lot looking across the landscape into the Mediterranean. What a spectacular area, and the light seemed very magical. Imagine if all parking lots had such views.



We spent some time as well in Umbria, north of Rome - and the weather (which was beautiful for that whole trip I recall) was great for expansive vistas across the green rolling hills.  This I believe was on approach to Assisi.   Shortly after our visit the region was rocked by a powerful earthquake (Sept 1997) 


Off the coast from Napoli, we visited the small Island of Ischia. The notable fortified hilltop fort is a pleasure to see from afar and close up. We wandered it's nooks and crannies, and enjoyed an overnight stay on the little island.  Not too far from Capri - but it felt perhaps a bit less heavily touristed (but that's a relative term in this attractive area).

Finally here is a shot from the exciting inner cone of an active volcanic area in the burbs of Naples.  Driving around ol' Napoli you feel like you're driving from volcanic caldera to caldera.  This area, the "Sulfatara" was especially so. Driving into the visitor's area, you see steam rising even from vents along the roadside before you're even there.  The ground is noticibly warm to the touch, and the smell of sulphur is everywhere,  with the yellow deposit even collecting on some surfaces.

It seems a bit crazy that we can walk willy-nilly on this surface, but it was a highlight of the visit.

More impromptu travelog memories to come as I power through a few thousand slides. This is only about 400 in so far in the #MyOldSlides digitizing project.  Comments and questions at @ottaross on Twitter.

#MyOldSlides: South and Central Portugal

Some seashore time in Faro and Olhao gave way to the central Portuguese town of Evora eventually, and so here are a few more pics in the theme of #MyOldSlides, as I slowly digitize them when I find an hour here or there.

While towns like Albufiera seemed to be popular with the British tourists (some of whom were seen determined to lay and sun themselves on the beach in spite of what we Canadians considered chilly weather) the smaller towns seemed very lightly touristed (this is in the early 90's).

The food and environment were both great and the February lighting seemed conducive to good pictures.

In the seaside town of Faro, the water sparkling in the sun was at any rate very attractive.









Somewhere along the way we met a parrot.










The intricately cobbled sidewalks were getting some attention.  It was interesting to watch the sidewalk 'craftsman' in progress.










Laundry outside a house was a wonderfully textured and coloured vista.

 








In Evora, there are unexpectedly-well preserved Roman remnants, and a 16th century straight-as-an-arrow aqueduct that comes shooting into town, and thence many buildings and shops are built into its arches.  The town contains main well preserved periods of history from the past few thousand years, and has thus been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.





… and a temple to Diana. When we were there, a town road went right around the temple, with cars speeding past nearly brushing the sides of the structure.

A quick check on Google StreetView now shows that it has been nicely cobbled, and looks like a pedestrian area, with a small driveable area off on one side. A vast improvement. 

The #MyOldSlides Project

In a recent clean up I realized it was about time to find a viable method of digitizing my old slides.

There are a few thousand of them, and so it will take a while. Just think, if it takes one minute to stick each one of them into a scanner and get a good scan, adjust colour, framing and save it away with a meaningful name (pretty fast, really) that’s more than 50hrs of work.

I’m not that interested/dedicated to pull that off for the next several months

After much thinking, I decided to acquire some equipment and set up a “project and photograph” scheme that is coming to fruition now, and seems to work.   It's mostly made possible with some free software called "Sofortbild" and a used Nikon D60 I picked up on ebay.  I probably could have saved $50-100 and got an older D40, but I was happier with some of the features that the D60 had to get me quickly to a decent resolution, JPEG image on my disk.

It took much setup effort, to get the white-balance selection and exposure right, then work out how I would frame and capture both landscape and portrait images without constant re-jigging. But I've got a reasonable process now and can do several images per minute when I'm on a roll.  Shooting in a ‘tethered’ setup makes it easy to sit back and work efficiently.  Without seeing the image on a large screen you'd really have no idea if you got something directly 'keepable,' so that's a key piece to the puzzle.

So as part of this #MyOldSlides project, I’m sharing a few pics from each batch to Twitter with that hashtag, and will endeavour to put some up here as well.  To start off, these are some shots from the early 90’s.

These first few are from the Algarve area of Portugal.  It's the village of Olhao, which is a picturesque place outside the more plasticky tourist-laden towns of the area.

The dog picture is one of popular dissent, initially we both claimed photo credit on this great shot, but I'm willing to credit it to K who has taken many great pics too, so I'm happy to capitulate and if nothing more I was at least standing in the same spot as the photographer when it was taken :)

Photo by @skatem - I'm sure of it, and will swear to such in a court of law.