Travel is not Always Easy

We, like many of you, spend a lot of our time thinking about and planning our next trip. Unfortunately, here in the United States, it isn’t as easy to get to places as it is in some other parts of the world. It is even worse when you live in the middle of the country as we do because we can’t even jump in a car and head to another state without it taking at least eight hours. It certainly isn’t the same as our time living in Frankfurt when we could decide to go someplace on Wednesday and spend three or four days visiting another country with a short two or three hour train or plane ride. As we finalize arrangement for our next trip, it is likely that we will spend around twenty hours in the air before we reach our destination. Taking that amount of time just to reach a destination makes it hard to explore as much as we would like. Obviously, just being in Europe doesn’t mean that suddenly you can go wherever you want, whenever you want, but it does make it a little easier. We have been reminiscing a lot lately about our time in Frankfurt and there are days when we miss it terribly.

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Looking down the River Main in Frankfurt
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The Roof of the Old Opera House
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Buildings in Old Town along the River
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Statue in Frankfurt
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Old Town Plaza in Frankfurt
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Church in Frankfurt
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Apartment Buildings on Our Street in Frankfurt
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Unique Entrance to a Building
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Ratskeller in Old Town

 

Dusk in the Rainforest

The time just before or after the sun sets or rises is known in photography as the golden hour. It has this almost magical quality where things glow slightly and take on a different appearance from how they are viewed when in full sunlight. In the rainforest, it has another effect as the temperature cools and the dense moisture creates clouds that slowly descend onto the canopy of the jungle. When we were driving back to Cochabamba from our stay in the Amazon, we were fascinated by the combination of the sunset in the clouds overhead while the clouds of the rainforest were below us. We captured as many pictures from our moving van as we could. We always enjoy taking photos of sunsets, but this particular sunset will always have a special place in our memories. Have you ever seen a sunset while a passenger in a vehicle that was so amazing that you just had to try and capture it?

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Heavy Clouds over the Rainforest
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Sunset in the Distance
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Heading into the Mountains
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Clouds Above and Below
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Fascinating Sunset
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After the Sun has Set

 

Creating a Photo Diary

Almost everyone takes photographs when they are traveling, but there is a difference between taking photographs at each location that you visit and capturing the experience as a whole. If you take photographs as you walk around a city and capture the entire experience, it almost becomes its own visual diary. You can look back at those pictures and literally remember walking from one site to another. For example, when we were in Lima, Peru, we were so amazed by some of the architecture that we took photos as we walked the streets and as we look back now, we can almost relive that afternoon. You can almost feel the warmth of the sun, feel the nervousness as we passed by the police with riot gear, or hear the children laughing as they played in the plaza by the fountain. We also take videos occasionally to capture the sights and sounds, but we don’t always go back and look at them as we often do with our photographs. Do you create a photo diary that documents the moments of your entire trip or do you just take photos at each of the important places that you visit?

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Walking Around Lima
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Taking a Break from Selling
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First Glimpse of the Police
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Walking By
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After Turning the Corner
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Didn’t Even Notice Us
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Interesting Architecture
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Another View of the Windows
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Fountain in the Plaza
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Cathedral
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Pigeons Avoiding the Sun
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Cooling Off in the Fountain
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Back to the Streets
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Tiny Balconies
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Checking Out a Store
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Another View of the Store
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Another Plaza and Time for a Break