Pushy gingers!
On The Road – Ceci n est pas mon nym – Como, Italy and Lugano, Switzerland
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I mentioned in an earlier On-The-Road that Milan is a favorite destination in Italy both for its own attractions (it is the home of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper) and the fact that it’s a convenient jumping-off place for other locations.
This post features two of those locations, both originally picked while we were in Milan by looking at local maps and saying “that doesn’t look too far, let’s see if there’s a train”. And both have become favorite destinations in themselves: Como, located on Lake Como, and Lugano, located just over the border in Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino.
Como is an ancient city dating back to Roman times. The city of Novum Comum was founded by Julius Caesar in 59 BCE. Two famous writers, Pliny the Elder and his nephew Pliny the Younger, were born and lived here. Since the 15th century it has been famous as a center of the silk industry. If you own silk neckties, they may very well be marked “Setta di Como (Como Silk)”.
The first time we came here, a guidebook we had bought told us there was basically nothing there and no reason to hang around, and that you should go to one of the other lakeside towns like Bellagio. Being kind of anti-tourists, we were delighted to read that.
On a later trip a local asked if we were there because of George Clooney. Puzzled, we asked for an explanation and he told us that they were getting a lot of Americans lately because George Clooney had famously bought a villa on the lake, at Laglio. Still, it hasn’t been very much overrun, and though there are American tour groups, you hear a wide mix of languages on the streets and it still has that quiet, slow-paced feeling.
This is a view of Lago di Como (Lake Como) from a tour boat. It might be of Bellagio, I don’t recall. I believe those mountains in the background are the beginning of the Alps and our other destination, Lugano, is just over the mountains on the next lake over.
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On The Road After Dark – ljt – Election Respite, Random Photos Edition
ljt
WaterGirl asked for some soothing photos as we prepare and persevere through election and beyond.
This is a random collection of photos I’ve come back to time and again, each of which brings me joy.
I hope they bring you a moment or two of calm. Presented in no particular order, except to start with sunrise and end with a solstice moon.
If I had the energy and inclination to get up before dawn, I could see the sunrise over the beach every day. This is one of the prettiest I’ve been there for. I love the way the light catches the clouds above.
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On The Road – Albatrossity – Summertime in Scotland – #7
Albatrossity in Scotland
Our final days in Scotland were spent near Edinburgh, although we didn’t get into the city since there was some large festival going on at the time and it seemed to be a zoo. On the way down to Edinburgh from Aberdeen we stopped and visited an ancestral site. My great-grandfather was born there, but when he was a young man in the mid 19th century, he emigrated to America. We shared a first name as well. My cousin,who is a dedicated family genealogist, researched the records and found the home site near Kinross in Perthshire. So we were armed with a map, and we proceeded to seek out that site and get some pictures to send to the rest of the family.
The ancestral estate name apparently dates back to the 1300’s, when the name was spelled Rentowle. What was left at the time we visited was a run-down barn and a sealed up two-story house. It is not clear if my great grandfather was born in this structure, but he was baptized in Orwell Parish in Milnathort, about three miles east of this site. A look at the most recent Google Earth images (from June 2018 and March 2020) would indicate that these structures have been leveled and something else is being constructed on the site.
House and barn as seen from the road,
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On The Road – cope – Election Respite, Beautiful, Soothing or Calm Edition
cope
I took this assignment literally so I have chosen pictures covering a span of years and places and subjects that are subjectively beautiful, soothing or calming to me. It was fun work and required actual physical labor (moving and going through boxes) in order to literally dig through the archives (prints and framed pictures).
Until I got home from Sanibel Island and put this picture of an osprey on the computer, I was unaware of the bug on the fish. It’s not sharply focused nor framed very well but, meh, negative space, blah, blah, blah.
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On The Road – Jim Appleton – A life behind the lens: People
Jim Appleton
This is a group of photographs about people.
Outside Magazine hired me to document a story essentially about one guy and this tunnel.
It connects the town of Whittier, Alaska to the outside world.
Anchorage is about 100 miles away, but impassable terrain and limitations of the railroad schedule and its car-carrying capacity made that distance feel more like 1500 miles. Until modifications shortly after my visit which made the tunnel navigable by passenger cars, Whittier was a bizarre end-of-the-road high density community of class-A weirdos.
Mine were the “before” photos. Of those weirdos, mainly. The one guy I was sent to photograph tried, unsuccessfully, to drive the tunnel because he ran out of antidepressants.
Getting to Whittier from Anchorage was an epic process.
The magazine arranged for a float plane. Bad weather in Whittier prevented that option for several days, and then indefinitely.
Finally, I called the railroad and arranged for them to give me a ride on a regular maintenance run. I took a cab to the railhead at oh-dark-thirty, sat through the daily safety briefing, and met a doctor who was also hitching a ride, swapping with the doc then in Whittier.
After all that, this photo is shot from the deck of the flat car at the front of the train at the Whittier end of the tunnel. The guy in the photo is a driver ferrying the two doctors, who were at this moment going over some documents a few feet behind me.
Right after taking this, I asked the train operator when I should dismount.
He said to wait. I watched the arriving doctor drive off into town.
Then the train backed up at least a mile, and the operator told me this was where to get off.
I had considerable luggage and he knew that. And he knew what I was working on. He’d also just told me it’s common for bears to nap in chambers off the tunnel.
Welcome to Alaska. Now go work for the privilege of being here.
Leica M6, 50mm f/2 Summicron at f/5.6.
I used mechanical film cameras here partly out of esthetic preference, but also because of reliability in extreme cold — minus 30 Fahrenheit, with 60-mph gusts. Lightning-like discharge of static electricity directly onto the film surface is also a concern in the very dry air, so I took care to wind film slowly by hand.
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On The Road – SkyBluePink – Election Respite, The Magic of Trees Edition
SkyBluePink
I live in a little cove in the foothills of North Carolina, nestled by woods and nearly surrounded by small mountains in the distance.
No matter the weather, everyday is a new sight, whether changing leaves, mists, new greens of spring, stormy days, and my favorite – snow!
The flowering cherry puts on a show every year. The Bee Chorus sings as you walk by in early spring. And then the fallen light pink blossoms carpet the ground in color.
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