June & July: Stray Frames | Personal

Ok I'm a slacker on Stray Frames and, frankly, a slacker on personal photos for these two months. I even went all the way over to Europe and barely cracked the camera. What can I say? I've got a husband to take the cellphone snapshots and also a husband I'd have to drag around to wait patiently on me to get the street stuff I want (I generally leave the postcard-photos to the masters and those that have the luxury of time). Two other photo-related things I did in June: a nekkid photoshoot for me (ostensibly for George but who are we kidding) and a "couple shoot" with the both of us. Sarah Williams from This Rad Love did both and I couldn't love them more. (There's literally no other photo from this shoot that doesn't have some of my ladybits showing. Rawr.) George and I brainstormed for weeks about things that we enjoying doing together that could be "documented." At the end of the day, most of it was eating-related. We literally had lunch at Founding Farmers and Sarah took pictures. She hung out with us for an ungodly amount of time, bless her heart. That's all I've got from June, man. David, Carrie, George and I rolled over to West Virginia to hang with good friends in their sprawling, mansion-like home. Amazing food and good times were had by all. Other than that, lots of weddings and things. I wish I could say I nipped that June no-personal-photos thing in the bud but it's not true. I have only a handful to show. I found myself in Louisville in July with a couple days to kill. I'd never seen the city before. It's got some fun spots but really it's quite sleepy for a major city. Not much going on downtown and such. I thought about this one for a while before I made my choice. Before I die... nothing? I feel pretty good about life. I don't particularly feel the need to check anything else off a list. But if there's one ambition I have, it's to taste more things. Also in July, Aziz hosted a scavenger photo-hunt from the Leica Store. We were given a list of 12 or 14 things to photograph around the city. Some of these weren't actually part of the hunt - I just took them during the six (!) hours he gave us. I did not win the scavenger hunt, but I did meet Mike who was carrying around this sombrero on his bike. The July DC photowalk was held at Fort Reno. I photoed one last wedding in July, and that night scooted off to meet my husband in Vienna... where I immediately fell ill and spent a day in bed. I did my best to spend my last half-day doing stuff, so we toured the opera house. My phone took this panorama - yay technology! It was just a couple days in Vienna, then we headed on to Prague. The city is really beautiful because it didn't get bombed much in the wars (unlike basically every other European capital). Here are a couple more panoramas from my phone, from the Clock Tower. I liked Prague quite a bit, but it's nowhere near my contender for "best city," as many friends assured me it would be. It lacks a feel of authenticity in much of the city center - the same way Rome does. They both have an artificiality to them, as though everything is done for your (the tourist's) benefit. I much prefer a bustling place like NYC or Amsterdam that makes things easy for tourists, but also has its own thing going on such that tourists are not the primary thought. All that said, Prague was a very atmospheric locale to spend five days. I particularly enjoyed the architecture, if not George's compositional skills. And then! We went to a church decorated all over with bones!! This is the Sedlac Bone Church about 45 minutes from Prague. The priests used the bones of plague victims to remind parishioners about mortality and fleeting-ness of this world and also something about how we're all equal in the eyes of G-d. It was mad awesome. We also toured Terezin, a very strange concentration camp that the Nazis used for propaganda. This was a more pleasant place than almost anywhere else in the Third Reich but nearly everyone that came to the camp was later sent on to their deaths. A Cubist coffee shop back in Prague. Tourists waiting for the famous Astronomical Clock to chime. I thought this spider helped illustrate what an awesome view we had from our hotel room. I splurged in Prague because it was cheap ($100/night!) and because the rest of the trip our accommodations were covered by George's work. And with that eight-legged dude, I leave you. We had one more destination on this year's European gallivanting, but that is a story for another day.