This morning I’m up before Hailey, which means I have a pot of coffee to work on and some color correcting to do for a client (in this case, Tim and Lexi — hey guys, your photos are now ready!). But I started thinking about travel and coffee and the moments where the two have collided beautifully. Travel tends to be an exercise of the senses. Obviously, sight + photography, but also sound + music (I’m working on a special Mexico playlist right now), flavor + food (just discovered they put molé on eggs in Guanajuato — yes!) and its cousin flavor + drink. In cases of this last pairing, I’m usually seeking out the holy trinity of liquids: wine, beer or coffee.

This morning, I’m compelled to write about coffee, and the best cups I ever did have. Warning: this is a self-indulgent exercise, but then again, so is blogging, right?

1. Italy (where to begin) – This cup starts in Varenna and has traversed the entire Boot wherever we’ve gone: the cappuccino. I had my first real one on Lake Como, and it was the first of many introductions to the beautiful details of Italian flavor. Enough espresso for every sip, a bold yet smooth flavor, and milk fading steadily into foam at the top. We can’t make these in America, at least not that I’ve found. In Seattle, they’re close, but as with many things and travel, its goodness is amplified by the setting. The cappuccino pictured above was our first in last year’s trip — served over breakfast at the Hotel Minervetta in Sorrento. When paired with a view of Vesuvius over the Bay of Naples, breakfast became less an exercise in sustanance, and more an exercise in realization — you are a long way from home, and its all good.


2. The Palms Cliff House, Big Island, Hawaii – Hailey and I honeymooned on the Big Island and Maui, and our first five nights were spent at this magnificent bed and breakfast on the wet coast north of Hilo. The amazing breakfasts were served on the lanai, accompanied by a hot cup of Kona. Mornings were always the right temperature. Pods of rain would splash the cliff-lined coast, cool things 5 degrees and cast a rainbow for 60 seconds, before moving on. The best cups of drip coffee I’ve had were on that porch, newly married, looking forward to everything.

3. Stella’s Cafe, Monteverde, Costa Rica – Here’s the magic formula of Stella’s: 1.) It’s backyard is the famous cloud forest of Monteverde, 2.) it’s patio featured an assortment of uber-comfy chairs, 3.) it’s local resident was an affectionate cat who had a penchant for sitting on your lap and purring, and 4.) they served mild shade-grown Costa Rican coffees. On top of all of that, our good friends Will and Liz were living up the road at a biology research center, meaning this was the place to meet up. On our first morning, we met a birdwatching guide here, and we hardly had to leave to see some of the area’s most magnificent birds. Across the street was a flock of golden-browed chlorophonias and a blue-crowned motmot perched nearby. Be sure to click the links to these birds — some of the craziest wildlife I’ve seen.

Unfortunately, this trip was a long time ago during my Nikon FM days — meaning I only have 4×6 prints of the trip, and crummy ones at that.

4. Seattle – If you love coffee and you’ve been to Seattle, you just can’t leave it off your list. I’ve been a handful of times, but on this last trip in November, I finally “got it” when it comes to this city’s coffee culture. That’s because it rained the whole freaking time, and without fail, there was always a coffee shop to duck into. Tops on my list wasn’t even a cafe: Macrina Bakery. It was one of those places where they specialize in one thing (incredible baked goods) and just so happen to know how to make cappuccinos like the Italians do. Bonus.

5. The Lodge at Chaa Creek, Belize – My final selection is another trip from the Nikon FM days. This memory is flavored by the sweetness of morning ritual. Every day, the routine was such: wake up at sunrise (courtesy of the chachalacas in the tree over our hut), walk onto the porch, lie in the hammock, listen to the rainforest wake up, and enjoy the rich coffee they delivered to our room. Next door to us were my Mom and Dad, they’re first tropical rainforest/ecolodge/birdwatching/coffee-drinking experience. There was a small and ornery ferruginous pygmy-owl who was nesting in a hollowed-out tree above our porch. While drinking our morning cup of Joe, we’d watch her chase the iguanas off the tree. On our final morning, she killed a hummingbird and feasted on it while we discussed breakfast. Of all the collisions of experience that travel brings, file that one under Strange Yet Sweet.

So here’s a heads up: I’m hoping to blog from Mexico next week. We leave Friday and return the Monday after Easter. We’ll see how the internet connection is at the two places we’re staying, but hopefully we’ll be able to chronicle our journey through Holy Week nightly. Looking forward to it.

About six or seven months ago, we were contacted by a graphic design agency in Italy. They were doing the official guide book to the town of Varenna and saw an image of ours on Flickr that fit the bill for their cover. Often times, agencies (whether they’re interactive, advertising or publishing agencies) offer the ol’ “hey, we’ll give you a photo credit” bit, especially those that troll Flickr looking for just the right image. Why do they do it? Because people fall for it.

This firm did the same, and Hailey (who took the call, and who took the photo they were interested in) negotiated to sell it royalty free. That’s my girl.

Seeing the Varenna class this week reminder her that she had not seen the end result yet, so she emailed them yesterday and we got a PDF of it overnight. Looks pretty cool.

We think we’ve settled on a plan, and we’re just waiting word from a potential gig for her before we book, but in the midst of this I saw a Facebook ad that literally screamed opportunity to me: On Location Workshop – Photography Class in Varenna, Italy.

First off, Varenna is a very special spot for me and Hailey. We stopped there in May 2005 to recover from jetlag after my first trans-Atlantic flight and we were immediately seduced. It’s a compact little work of art that’s nestled on a bump in the shoreline on Lake Como. Flowers drip from the buildings, Italians laze on the shore doing nothing, and the Lake Como ferries ease into the dock every 15 minutes with the bored conductor beautifully droning the boat’s destinations on a loud speaker: “Bel-LA-GI-o, Men-AH-gi-O.” Even boredom is musical in Italy.

Most significantly to me, I believe that Varenna is the place where Photography snuck up and did a bodyslam on Writing as my top passion. They had been wrestling since high school, and I’d become an editor by trade, but downloading images onto the laptop at night began to take on more meaning than my faltering, rambling journal entries. I can only imagine what results I’d get shooting Varenna now, four years later and a whole hell of a lot better at photography (plus, with a better camera and better lenses).

What’s more, running simultaneously to the class I’m interested in is one taught by a photographer I greatly admire — Vincent Laforet. Laforet has sick talent. If I haven’t sent you to his portfolio site or blog just yet, please check it out. His images of Katrina and Pakistan are heartbreaking, eye-opening and they’re not easy to shake. Same goes for his work on the Paniolo Cowboys, but in a very different, less visceral way.

Anyhow, I currently don’t have interest in learning video, which is the course he’s teaching, but I’d love to meet him. Problem is, the course is a few thousand bucks when all is said and done, and I just don’t think it’ll happen. Nonetheless, it’s amazing when things like this converge and they get you thinking….

Rather than run another round of voting, I’ve opted to tally up the votes and declare the above shot my picture of the year. In a minute, I’ll tell the story behind the photo, but here are the results of the top 10 shots:

1. Star Trails Over Puglia, Casalini (Puglia), Italy – 6 votes
2. Green Fields of Chianti and Passing Storm, Badesse (Tuscany), Italy – 5 votes
3. Paul Luellig + Lorene Parrish – 5 votes
4. Vendor at Campo dei Fiori Market, Rome (Lazio), Italy – 4 votes
5. Tractor in Front of Kate’s Seafood, Brewster (Cape Cod), Massachusetts – 4 votes
6. Santa Maria Assunta and Galli Islands, Positano (Campania), Italy – 3 votes
7. Lone Cypress and Blazing Fog at Dawn, Chianti (Tuscany), Italy – 3 votes
8. Sangiovese Vines at Dawn, Chianti (Tuscany), Italy – 3 votes
9. Ciabatta Frutti Rossi (strawberry turnovers), Assisi (Umbria), Italy – 3 votes
10. (5 tied for 10th) Butcher in Assisi, Italy; Sitting in Wildflowers, Crested Butte, Colorado; Blooming Daisies in Positano, Italy; Hand Passing Through Lupine, Crested Butte, Colorado; Carousel and Space Needle, Seattle, Washington – 2 votes (each)

So in the end, what does all of this mean? Well, I’m not quite sure. Possibly nothing at all. But I’m a sucker for lists, Best Ofs and I’m inherently nostalgic, so this was fun. Plus, I’m just happy to have a clear winner. Thanks to all who voted.

Now, on to the story of the winning image. First, it was taken at Acquarossa, a small inn that we discovered in the “heel of the boot,” Puglia, Italy. For a geographical reference, here is where it’s located.

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I was just trying to locate its address online, and it’s so off the beaten path that Google — that bastion of all data in the world — didn’t even register the road they’re on.

We absolutely loved this place. We discovered it on this great European hotel website called Secret Places, and from the looks of that landing page photo, we knew we wanted to go there. In fact, this inn was the reason we even had interest in Puglia, and once we started reading about the area, we opted to include it in our journey.

Here is the interior of our trullo. We had roughly 750 square feet to spread out, which was pretty remarkable given the fact that this was the cheapest place we stayed the whole three weeks we were in Italy.

This part of Puglia — the Valle d’Itri — is covered with trullo, a traditional white conical hut that dots the farms and towns of the area. In fact, nearly the entire city of Alberobello is trulli, but that’s another story for another day.

Many of the following photos are Hailey’s because she did such a great job documenting things. Here is an image of the neighbor’s place being constructed. It was fascinating to watch the trulli being built. They layer the rough stones into a cone and then sand them down. I can’t imagine how tedious the sanding must be.

Many of the trulli are used as agriturismos, farms that have been converted into inns, often times to keep the farm running and economically viable. The owners of Acquarossa are a couple in their mid-thirties — Angela and Lucca — who didn’t strike me as farmers, but more like two city types who opted to live out in the country and maybe make a buck or two at the innkeeping thing. They were very hospitable, the breakfasts were great, and they gave us all the space we could ever want. In fact, this place is in the running for Top Place to Spend Three Months Writing a Book…along with La Casa Grande in Arcos de la Frontera. Again, that’s another story for another time.

Anyway, on to how I took the shot. It was very deliberate. A few days before we departed Denver, I made a last-second purchase for my Canon 40D — a cable release (aka a bulb). This small device plugs into the side of the camera and allows you to take long exposures without jarring the camera on a tripod and blurring the image. Furthermore, you can lock the shutter open, a setting labeled on the camera as bulb. I had this thought in my head: finally, I have a digital camera capable of taking night shots without noise. I wanted to see what it was capable of by trying to get a star trail shot, a twenty minute to multiple hour exposure which captures the rotation of the Earth.

I also figured that Puglia would be my best chance to capture this type of image since light pollution in urban areas renders it nearly impossible. From the moment we arrived at Acquarossa, I set about scouting a spot at the inn to capture star trails with the profile of trulli in the foreground.

The roof seemed most ideal. I wanted to avoid lights, which could drown out the stars pretty quickly, and from the angle of the roof, I could get close enough to the trulli roof to get the texture of the stonework. In the end, that’s the remarkable thing about these huts — their stonework. Up close, it becomes readily apparent that these buildings are made by hand, something that adds a little extra magic to the landscape.

I scouted this shortly after we did some much needed lauundry in the sink.

Heck, the roof was even a great place to dry the laundry.

Anyhow, I had two nights to get it right, so I wasn’t worried too much. We headed out for dinner in Ostuni, a nearby city on a hill with a view down to the distant Adriatic Sea, and came back after dark. What I quickly discovered is that I didn’t have many takes to get the shot. For one, the exposure was 19 minutes at f/11 (with noise reduction meaning an additional 19 minutes of processing before you can take your next shot). All of this quickly drained my battery. Plus, I wasn’t willing to stay up all night. The shot at the top of this post took 45 minutes from set up to the moment it appeared on the LCD panel. Fortunately, I got it right on take No. 1.

The next night, I tried three more exposures, each a little shorter in length (and therefore, shorter star trails). These ones didn’t turn out nearly as well, but I’ll share them anyway. With this first one, there was just not enough light on the foreground, and the angle is not as interesting as the top image.

And on this last one, balancing the light and dark was extremely difficult, especially without strobes or continuous lights (which I wasn’t about to lug around Italy). Nonetheless, it was windy that night, and I love the way the tree looks as its tossed about in the wind.

So that’s the story behind the photo of the year. For more on our travels through Puglia, Basilicata and Southern Italy, visit my travel portfolio and click on Matera to Ostuni.

Thanks for voting, for reading the blog and here’s to a great 2009. Two more posts coming in the near future: Christmas and the new Colorado Official State Vacation Guide, which has a six-page story of mine — my first editorial/photo assignment.

Later!

So, after a bit of editing and selecting, I have five categories: Travel, Portraits, People in Places, Landscape and Nature, and Food. The top vote-getter in each category will be placed in a final round, no-holds barred, pixel-on-pixel smack down sometime around New Year.

Since we’re pretty much done traveling for the year, we’ll begin with the Travel category. Scroll down, and place your vote for which one you think is best. As always, you can click on the photo to see it larger.

#1. Il Campo and Torre Mangia at dusk, Siena (Tuscany), Italy.

#2. Tractor in front of Kate’s Seafood, Brewster (Cape Cod), Massachusetts.

#3. Acquarossa trulli at night with star trails, Casalini (Puglia), Italy.

#4. Manor overhanging harbor with thunderstorm, Sorrento (Campania), Italy.

#5. Sangiovese vines at dawn, Chianti (Tuscany), Italy.

#6. Space Needle and carnival ride, Seattle, Washington.

#7. Santa Maria Assunta and Galli Islands at dusk, Positano (Campania), Italy.

And now, the voting machine.

What is left of PhotoShelter has made a comeback this past week with their PhotoShelter Personal Archive product, something that I’m trying to utilize. Among the enhancements is a flash gallery of my pics that I’m supposed to be able to embed, but it just won’t work. Either way, you can link to the gallery and images for purchase. And it ain’t all $300 20×30 prints (though they look amazing at that size). There are coffee mugs, greeting cards, and other little products available. It’s as simple as buying something off Amazon.com, only prettier I’d like to think.

Below is a screen grab of the PhotoShelter Archive home page, which featured one of my shots in the rotation.

So if you know anyone who could use a coffee mug with an image of an adorable daschund on it (don’t laugh), a mouse pad bedecked with Orvieto (you’re still laughing) or a pack of Christmas cards with a birdhouse for your soul or a puzzle of surfboards for the holidays (damn, that one would be tough), just click the link above.

Now you can order enlargements of our work directly off the web. A total of 334 of the best images Hailey and I have taken are now available. The inventory will expand over time, and enlargements go as big as 30×40 inches.

Photos of Italy, Spain, Colorado, Cape Cod, Hawaii, Santa Fe (above), Ecuador and delicious food are available, plus I created a separate gallery of images that work well on walls.

Prints are processed automatically through EZ Prints and delivered on high-quality Fuji Crystal archive print paper. While I always like going big with my own personal prints here at home, Hailey has mastered the art of photo collages. She recently made a custom frame of our food photography for the kitchen. Since we like to cook, it gives us inspiration to try and duplicate the meals we had in Italy.

If you have any feedback, please let me know. Looking forward to Tanager Fine Art Prints’ first customer.