New Blog

I will begin posting to my new blog which I feel is a better layout and has much bigger images. I hope you all like it! Thank you, Preston Utley

http://www.prestonutley.wordpress.com

Pinhole

I played around with a body cap that has been converted into a pinhole today. I only got a couple photos I like. The focal distance is weird and honestly it was something I am not used to having to wait 30 seconds for an exposure. I will have to keep messing around with it to actually get something decent.

Long Rides

John had a meeting with a magazine in Chiasso, a city in Switzerland just beyond the Italian border. I went to just take a few photos and to get out of the house. From where we are it is an hour bus ride to Como, a fairly large city, from Como it is a 5 minute train ride to Chiasso...unless you get on the wrong train and take about an hour detour to Milan...which we did. From Milan we had to take the train to Chiasso, what was supposed to be an hour and five minute adventure ended up being a 5 hour epic. John eventually made it to the magazine and was still able to have his meeting even though he was almost three hours late. Luckily the Italian lifestyle is so laid back and so much slower than what we Americans are used to.

Lenno/Belaggio

We took the ferry to Belaggio yesterday. It was a very touristy town with the most Americans I had seen since I got here. We walked to Lenno where the ferry is and ended up missing the first ferry which gave me a chance to walk around and get some images. It was cool to take the boat across the lake. This place is beautiful!

Grocery

I walked to the grocery store yesterday and brought my camera. I didn't see a ton of people on my way there so I ended up taking quite a few images of things...there are all of the shrines all along the street in random spots...I think that could be a cool little project. I just need to figure out how to shoot it so its really interesting. On the way back from my walk there were a ton of people but my hands were full so I missed a bunch of shots. John and I will be heading across the lake to Bellagio tomorrow I am looking forward to that.

The Beach

After cleaning the house all morning we spent the afternoon at the beach it was a great way to spend the afternoon very relaxing, we took the dogs with and they ran up and down the beach like crazy...they are passed out on the couch right now. There were quite a few amount of people there relaxing even swimming. The water seemed too cold for that though. People here in Italy definitely know how to relax the stores are closed Sunday's and Monday's literally all of the stores so if you need grocery's you better get that taken care of before Sunday otherwise you will have to suffer until Tuesday.

Menaggio

I spent most of the day in Menaggio today it is one of the bigger towns around here along the lake. It is the off season as far as tourism goes but the locals are still out and a few tourists. I am starting to become adjusted a little bit more to the lifestyle but am still struggling with the language. The most important thing for me though is to keep shooting. The towns here are all beautiful and I love experiencing each one I would like to see all of the lake towns and all of Italy. It has been hard to get out and travel due to a lack of funds. Switzerland is very close to where we live and we are hoping to travel there next weekend Austria is right around the corner as well.