First of all, for those concerned, we made it safely to Aix en Provence. It was an amazing drive. I had to force myself to keep my hands on the wheel instead of reaching for my camera. We drove from Germany, through Switzerland (the mountains were incredible!), and then down through France. The French countryside is just as beautiful as any picture you have ever seen. The buildings all have clay shingles and that light pinkish-tan color. Along the freeway you could look at the surrounding hills and see old castle ruins. The drive was great, and thanks to our new toy, Garmin Nuvi 270 we didn't have a single problem getting here.
Now, about Flickr. I have been asked a few times to explain myself so here it goes. Flickr is a photo sharing website owned by Yahoo. At its most basic, it is a site where anyone can sign up, upload pictures and then share them with just your friends or the entire world. If you look up you will see a slideshow of our pictures. If you click on the slideshow it will link you directly to my Flickr site. So, Flickr is the site where I upload our photos.
But there is really so much more to Flickr than just its basic function. I like to think of it as a constantly changing photographic art gallery. Everyday I can walk through it and find hundreds of new and beautiful pictures. In fact, I have learned a lot about photography by doing this, and I think, learned to take better pictures because of it. So, on Flickr there is a page called Explore. This is the daily 500 photographs. From the little research I have done it seems that no one knows for sure how the daily list is compiled but is done with some kind of computer program/alogorithm. On each and every photo on Flickr a member can 1) view it 2) comment on it and 3) add it as a favorite picture. Somehow, Flickr takes all 3 of these pieces and compiles a daily list of the top 500 photographs. And I want to make that list!
Here is an analogy (I didn't come up with it on my own, I read it from another Flickr member): Remember little league baseball? When your coach would remind the team that winning isn't everything? Well, its not. There is a lot of fun to be had playing baseball. Wait, let me change the analogy. Everyone knows baseball and fun cannot go together! So, your water polo coach says winning isn't everything. Face it, you had fun. You got to play. You worked hard. Maybe you even scored a point. So even though you didn't win it was still worth your time. But, as everyone who has ever played any kind of game can attest to, winning is still fun. So here is how this applys to Flickr. Flickr is fun. I enjoy posting my pictures and I enjoy viewing the pictures of others from all over the world. When I'm about to go somewhere new, the first thing I do is Flickr search that place and view pictures of it. So in its own right Flickr is fun, but it would be so much more fun, an added bonus, to make it onto Explore one day. There you have it. An explanation of my craziness. Laura is about to cut me off of Flickr since I kinda became a little obsessed about making Explore. But she gave me good advice, just keep taking good pictures and one day it will happen.
So for all of you who have been checking out my pictures, thank you. I hope you have enjoyed them. I certainly know I have enjoyed taking them and I am very proud of many of them. And just so the whole world knows, Laura is often a huge behind-the-scenes help, even when she is in front of the camera. My latest set of pictures, with Laura in the red dress on the snow covered hill was all her idea. She is also the one that has to wait for me while I stop again and again and again to take pictures.
I think that about covers it. I hope my explanation helps everyone understand just a little better. And I will be sure to let you all know if I ever make Explore! cross you're fingers!
At each market there are Christmas lights, hundreds of people all crowding around the Gluhwein (hot mulled wine) booths and of course, bratwurst. Even chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
