Michele on the Road: on Travel, Photography and Life

Hi everyone! I haven’t written in a while, ha? almost two years.
I didn’t feel like writing so thought I’d better not write at all. :)
However in the past few months I started to feel the need to update my blog again, but not before a swift change in direction.

I used to write about everything which led to an archive with lots of confusion in it and no common thread. So I decided to scrap my archive from useless — and often pointless — posts and leave only what I felt had some gravy in it.
I’d also like to give a clearer direction to the blog so I’m going to focus on what, except from work, makes up most of my life: travel and photography.
I’m gonna focus on writing about travelling — destinations, tips and tricks, reports from my wanderings, etc. –, photography and life in general every now and then.

Why did I decide to focus on these two subjects you ask? because I’ve been passionate about travelling ever since I was a little kid.
I’ve always loved getting ready for a trip, packing, hopping on a plane/train; I’ve always had grand visions of myself going to remote places, meeting people from all over the World, tasting different foods and just enjoying this wonderful dusty planet. And as soon as I started earning some money, I started spending to go abroad.

Photography is a whole different story I must say as I’ve never been much of a photographer.
I often hear stories about this or that photographer who started snapping beautiful portraits and breathless landscapes at the age of 8. Not myself.

My first photograph was a Polaroid which was supposed to be a portrait of my mum and dad, instead, and I still don’t know how it happened, while I aimed at their faces, their feet magically appeared on the squared piece of Polaroid paper. I mean, their feet! it’s like as far as I could get from their faces!

Then came the time when I had to take photos of my school trips. Let’s say I’m quite ashamed to show them.
Out of focus, bad framing and composition, and sub-par quality — but that is to be blamed on the camera and film, right?

However something clicked in 2003: I wanted to learn how to take photos properly and decided to get a Canon 300D, the first consumer digital-SLR, if I remember correctly.
I started snapping photos and as time was passing by I managed to improve my skills.

Then I went to Nepal and Tibet in 2004 and there my passion for photography started to burn as hot as it could. I was hooked, I knew I wanted to visit the World and portray it in my photos.
I came back from Tibet and started looking for critiques. I showed my photos to people whom I respected and held dear to their opinions.

I moved from digital to film because I wanted to shoot B&W and bought a Nikon F3, a Yashica Mat124g and various cheap cameras off of eBay.
I started snapping roll after roll, always looking for ways to learn more; I read Ansel Adam’s books and various others’, and went to a lot of exhibitions to try and learn from the work of masters.

Fast forward to July 2008, when I was getting ready to leave for Peru and Ecuador.
I couldn’t decide whether I would be shooting film or digital, so I decided to buy a Nikon F4 and a Nikon D200, I would use both, trying to decide on the fly whether each photo would be better suited in colours or in B&W. The experience wasn’t painful, but I knew this setup was far from perfect.
When I came back I decided I would be moving to an all-digital setup: I think B&W is much better on film — especially the prints turn out much better –, but with Silver Efex Pro and a good printer I can make good B&W prints from digital as well.

In November of 2008 I organized my first exhibition. It was called Peruanos and portrayed some of the people I met while traveling around Peru.
I think it was a success: everybody loved it and I managed to sell enough prints to cover all the expenses — and as a first timer I made the error of spending a fortune on the prints and frames, believe me — and give some to UNICEF who was kind enough to give me their patronage.

I think I still have to learn a lot about photography, and as I do, I’d love to share my experience here.
I have a few projects, which will take me all around the World, I’d like to realize in the coming couple of years and I’ll share them with you as well.

Next up is a travel to an incredibly beautiful country at the end of October. However I’d rather not say where because it’s one of those places where you don’t want to attract any more attention than you deserve, but rest assured I’ll be back with lots of photos and hopefully another exhibition.

Just a quick note: I won’t stop writing about technology, but I’ll keep that to my company’s blog, which I think is a better fit.
Here I’ll keep it to travel and photography, hopefully with a regular schedule — I was thinking about twice weekly on Monday and Friday, let’s see if I can stick to it. :)

I’ve been vegetarian for the past two years and I must say I’m very happy about it and I’m absolutely regret-free.

This post isn’t about why I decided to become veg — don’t be afraid, I’ll write about that, too ;) –, instead it’s about the single bad thing about being veg.

When someone invites me to have lunch/dinner at her/his house, I have to make sure that person knows I’m veg.
That person, most of the times, will then be a bit upset — not in a bad way ;) — because for a non-veg it’s sometimes difficult to come up with a meat-free meal, or she/he will need to cook a separate meal for me if it’s a lunch/dinner with a few people.

As you can see, it’s not really a problem with being veg, it’s more of an issue of politeness: I feel bad about giving someone some headaches simply because she/he wanted to be nice and invited me to eat at her/his place.

So, are there any vegetarians between people reading this blog? How do you cope with this problem?

To hold nine Stars in my hands.

It’s everything I want.

Since I was a little kid, I’ve been obsessed by many habits and thoughts.
For example, I usually eat things three by three — if they allow for it, like pasta, chips or cherries. And in many other situations I’m obsessed with the number 3: I scratch my head 3 times, I cough 3 times and try to do 3 steps — or multiples of it — when I want to go somewhere.

Another thing that obsess me, is water: I can’t drink water that has been left out of the fridge, or has been poured for more than a few minutes. It stinks!
I know it’s not true, indeed it takes a couple of days for it to start stinking, but I can’t help it. And when I have to drink it, I’m a bit disgusted.
And I know how this may sound stupid because most of the people on Earth have to drink stinky — and poisonous — water, but I’m obsessed.

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