Originally posted on Friday, September 23, 2005, 08:25 AM NST.
2005? What is this?

Today is another fine day for weather. It was a bit overcasty this morning, but it started to clear up during sunrise. There was a number of other photographers catching the sunrise next to St. Mark’s Basilica on the waterfront at 7am.

We spent the entire day walking around the city on Thursday. We visited the Gallerie dell’ Accademia and Palazzo Ducale next to Piazza San Marco.

Just beyond this turn is the Internet Cafe we’ve been using. Randy tells me there’s no wireless anywhere.

We have allot of walking ahead of us today as well. When we leave Venice tomorrow, we rent a car… thank god.

Kim

PS. We’re not sure how easy it’s going to be to find Internet access on the road. Don’t be alarmed if you don’t hear from us on a daily basis from now till we reach Florence on October 15.

I must have been fairly bored the other night because I found myself watching Titanic in a half dazed trance.

If I have learned anything, it’s never make statements such as “it can’t get any worse”, “it won’t hurt that much” and “this ship is unsinkable.” Murphy’s Law.

So, during a walk downtown earlier the week, and with Titanic fresh in my mind, I was struck by the enormity of the scrape arching across the side of this ship.

If you look closely, you can see a person looking on. “Oh Jack… you made it!” (cue Celine Dion).

PS. I’ll stop linking to random things now.

Originally posted on Wednesday, September 21, 2005, 08:26 AM NST.
2005? What is this?

We really like Venice, but we’re lucky that we came at the right time…

It seems sort of surreal – we’ve said a few times to each other stuff like “it seems like a movie set.” The main thoroughfares are water, the “Grand Canal” winds through the city, cutting it into two halves – it’s taken over early in the morning by many boats, but the granddaddy is the Water Taxi (sometimes referred to in our travel guides as a water bus – a great name – it’s slow, clumsy, noisy and sometimes standing room only).

The actual streets are tiny. The main drags alongside the canals are wide, up to 20 feet, but they can end abruptly at water, or turn suddenly at a building. Once away from the canal, they average just about 8 feet wide, and then quite often shrink down in random increments to 3 or 4 feet. These paths twist and turn and intersect like they were designed by a mad man. It really is a maze – extremely easy to get lost unless you’re looking at your map the whole time. The girl at the hotel actually seemed surprised that we found them without problems. Walking is like a game – more-so fun and a general test of navigational skills than anything else.

Like any city, there are a variety of smells – most often subtle. In the morning and evening, it’s food – bread, pizza, etc. Near the larger canals, it’s a hint of sewer. Sometimes it’s cigar smoke. None are too powerful that another can’t overtake it within a few steps. This is supposed to be a good time of year for that.

And the wet season is on the way – the walking platforms are coming out. These appear to be laid end-to-end in select spots of the city so people can get around at high tide. The platforms are a piece of thick plywood, about 3 to 4 feet wide by 12 long, with metal horse-shoe legs underneath standing about 18″ off the ground and an asphalt-like top. It seems like they mainly use them around the canals – I guess those are the areas where the water rises first and are also the busiest. The locals apparently have boots, and the hotels give them out to guests.

But it all seems amazingly clean, organized and safe. The only time you see city workers is in the morning, sweeping and collecting every one’s bagged garbage. We’ve seen two police officers since we arrived. It seems safe when walking, even in the night – you see women and children on their own (think about how almost everywhere you go at night is a dimly lit alley).

I think that if I was a city-planner-in-training here, it would all confuse the hell out of me.

Randy

PS. Kim wanted to say that the ice cream is yummy, and sometimes dogs poop on the street – it’s difficult to incorporate that with anything else.

Originally posted on Monday, September 19, 2005, 05:48 AM NST.
2005? What is this?

We arrived at Venice’s Marco Polo Airport on time at 2:30 in the afternoon. It was warm and sunny. It’s about 10:00 in the morning as I type this, mostly clear and about 18C degrees.

When you look down on Venice from the plane, it seems like something from the recent news – a flood disaster in a city with buildings 4, 5 or 6 stories high, sitting in water.

There’s a lot of people, many tourists, but mostly Italians. It’s crowded, but not overrun. As soon as you’re off the main drag, you’re alone and all you hear is normal city sounds – minus cars, plus lapping water.

Randy

St. Patrick was celebrated this past weekend – events were on-going at several pubs on George Street even on Sunday morning. Mind you, I don’t think everyone involved had roots and heritage originating from Ireland – I’m guessing that many just wanted to be Irish to do as they do on Patties Day – get drunk.

I must admit that I didn’t take part. Adrienne, one of the models we use, told me that green beer will stain your teeth. Plus, I’m sorta scared of leprechauns.

I did get the opportunity to see something that most people don’t on the day after Patties Day though – George Street on a Sunday morning.

I used to spend some time down there – but going to George Street when you’re sober is like going to Disneyland when you’re an adult – the fantastical muddy memories you have in your head are somehow squashed by the reality. Ugh – that’s just a really sweaty guy wearing a costume.

Anyway I was lucky enough to run into a few kind folks who were not quite ready to head home. As they huddled to take a puff, I took a shot.

PS. I can’t believe Wikipedia has an entry for George Street.

A new modeling gallery has just been uploaded – Number 12 – Angela Evely.

I took a quick side trip to Quidi Vidi the other day and was tickled to see some kids playing street hockey.

They tolerated me asking questions and shooting them for a few minutes. Apparently they’re in a junior league and had just been filmed for something or other. Anyway, I can’t believe they halted their game long enough to pose in front of the net – thanks guys.

So the snow is slowly melting around St. John’s. I just love those black crusty mounds of ice, salt and dirt that hang on till May. You know it’s spring in Newfoundland when those indestructible Tim Horton’s cups and various other bits of junk bud by the thousands. Lovely.

Side Note: I was in the drive through the other day. The chap in the SUV ahead of me made a pathetic attempt to flick a mostly full beverage in the trash – it didn’t even come close and splattered all over the ground. I got out and s-l-o-w-l-y went around, picked up the cup, and threw it in the garbage for him – all the time looking in his mirror. Now why couldn’t he do that himself? Jeez!

Still, we’re trying to hastily arrange a few more TFPs, hopefully outside, for the coming weeks. We’ve got one idea that will have us use a girl we’ve worked with before, Valerie, along with a new male model, Wayne, in a shoot with a Dodge Viper. It’s gonna be delayed awhile though – the car is stored at the end of a long dirt road and it’d sink in the mud if it is taken out of it’s home right now. I’m looking forward to that one.

A few months back one of my first attempts at blogging, a travel blog for a trip to Italy, was hacked. It seemed there was a bit of a security hole in the software we used for that blog – it wasn’t the same setup we use now. Someone crawled in through and started sending phishing messages for banking passwords. Buggers…

Naturally, to stop the spam, our hosting provider chopped the whole kimgoodyear.com site immediately. The shortest route to getting back online was to sacrifice the travel blog along with all the purdy Italy pictures. No contest there… the blog was gone within minutes of us learning of the problem.

Don’t get me wrong, our host did the proper thing – it was totally our fault for having software installed on the server that posed a security risk. But it was also sorta sad – there was a lot of nice pictures in there, and nice commentary – all gone forever. In truth, the whole thing was a combined effort of myself and the guy that would become my one and only web minion and personal whipping post, Randy. We took turns adding entries, and in retrospect, he dragged me (sometimes kicking and screaming) into the world of the Internet and online exposure.

So, for a litany of reasons (to celebrate the upcoming one year anniversary of this blog / because we are in the slow season for this wedding photographer / because these blog posts are approaching pathetic) starting this Monday we’ve decided to re-live the trip, day-by-day, right here in the new blog. The Category (right under the post title above) for these re-posts will be “Travel”.

It was exactly 19 months back from the 19th of this month (on September 19, 2005) that it all started. We’ll post on the same day of the month that we did back then, complete with pictures, and perhaps with a new bit of self mocking, just so no-one else feels the need to do it.

Some pictures from a shoot we did last weekend with Aimee and Shawn. The original idea for this one was to embrace the winter weather and take advantage of it while we could, but, this being Newfoundland, those plans changed. We realized that we could pretty much fake it inside anyway…

Well, if I’ve learned anything in the last few weeks it’s that a photographer needs a lot of patience to do product shots.

In an effort to take what should have been a tantalizing picture of vanilla ice cream drizzled with cherries, I ended up with a red sticky mess that looked like something out of Saw 3.

I guess the problem was the wait while the friggin’ stuff melted. Also, cherries are out of season – I had the poor guy in the produce department drove nuts.

In the end, I had nothing more than goopy red bloblets which looked like they came out of a (*gasp*) fruitcake.

I’m guessing the ingredients I see on the bottle here (Tartrazine? what the #$*%?) are somehow linked to the relative indestructibility of the fruitcake? Ah, the fruitcake, as they often are, passed among acquaintances and co-workers… for generations to come.

I wonder – if I put a tracking device in a fruitcake, how long would it take to circumference the earth?

Anyway the picture wasn’t for anything in particular, so can you guess what happened next? After I failed horribly at making those perfect little scoops from the side of the ice cream container, I broke down – was face deep in it before I had the pictures transferred to the PeeCee. Tartrazine may or may not be best consumed by children, but damn, it is tasty!

It’s so much easier for me to get a genuine expression from a bride then a bowl of ice and chemicals.