Archive for February, 2011

Thinking about our May Villages of Tuscany tour, I was inspired to cook Tuscan last night…  For our “Primi Piati” I made a traditional country Zuppa di Cavolo con Fagioli (Cabbage Soup with Beans), with crusty garlic bread in the bottom of the bowl.  For our “Secondi Piatti” I made Zucchini Farcito (Stuffed Zucchini), and for “Dolci” (desert), Caffe in Forchetta (Coffee on a Fork- a coffee flavored custard).  Mmmm, Buon Appetito!

We drank a nice California wine that went very well with the soup and the zucchini…

It’s always fun to taste a bit of culture before you go somewhere!

FYI- We still have room in our March 19th Digital Photo Basics Workshop in Scottsdale!

Ciao!

Because we recently got some snow in Flagstaff, here’s a quick tip for shooting snow!  Your camera tries to read your mind, and it’s not always good at it!  For reasons I won’t go into here, your camera sets the exposure for middle ground, which will turn your snow gray.  As we all know, fresh snow is bright white!  Find the “exposure compensation” on your camera and move it to +1 or +2 and see what happens.  If +2 is too bright, try somewhere in between.  Does the snow look more like it does to your eye?

Here’s an example…  The first one is what the camera “wanted” to do.  But for the second one, I set the exposure compensation to +1.5.

*Of course I must acknowledge Joel’s Digital Photo Basics class for this great tip!

Please join us this weekend!  We will be at the Sonoran Arts League Annual Festival of Fine Art in Cave Creek and this will be our last show in the Phoenix area until fall.  The show will be at the Stagecoach Village Friday through Sunday, 10AM-5PM each day.

Here is Joel’s new release, Cantina Antica.  I love how Joel captured the feel of the old Tuscan winery.  In fact the winery is centuries old, and in the same family the whole time.  And the wine wasn’t bad either!  To visit this winery and more, join us on our Villages of Tuscany tour in May…

Ciao!

We’ve made airline reservations for our Tuscany 2011 tour and this time we’ve given ourselves a few extra days to explore an area north of where we base our workshop.  Hopefully we’ll also get a day or two to relax, but I admit it’s difficult to relax when there are so many amazing things to see!

Before we go to any area new to us, we do a lot of research both by internet and good old fashioned books.  I research the culture and flora, and Joel likes to know which villages face the rising or setting sun.  I have wildflower, tree and plant books in both Italian and French.  Whether or not you take one of our workshops, it’s worth doing a little research before you travel!
Here’s an image of a beautiful, prolific wildflower in Tuscany called the greater boccione (pronounced bo-chohn-ee) and a field of red poppies near our village.

Ciao for now!

Ok, so it’s been a while…  but I am committed to keeping up with the blog!

In recent news, we completed a couple more workshops in January, Basics in Scottsdale, and another Adobe Lightroom class in Flagstaff.  Lightroom is a great piece of software…  and I don’t say that very often!

We only have a couple spots left on our Tuscany tour in May and it should be an amazing trip as always (see back posts on the blog if you’re interested in what we’ve done in the past).  We’re working on a fun new location so there is a possibility we may not do it again next year!  We will have more information on this in a few months…  However, if you or someone you know is interested in Tuscany, take advantage of it this year.  We’d love to have you!

This image is from 2010- that’s our village!