It has been 15 years since I graduated from Bennington College, but I have been back quite a few times since then.  Usually we stop in on our way to another destination and we walk the grounds, grab a bite to eat and check out how much things have changed or stayed the same.

The campus of Bennington was one of the main things that made me want to go to college there.  I still remember having never heard of Bennington getting a brochure in the mail and immediately Bennington became one of my top choices.

This type of sky always reminds me of Bennington and was my all time favorite light  to go out and take photos.

This spot was called the end of the world.

After graduate school Jason and I came back and lived on campus with Echo in a small apartment that was part of the resident houses while he taught a class. This was our door. Now, these apartments are now used for students.

These are some of the classic student houses. Jason was my roommate from my sophomore year until graduation. We shared a room with a view of the end of the world and it even had a fireplace. One day I would love to photograph a wedding on campus.

We arrived at Bennington on a Sunday at 10am. I assumed this would be the perfect time to take the kids to brunch. I forgot that brunch doesn’t start until 11am–so it was just continental. Funny, how I remember barely making it to brunch many days–and it didn’t even start until 11am!!

These are the napkin notes in the cafeteria where students comment on what they like or don’t like about the meals–or just try to impress.

I think at 10am we were the only people there–by 10:40 when we left only about 10 students had gotten up.

My freshman year I caught and loaded the dishes that got sent down this belt.

Some building that were not there when I was there.

New”ish” student housing.

The science building where Jason spent most of his time.

I was happy to see that the mail room was still the same.

Well, I have finally gotten to the last of my France photos. I have had so much fun sharing them with you, and thanks so much to all of you that have stopped me or emailed me to tell me how much you liked them. It really was a fabulous trip, a trip that I hope I get to make again I had high expectations, I mean it was FRANCE after all, but it was so amazing and one of the few fabulous trips that I want to make again–and soon!

On our last day in Paris we went to the Arc de Triomphe. It wasn’t on my must do list, but we decided to check it out anyway, because I wanted to walk along the Champs Elysees.

We watched from the bottom for a bit and then bit the bullet and decided to buy tickets to walk up the many stairs to the top.

It wasn’t cheap, and I don’t really like heights, but the view from the top was one of the highlights of the trip.

Next time I need to figure out to get onto that garden top for a drink with my view.

Then while strolling along the Champs Elysees we cam upon a huge line. Turns out the line was for an Abercrombie & Fitch that had just opened it’s first store in France.

The Musee de L’Orangerie was a totally random discovery that was also a highlight. While in Paris we bought these museum passes that let us into all of the museums. So, after doing quite a bit of walking we were in need of a bathroom and as we were looking for a public restroom we saw the Orangerie. Using our “pass” we went in, found the restrooms, but decided to make a quick run through the museum before leaving. What a good decision by us! The Orangerie houses 8 of Monet’s water lily paintings. It was so peaceful that next time I think I will bring a book and spend the afternoon sitting in the round rooms that hold the paintings.

My view while sitting in the park after the Orangerie.

I wanted to get some coffee here, but it was packed, and the coffee while already expensive all over France was really crazy expensive here. What would Hemingway have thought I wonder.

Someday I think I will have to live there so that I can take advantage of all of the goodies I saw in the shop windows.

On our last night we walked along the Seine watching the boats. On a pedestrian bridge close to our hotel, the Pont des Arts, there were all sorts of locks that had intials engraved on them.

Thanks for following along. I’ll leave you with a lovely cell phone image. And, if you ever get the chance to go to France–it will be worth it.

A bientot !

Happy Tuesday everyone. It’s tax preparation time for me and I am very close to jumping back on a plane to France every time I look at my box of receipts that has to be entered into Quickbooks. Since my family probably wouldn’t be too happy with me if I skipped town I thought I would take a break today to edit my photos from Versailles.

Enjoy.

Not sure about these two photos together.

One more France post and then I’ll have to start my next visit.

I am going to take a break from the France photos to show off what we did this weekend on our trip to NYC.

During this trip along with seeing a few shows (Lucky Peterson, the ballet, Wicked) I got to look at lots of art and specifically got to see three photo exhibitions–the newly opened Cindy Sherman show at the MOMO, some works of Weegee at a NYC gallery, and some of the newly discovered works of the photographer Vivian Maier.

I look so often at wedding blogs, or blogs of other family/child photographers that I almost forgot how important it is to look at these masters of the genre.

I think I was inspired by them all as I was a tourist in the city this weekend. Here is what it looked like from my camera.

The Academy Award nominations were released today. On the list for best picture was Midnight in Paris. I just saw that movie over the holidays and I was probably very annoying to our family that watched with us because I couldn’t help but blurt out whenever I saw a place that I visited when we went to Paris last June.

And, it was wonderful. I have visited some amazing places, and I have so many more that I want to visit–but I will go back to France I hope more than once–it was that amazing.

Here are some images from Paris.

Right across from our hotel.

It was fun to photograph people making photographs.

The Louvre.

You could take photographs in the Louvre. It was fun, but I swear no one was actually looking at the art–just snap, snap, snap…

The Eiffel Tower at night was as cool as you would image.

It is taking me so long to get through my France photographs that I can’t really remember what part I am on.

Travel Tuesday continues in France–still in the Burgundy wine region of Beaune.

I might have picked a cleaner window to take our portrait in, but the wine makes you not care about those things.

Just wandering around in the vines.

It is great to have a car to travel about, but I always wondered what we would do if another car tried to go the other way–such narrow roads.

One tree to take your nap under while tending to the vines.

Having fun with a little tilt shift lens.

Jason said that this pavement reminded him of Missouri.

After wandering around the vines we stopped off for a lunch and fabulous wine tasting of the Oliver Leflaive wines.

Street photography.

Finally back to our bed and breakfast for a rest before heading out to stuff ourselves again.

While walking about we came amount this little restaurant–Le Goret (The Pig). It is in the photo below. The cook lived upstairs with his teenage children, and his dog rested in the restaurant while we ate.

The menu hung from the walls–I think this is what we ordered.

Jason said this was his favorite meal while we were in France. His was the one on the left, mine on the right. I have no idea how we finished our meal, but we did.

Next up—Paris!

Okay, so it isn’t Tuesday, but I still want to continue showing off my France photographs–and I really need to finish editing them. The further away I get from this trip the harder it is to look back at the photos. It is torture to stare at such a relaxing fun trip filled with good food and wine while sitting in Syracuse, with no vacation in sight.

This was a trip that will have to be re-done.

After leaving the French Alps (check earlier travel Tuesday posts)  we drove to the wine capital of Burgundy–Beaune. We started off with a little tour of the wine cellar that was under our room at the very nice Les Jardins de Lois. They gave us our own little tasting of the wine they make.

This is the entrance to the hotel which took us awhile to figure out.

That’s our room up there.

The hotel had a great little garden where you could sit and read or nap after a huge lunch.

Before exploring the vineyards we just wandered around the old part of town.

I think this cat poses for photographers who wander the streets.

We were there during the middle of the week, so not many tourists. I felt like we had the town to ourselves.

I’ll leave you with our appetizers–one of the many things I stuffed myself with.

***And, in case you are wondering you can still order prints and get them in time for the holidays. I’m working hard all week packaging orders up and making deliveries. If you feel like you should have gotten your order already–send me an email so that I can check on things.

I have lots of clients waiting to see their proofs so I can’t really spend time working on my own personal vacation photos—but

coming soon Travel Tuesday will be back up and I will continue with France, starting in The Burgundy region. 

So, it has been awhile since I made an update to my Travel Tuesday feature. In case you forgot, I was slowly getting through sharing some photos from my amazing trip to France back in June.  My last entry I was describing my fear of heights, and the cable car I traveled in.

Once I decided that I had had enough of the cable cars, we had to hike back down the mountain.

And, this is what I love about France, and so many places in Europe–little cafe’s in all the right places. Before hiking down we stopped for a sandwich and some water. Wine was actually considerably cheaper than soda. And, even though I could have used a glass of wine to ease my still shaking knees, I was already feeling a little light-headed, so water it was.

The hike was easy on the eyes, and not too hard on the knees since it was mostly flat until the little mountain train we took down the steep part.

I was in France, and I couldn’t get it together to wear something cute on my alps hike. I mean, what was I thinking? Why didn’t anyone buy me a cute little JCrew dress with stylish hiking heels?

pretty.

And this is actually a glacier. I would have never guessed that I was looking down at a glacier if it wasn’t a difficult to get to tourist site where you could actually walk inside the glacier. All the way down the stairs you would see signs about  what year each new set of stairs was built to show how quickly the glacier was melting.

Eventually, I’ll share some photos from Paris, but next up is the Burgundy wine region. Yum.

I have lots of travel Tuesday posts to catch up on, but today won’t be the day it gets done- I have too many clients waiting on proofs and albums at the moment, but I did just take a vacation (hence the back up), and it was an adventure. We were in Virginia camping during the earthquake and we were in North Carolina for the hurricane.

This photo was taken at Jockey’s Ridge State Park in North Carolina–the tallest natural sand dunes in the Eastern United States. I image that many photographers have made amazing shots here.

Father and daughter.

I was really hit by the pose my daughter  took (so teenage).

Actually, the whole time I was struck by the person that she was becoming. Only 11, but sometimes that feels so old.