Not quite so soggy Capri

I had slightly better fortune with the weather today, both in Capri this morning and Sorrento in the afternoon. I woke up at 0730 to a bright blue sky so I started getting setup to do some shooting. By 0800 it had socked in and the skies were once again gray. For the next couple hours I played cat and mouse with the clouds and while I didn't get a lot of good setups, it beat the stuffing out of yesterday. At least the clouds were interesting today, not flat gray, but with some shape and shading. I even tried a couple time lapse of the clouds moving through, but ultimately trashed them since they didn't really have the dynamic movement and lighting effect that I was hoping. I carried my Inspire around with me for a couple miles, but the winds were well over max so it never came out of the case.

Here are a few Capri images from this morning, first is Mt Vesuvius off in the East:


I spent a lot of time waiting for the sun breaks to hit something. From the east side of the Island, I could see them coming at me:


While I was waiting for the sky to do something interesting, I saw this little bird in a bush just below me:


Here is the east side of Capri town:


And this view is the western side of Capri town looking up toward the plateau that Anacapri is on. Yesterday there was so much low cloud that you couldn't even see that mountain. I bet it really sucked to be at Anacapri:


I bailed out on Capri about 1130 and took a fast ferry over to Sorrento where I'm going to be based for a couple days. I had a little bit of sun late this afternoon so I took the Inspire back down to the harbor to see if I could get a flight in. I had to wait until almost 1600 to get the sun around enough to skim the city and not leave the cliff face it deep shadow. Here is a shot from the top of the cliff:


This is from down below at the harbor (yes, there's a dusting of snow on those mountain tops and they aren't all that high above sea level because sea level is in the picture too):


And this is what it looked like from the Inspire:


I had a couple more "animal encounters" while flying. One Seagull was squawking around me for awhile, but he got bored and went away. I also had a cat very interested in that noisy stupid black and white bird that made wind in it's face. Here is a "Dronie" from my first takeoff and you can see the cat watching in the background (in the video you can see it already twitching its tail):



Every time I would come down to an eye level hover, it would stalk the Inspire, it looked like it was crouching to leap up at it even when the Inspire was low enough that the downdraft was blowing the cat's ears back!

I wonder if I'm going to have this trouble with Lions? I'd better google "how high can lions jump". Note to self: Don't hover too low in Tanzania.

Here's a down shot of the cat waiting patiently for the noisy black and white bird to make a mistake:


Even when I was this high up, it never took its eyes off:

Soggy in Capri

Well, I almost didn't make it to Capri today. I went to the terminal for the Fast Ferry in Naples and found out that they were cancelled due to rough seas. I caught a shuttle bus to the other ferry terminal where the big slow ferry departs from and got there about 10 minutes before its departure. By the time I got a ticket and boarded, they were casting off the lines. I arrived in Capri in a downpour and it was a very wet day, so nothing for me to do. Here is the only photo I took today:



It got worse after I shot this. The rest of the day you couldn't even see the mountain top. Hopefully it will break a bit in the morning.

Venice Day 2

Apparently, my pessimistic outlook for the weather turned the sunshine gods in my favor because instead of a day of clouds and rain, I had a partly cloudy morning and a really nice afternoon with clear blue skies. So I reshot everything I had done the day before and even managed to get a couple flights with the Inspire in two different locations. Flying in a tightly packed city like Venice is an interesting challenge. Finding a good place to launch was my main concern, but as it turns out, there are lots of little piazzas and campos that are not crowded. The bigger problem is that with such a small open space surrounded by buildings, you have a fairly narrow cone that you can maintain line of sight for the radio control. In other words, you can go up, but you can't travel too far from your origin without losing radio signal. Also, the space directly above you tends to be in a dead "lobe" of your radio signal so eventually you get a low signal even though you aren't that far away. Even pointing the controller straight up only solves half the problem. Note to self: The Inspire really needs Polar Antennas!

The second interesting thing that happened while flying is that as soon as I cleared the rooftops, the local Seagull population totally freaked out and I found myself in the middle of a swarm of them. I didn't really have any close calls, but I was concerned because I didn't want to come down in a cloud of feathers, blood and broken carbon fiber. But the flights were pretty cool and I did collect a group of observers at both locations. The Inspire gets lots of Oohs and Ahas when it's in an eye level hover and raises or lowers the landing gear. I looks pretty space age.

Here are a few sunny day stills from Venice:











When the sun shines, the laundry comes out to dry:




A couple were out posing in their masquerade finery. I'm not sure why, but they were still there when I came by an hour later so I figure they were in season and I shot them:


Lots of Gondolas out:






Ponte Rialto was bustling:



And Ponte Scalzi which was about 100M. from my hotel:


It's difficult to get much of an interesting shot at Piazza San Marco. Too many tourists. There's not even room for the pigeons any more. I guess we've traded one species of pigeon for another.


I really like the Bridge of Sorrows:


This is the same location that I used in B&W for yesterday's post. What a difference a day makes. (I think I still like the B&W better):


If you go out this doorway you better either have a boat waiting or have your JC water walkers on:


Loads of great reflections in the Canals:


I'm still working on my "Great Knockers of Europe" Theme:






I think this sculpture was done by Donnalello Turtello during his "Far Side" period:


I love the signs in Venice. It's really easy to navigate through the twisted maze of tiny alleyways if you know the general direction you want. But then, sometimes, you run into one of these "whatever" signs:


Just don't ask for directions, you might only get the bird:

Venice

I left Ljubljana this morning, passed through mist and light snow on the way to Venice via Villach Austria, It looks like my good fortune with the weather has reversed. The area that I assumed would be bad turned out to be quite nice, but now the area that I thought might be nice is cloudy and rainy. I managed to get out for awhile this afternoon in Venice and find a few things worth shooting in the misty conditions. Tomorrow doesn't look good either with rain in the morning and dry but overcast in the afternoon. Oh well, can't do anything about the weather. Here are a few images from Venice this afternoon:

Of course there are the Canals:








And the Vaporettos:


And of course, it wouldn't be Venice without Gondolas:


And an occasional Seagull to watch over things:


Some interesting tiny back alleys:


I can never pass up a nice set of knockers:






And the gray day just seemed to beg for a B&W:

Market Day in Ljubljana

I only had a short bit of sunshine this morning, then it clouded over. Too bad, I would have been able to fly the quad from my hotel roof which has a nice view of the castle on the hill. I spent the morning at the Central Market which was bustling with activity and color:



















This Beagle was sitting patiently waiting for its master to buy some veggies:


There Be Dragons in Ljubljana:


Accordion players too:


Even the Hare Krishna's in Ljubljana have an Accordion: