After our two days in Asheville we continued on to Louisville. I had never visited Louisville before and I wasn’t sure what to expect. We ended up really enjoying our time there. The downtown has changed and grown and there was a lot for us to see and do and a lot to drink and eat within a just a few block radius of the Galt House Hotel where we stayed. Our first day in town we wandered down to the Riverwalk on the Ohio River. The Riverwalk is an outstanding paved trail right along the Ohio that goes for many miles. In fact, an old railroad bridge (Big Four Bridge) has been turned into a pedestrian bridge and takes you over the river into Indiana. The trail goes on for miles and miles. We walked a couple of miles and we also rented shared bikes for one hour and headed over to Indiana. In terms of Photos by Frances photography, the day was overcast so I flipped my camera into black and white mode. I gotta say, it was a dream landscape for me as an urban photographer who focuses on architecture, lines, and compositions. It appears that recently the Ohio flooded its banks (it was still 5 feet above normal) but the effect on the Riverwalk was eerily post-apocalyptic. It didn’t help that we were some of the only people down there. There was debris, trash, and mud still lying on many portions of the walking path and in the main park (Waterfront Park). Here are my favorite photos.
Winter in Athens has been wet and overcast and apparently that was no different in Asheville. When we traveled there for spring break, folks were congratulating us on having a couple of pretty days while we were in town. Happily I had the opportunity to get out with my camera one sunny morning and wander for a couple of hours. I don’t presume that I take the best photos of any given city but I do most certainly take photos in my own style. That style focuses on tight compositions, colorful details, and the way lines, shadows, and light interplay. I’ve uploaded here what I think are some of the best of what I took from my wanderings downtown and up by the Grove Arcade area.
I bought a new Sony A7II in February and by April its performance had deteriorated. It took awhile to figure out the mystery of what was happening. At first I thought the battery was dying incredibly quickly, like after 10 photos. But then through experimentation I learned that the battery was not indeed dead it was just “disconnecting” from the camera. If I turned the camera off then it would not turn back on. It was totally dead: the shutter wouldn’t click and the screen was black. But if I removed the battery and reinserted it – while the camera was still on – then it would start up again. I contacted Sony in May and sent it in for repairs – twice! Twice it came back to me with the exact same problem. Perhaps at their repair center they could not recreate the problem? Finally I convinced Sony to send me a replacement camera and it arrived today! The long national nightmare has ended! I will say that I hope I *never* hear the customer service hold music again. I could probably whistle it in my sleep I was on hold with them for so long and for so many calls. It was a little frustrating but in the end they did the right thing by replacing the camera. I clearly got “a lemon” the first time around.
Today I felt like taking photos but also going for a hike so I took the new camera to the Botanical Gardens here in Athens and took some abstract, black and white nature photographs. Here is the set. I hope you enjoy.
