Benvenuto Italia!

Oh goodness. Where do I start??
The plane was delayed two hours for no reason on Wednesday, so instead, Dad, Mum, Matthew, Lexi and I drove into the center of Boston to Quincy Market and walked around there and the harbor. We watched a street performer who was quite funny and walking around the harbor, we saw jellyfish! We walked back to the car and drove back to the airport to drop me off and say our goodbyes. I went in through security and spent a good ten minutes trying to find the rest of the group, but eventually I did and we spent the next two hours waiting for the plane to allow us to board. We finally left around 830PM. The ride was absolutely way too long and uncomfortable. Dinner was okay, the definitely could have served more drinks and the flight attendants were a bit odd. But after a horribly terribly flight of not sleeping at all, coughing and being thoroughly uncomfortable, we made it into Rome around 1130AM. After going through customs and getting our bags, we headed to the bus which was to take us to Viterbo. One of the girls lost her luggage, and we met up with a few of the other students there. After the luggage situation was figured out, we drove out to Viterbo. Most of the drive was all empty farmland, and I was so happy to finally get to the dorms to shower and rest.
My room mate, Lauren, is pretty awesome, which is great. We're getting along well so far. Thursday night they took us out for a walk around the city and pizza for dinner. Had my first taste of fizzy water. That stuff is gross, so I opted for wine the rest of the night. The pizza was great though! Then a few of us went for a quick walk to look at a church where the Pope had stayed before the Vatican was built that over looked "The Valley" where they have a lot of concerts and other things going on. We headed back to the dorms to sleep, and oh sleeping was very wonderful after being awake for about 30 hours.
Friday, we woke up to walk up to the Academy. We stopped for breakfast at the Victorian looking bar that I guess used to be a McDonald's. Had water and a yummy chocolate pastry. We then finished our long uphill walk to the school where we met with Laura (the director/ AH teacher) and had orientation for our classes. Afterwards, we walked back and stopped at a small grocer and sandwich shop for lunch. After eating we went over to the "Ipercoup" which is like a mall and super wal-mart all in one, so crazy and SO much to choose from. And everything is so much cheaper here. I bought quite a bit for only $13!
After putting everything in my own bag (they don't give plastic bags for free) we walked the 15 minutes back and had a quick snack and relax time before going out for another walk into the old city to the piazas and around town before heading to a tiny little restaurant to sit outside to eat pasta and chicken and drink wine. Was very delicious! After two hours of eating, we went for a walk around a different, but very busy part of town before getting gelato! So yummmyyy mmmmyum! After gelato, it was bed time for me and we had internet by then! YAY! So I was able to talk with Alex for a bit on skype text which was absolutely awesome (today I was able to get the video to work a little bit, so hopefully we can talk more tonight!)
After sleeping horribly, we woke up and literally ran to the school for class this morning, and Laura gave us an intro to the class and an assignment (OH joy. Why did I choose summer school??) and some of us ended up just sitting around talking about the differences between our schools. Walked back to the dorms, stopped for lunch at a Blu Bar, and then had a quick Italian lesson with Leeza. Now, Lauren and I are waiting to get to go to a hot springs and see what that's all about!

Until next time! <3!

Getting ready for Italy.

It's coming. One more week left. I'm so very nervous right now. I hope everyone who is reading this is excited though. I'll try to post as much as I can to let you all know of my travels. Please pray for me and keep me in your thoughts, this is a huge adventure for me, and it'll help to have your support while I'm gone.
If you want to stay in contact with me while I'm gone, here's a couple of ways to do so!

Email: michelleeaton2@gmail.com or meaton222@comcast.net
Skype: sleepingcities
AIM: revolutionxrock2
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/michelleeeaton


Please feel free to send me emails, pictures, and stories of what is happening at home, I'd really appreciate to have that little bit of connection to home while I'm away.

I'm leaving next Wednesday, June 30 at 545pm. I'll arrive in Rome at 745am (their time, they are 6 hours ahead of us). And then it's a 90 minute drive to Viterbo.
I have classes from 8-12 and 530-7 every Monday - Thursday, and travel days are Fridays and Saturday & Sundays are free days.
And then Thursday, July 29, it's a 10AM flight back to Boston, where I'm sure I'll be so excited to see my parents at the airport at 1 15PM

I love you all and I'm going to miss everyone very much (especially a certain few, Alex, Kels, Joely, Patty.... it's going to be very hard without you guys everyday)

But here's to an adventure, a photo adventure of epic proportions.

<3mee

Through The Viewfinder

I love this style so much. It's so exciting for me! more can be viewed here, and much more to come!

Kellcie

Last night I had the great pleasure of meeting and photographing Kellcie. She is a dancer and needed head shots for a teaching position she is applying for. After the easy part of head shots (she was so easy to shoot, constantly a lovely smile!) we decided to play a bit and have her perform a few of her steps to capture in a long exposure. Above is one of the good ones produced (I've always struggled with motion, but I do believe we're getting somewhere with this one!)
More photos to come on flickr later on!

From HDR To Life.

HDR stands for "High Dynamic Range." I'm sure most of you have heard of this type of photo by now and are at least somewhat familiar with it. The past couple of weeks, Alex and I have been studying and experimenting to figure out this style, and here, we believe we finally have a pretty decent example. Here is our little photo child, with as I'm sure, many more to come :]

not all of it

I want to fill the void that was created before we met.

Studio February 2 2010

Alex came down to visit and we had some experiments with the lighting in the studio!







More on flickr!