Browsed by
Category: Travel

Travel Photos

Travel Photos

Sometimes travel photos get to be sublime. Much better than most influencer photos, Roberta Mazzone captured a wonderful view from Venice’s iconic Hotel Danieli.

The picture gave me a lot of nostalgia of my last visit to Venice. I remember sitting and soaked in almost this same view from the Doge’s palace right nearby. Maybe that’s what’s great about photos like this – they help you recapture the elegance and experience you had when your own photos do not do it justice.

I think the idea of capturing an emotional moment of traveling is much lacking in our influencer/social-media oriented world. Influencer photos seem to be primarily focused on boisterously ‘bragging’ about being in a fabulous place, to give the impression their lives are more fabulous, or even to invoke jealousy. Add to this the lengths and insulting local behavior we read about influencers taking those photos – and it makes these pictures even worse.

Instead, why not capture that feeling of the last day or two of a great trip? Like loving all the things you did but longing to go back home to loved ones. Or the desire to sleep in your own bed again? Or the 3rd day in a new place when the language barrier makes you sit down and take a deep breath to re-collect yourself?

Those are travel photos I think could really make a statement we can relate to – but are much harder to take.

It was fine until the end…yikes!

It was fine until the end…yikes!

As someone that lives in downtown Portland, I can attest this is not far off what I hear all day – except that last bit about the domestic violence. The comments in the video laughing about how common domestic violence in EU flats is…disturbing.

Free Vatican Concert – Grace for the World

Free Vatican Concert – Grace for the World

On Saturday, September 13 at 12pm, St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican is hosting a free public concert — and the whole world’s invited.

Pharrell Williams, Andrea Bocelli, John Legend, Jennifer Hudson, Karol G, BamBam and more are set to headline ‘Grace for the World.’ It’s a one-of-a-kind show featuring live music performed by artists from around the globe. Pharrell and Bocelli have brought together a lineup of artists from around the world that include gospel choir Voices of Fire, John Legend, Teddy Swims, Clipse, Angélique Kidjo, Jelly Roll, an international choir of 250 singers including the Choir of the Diocese of Rome. And a drone show.

It’s totally free for the public and will be streamed live on Disney+, Hulu and ABC News Live at 12pm, or register at the livestream:

Experience the concert live from anywhere — register now for free access to the livestream.

links:

Summit Everest in 7 days or less

Summit Everest in 7 days or less

Climbing Mount Everest has long been a process that requires 6-8 weeks of acclimatization. It’s a process that happens at altitude, which risks not only death by HACE/HAPE and also involves lots of dangerous climbing up and down through risky ice falls and avalanche paths. That is, apparently, until now.

As I wrote about earlier, a climbing group was experimenting with xenon gas therapy. It has long been known that when using the right amounts of xenon gas during medical anesthesia, it can dramatically increase red blood cell count. The mechanism is not understood – but the effect is. So why not use that effect to speed acclimatization?

Well, a group of British men did exactly that and they summited Everest in less than a week. Even casual users of xenon gas reported feeling dramatically better during their climbs.

It’s now causing a real ruckus in the climbing community. Many are saying it is against climbing ethics. The world doping council has xenon on it’s list of banned substances, but personal climbing is an open, unregulated activity. Others bring up the old argument against the use of bottle oxygen, is that ‘unfair’ too?

However all this comes out, it’s going to be an interesting time in the climbing community. The dramatic success of these climbers means the use of xenon is unlikely to disappear soon.

Links: