On my way back to Seattle?

...well, not forever, but at least for this epic 5-day CL wedding photo workshop with Jasmine Star. Oh be still my heart :) Anyway, now my video submission is in.....not perfect, but I had oh-so-much-fun making it. So really, all I can do now is cross my fingers, pour myself a nice margarita, and hope they help me end the strike soon ;)

xoxo, Audrey

Audrey Smit's entry - Jasmine Star + Creative Live wedding workshop from Audrey Smit on Vimeo.

Danish summer

Once again I am reminded of how lucky we are to be living only five minutes away from the sea. Probably my favorite thing this summer! With all the traveling we've ben doing these past few weeks I almost forgot how beautiful things are just around the corner of our house. I clicked and clicked and clicked away today...and it felt oh-so good. At sunset I was just high on the golden light. I felt so inspired. My brain is now officially re-tanked for the next few days.

What is your favorite thing this summer?

Happy Summer everybody!

xoxo

La Liste

I've had this song in my mind all week.

Because I've been making lists all week. Lists of all sizes and shapes. Lists about just about every topic you can imagine. Some of them are supposed to make me more productive with my time - please notice the "supposed" here :) Like my list to get ready for Olivia's baptism. Others are just like Rose's list, a bit dreamy with a deadline set to inifinity and beyond. And then there are the lists are just a random sea of words, these lists I think have no other purpose but for me to get things out of my head. Like going to therapy, "well hello doctor!"

One of the list I've been working really hard on lately is the photo-madness skill. I am flirting with the dream of going pro, but I still have so much to learn about this art and figure out about myself that my photo-madness list is getting endless. And I know that's a good thing :) One of the bullets on my list is to submit a video for this: the epic wedding workshop with Jasmine Star. Oh the dream of going -I would learn so much....plus use the trip to see some of my Seattle friends!

Now I've been making progress on the list too! Item #1 off the list: I attended Scott Kelby's World Photowalk this weekend with the Copenhagen group, and it was just so great to get together with a group that has the same passion has me. To just use the time to experiment a bit with photography, to do things I would usually not do. And also simply to spend more time in Copenhagen, because really I just don't go there as much as I should. Here are some pics from the walk:

Randomly during the walk we met a cowboy. I stopped to chat a few minutes with him - best decision ever, highlight of the walk for me, easily. Made me want to take the first plane back to Arizona to get my dose of desert, salsa dancing and tortillas.

Item #2 off the photo list - I've been attending a weekend live free class by CreativeLive with David duChemin about vision and phography. So inspiring. David is both super funny and wise, some golden nuggets from the training:

"this is art, […] there are no rules"
"Life is always happening. Go out and shoot it. Create something, get yourself out of bed."
"The best photo tool that we have is our creativity. Not our lenses. Not our gear"

Glad I got that ticked off my list. Thanks David and CreativeLive for the kickass training! Looking forward to more.

And then well, when you are doing lists, sometimes what you need to do is...forget all about them :) So here is to jumping in the water, laughing with little ones, and watching sunsets with friends sipping red wine and other wonderful things in life.

Jerusalem & the Dead Sea

On the last day of our stay in Israel we took a day-trip to Jerusalem and the Dead Sea with some of Troels' coworkers - Tyler, John and Dean. "Rocky", as he asked us to call him, was our Israeli driver/guide for the day, and he made the whole difference by sharing so much of his knowledge with us.

In just a few hours, we went through the various quarters of the Jerusalem, through the small limestone-covered streets, and just soaked in as much as we possibly could. Little to say that it was a very short time to take in so much history and beauty in one go. I am still not sure what words should be used to best describe our visit of Jerusalem, but I'll give it a try and throw in a few: overwhelming, breathtaking, hot, soulful, moving, surreal, surprising, hot, confusing, peaceful...did I mention hot?

I loved every bits and pieces of it.



We visited all of the places that once upon a time looked so distant and only part of an imaginary story in my catholic classes when I was little. We stopped at the Wailing Wall. And Olivia got to touch the wall too, with her two hands with that! The image of Olivia with her two hands on the wall will remain in my memory for the years to come. I don't know why, I think it just moved me to see her small innocent hands on the smooth holy stones. I still wish I had a real picture for that, but instead I will keep the one in my head. Click.

We left Jerusalem and drove through the Judean desert on our way to the Dead sea. Rocky pointed out to the Bedouin villages along side of the freeway.

The Bedouins used to be nomads in the desert, but they stopped traveling and settled in the desert along the freeway, "where they can find all they need", said Rocky...it sure makes you think twice about your lifestyle.

The Dead Sea proved to be quite a surprise for me. I'll have to admit that I wasn't super excited to go there - what could be so cool about salty water where nothing can live, after all? Well, let me tell you, it turns out that it is pretty damn cool!

Before we got there, Rocky warned us "You don't swim in the Dead Sea....you float in the Dead Sea". And he was oh so right. Why do you not swim? Because 1) the amount of salt is so important that the buoyancy goes through the roof and it's hard to keep your body anywhere but at the surface, 2) even if you could go under the water, you really don't want to do - your eyes wouldn't be friends with you after that. Heck, even a simple mosquito bite feels like someone is scratching your skin with a fork.

But the coolest part about the Dead Sea? It makes your skin feel like baby skin after only a few minutes in. And I am not exaggerating. The boys kept bragging about their soft skins - doesn't happen that often let me tell you! Best thing E.V.E.R. The Dead Sea and I are like best pals now :)

On our way back to Tel Aviv we drove through the West Bank, passed some security controls with big machine guns, and saw the wall between Israel and Palestine. Another side of the reality of living in Israel that hits you pretty hard in the face when you least expect it.

Meet Tel Aviv!

The weather was as burning hot as in Tucson.
The traffic was as crazy as in New York City.
But aside from that, Tel Aviv was unlike any city I have visited before.


Quite a wild mix in just about any aspect you could think of. Like the fact that it is both old and new - When you think about it, Tel Aviv is only 100 years old, but the city already has so much history and you are reminded of it wherever you go. And the buildings, oh the buildings - what a mix, what a mess. On every block you will find a building that is falling apart next to one of the fanciest new high rise.


Or the fact that it holds so many cultures and religion in such a small space. A big bang of culture. See these signs in Hebrew, Arabic, and English?.....mmmm probably not helping with the crazy-drivers situation :D

While Troels attended his conference, the little Olive and I made sure to check out as much of the city as the heat would allow....not very much at all at this time of the year, to say the least. But we made it work brilliantly. We walked down the coast under the hot hot sun to the old port of Jaffa, and we hid away in the shade of the small charming streets of Neve Tsedek. We checked out craft markets.





And we (as in, I) had a lot of mint. I think I must have eaten my weight in mint while I was there. If not more. Mint lemonade, mint in salads, mint ice cream.....you get the picture, I am not going to go all Bubba on you :) But it was just so refreshing I couldn't get tired of it. Call me the serial-minter if you'd like, I' got no shame.


But the best time was late evenings, when the temperature finally dropped a little and life came back in our veins and in that of the city.


We took long walk. We watched as Israeli families gathered in park to grill meat and smoke the hooka, and children played with their kites. And we swam. Oh like little fish in the sea we swam until the sun disappeared in the horizon.

These were just priceless moments.