Speaking of Santorini

After posting about Kimmy's photo from Santorini, all of a sudden the island is in the news this afternoon:

An operation to evacuate up to 1,600 people from a stricken cruise ship is under way off the coast of the Greek island of Santorini.

The Greek-flagged Sea Diamond issued a distress signal after running aground and is taking on water, according to local news reports.

The large cruise ships usually come into Santorini's harbour at the rate of 1-2 per day. They arrive in the morning, berthing out in the water (see photo) and Fira town floods with tourists for the day (a lot of Americans, usually) who are ferried back and forth by smaller boats. As the sun sets the ships light up and sail off again. It's really quite scenic. This ship was carrying Americans and Germans, according to the article, and apparently nobody's been hurt as a result, so that's good at least.

But don't let any of this stop you from visiting Santorini (even on a cruise ship). It really is the most beautiful place I've ever been.

Kimmy the photography superstar

...has had a photo selected for critique in Photography Monthly magazine's print version. They do this with a few readers' photos each month. She got her copy yesterday and it goes to newsstands April 11. The photo is analyzed, changed in Photoshop, etc over a 2-page spread.

Here's the original

It's notable because of the warm colours (it was taken near sunset in Oia, Santorini) though in the magazine's critique they decided they wanted to turn it into the standard, Cycladic island white-on-blue colour scheme -- I think they missed the point! Still, it's a positive write-up in general and a real accomplishment to get it into print like this!

It's also notable because she didn't actually submit this for the print version, just the online one (where they've previously featured a couple of Kim's photos already). Normally the print version has a different submission process.

I think the magazine is UK-based, so I'll have to buy copies here and ship them to the people in North America, I think. Get your orders in!

Greece and Slovakia photos

I've posted photos from our one-week holiday on the island of Santorini, Greece last week, and photos from the Bratislava, Slovakia portion of our Austria and Slovakia trip, back in April.