The following is a visual recap of Day 2 in Austin over the weekend. We started off with a new experience for most of us when Monica lead us in a morning yoga session on the back deck of the house overlooking the lake. I felt like I was in one of those mid-morning follow-along-at-home fitness videos that are always shot on-locations with killer backdrops... except it was yoga... and I was that person you always saw kinda lookin' around to see what everyone else was doing to try and keep up. That person's never foolin' anyone, and neither was I... Yoga's a humbling - and ironic - activity. It's hard to find an activity that makes you realize how stiff and inflexible and uncoordinated you really are, but in a peaceful, soothing way. Anyway, it was a fantastic way to start the day (except that I wanted to take a nap immediately afterwards. Here are the yoga mats, our tools of the trade for Monica's session.

Next up, lunch at the well-known Hula Hut.

You can't take photographers anywhere without them, well, photographing.

Ahhh... here's Chad... our cheap and cheerful salsa boy.

A little painted table decor for our dining pleasure. [not pictured here: the ginormous tubular steak taco I inhaled]

Sharon, Michele and Kim by the door on the way out. It took us about 7 tries to get this image because people kept coming in and going out like this was a popular restaurant or something. Very inconsiderate if you ask me.

Fast forward to Saturday evening, and here you'll find a string of images from our pre-dinner shooting on or near Commerce Street. First up... Michele with some off-camera flash and another flash throwing a little light on the building behind her. I think this may have been then scene of the crime for the second wave of chigger attacks I was privy to.

Here's Karen in a parking garage with a light bulb above her and a remote flash providing a little separation from behind.

And here's Kim in an alley with a street light lighting her face and again an off-camera flash behind her.

And here's a few more random shots from streetside.

Love this shot of a this guy and his trumpet. Great suggestion, Chad, to have him put his opposite hand up to his ear.

And finally we finished off the evening with some late night shooting back at the house. karen had brought some studio lights, so we set 'em up, and fired away. Starting off... a group shot.

Then it just got ridiculous. For a little role reversal, the ladies donned some 'staches.

And then Chad and I, well, ... I dunno what happened here.

Sorry, Chad. I had to post this one because it's. just. funny. If you'd like to pay the amount listed in the anonymous ransom note I faxed over this morning, I'll gladly remove this image.

There we go. Finally... something a little more masculine from the guy crowd.

And somethin' a little more natural from the ladies side, too.

... or not.

Next up, our third and final day. Mostly images from the drive home... and a third attack of the chiggers. Stay tuned.

Every year about this time, the fields beside the highways in Texas turn into a sea of bluish purple with the Blue Bonnets in full bloom. Thanks to all the people that honked at me and yelled unintelligible and/or unrepeatable greetings while driving by at 90MPH as I was trying to take a couple quick photographs while parked along the George Bush Turnpike. Love you, too.

I was in Seattle the last couple days... without a camera. When we were on our way to the airport to head out there and Kylie asked me if I brought my camera and I said 'No, I didn't want to', she looked panicked. The "Honey, are you feeling okay? Maybe we should stop by the emergency room" kind of panicked. She'd never heard those words from me before, and in fact I wasn't sure she'd be able to find me in a crowd without a D3 cemented to my hand and a camera bag slung over my shoulder. It's true. I declared a need for a self-intervention. I'm addicted to photography. Actually, I think it had more to do with just getting finished plowing through over 3,600 honeymoon photos and individually editing over 500 images... I was burnt out and needed a break. Besides, I'd been to Seattle before and taken a fair amount of images, and the weather for this trip was supposed to be pretty ugly, so I convened with myself and made an executive decision. No camera on this trip. It didn't hurt to know that the D3 and 2 broken lenses needed to go into the shop anyway from injuries suffered before the wedding and in Italy. Turns out it didn't rain at all in Seattle pretty much the whole time during the 3 days we were there. The irony was not lost on me. I did feel a few bouts of trigger finger twitching coming on while walking down the street on a couple different occasions, and more than once I started to reach back for my camera bag, but all-in-all, it was a nice little break. I couldn't, of course, completely contain myself, and I did finally ask Kylie to hand over her little point & shoot so I could grab a couple images down near the market. Nothing great, but enough to keep me from developing a full-blown withdrawal melt-down. Besides, I needed to post something for Project 365. So here's my contributions for the last couple days.

Using a little f/zero from the 2nd set of Totally Rad Actions.

More fzero.

Kylie buying some chocolate dessert pasta. Who knew, right?

Just playin' in Photochop. A little overdone, but hey, it's my image and I'll do what I want with it.

And then there was Venice. This was the last city we visited on the honeymoon. Good thing, too, because my back, shoulder and trigger finger needed some rehab after this stop... visual overload. This was probably the most "touristy" place we visited, but I could've cared less... it. was. amazing. I think it helped that it was off-season, so we didn't have to deal with too many crowds and could enjoy everything at our leisure. And enjoy we did. Venice had so many corridors... it was like one big labyrinth with even more character at every turn. We had fun just getting lost and wandering though the markets, shops and restaurants and wished we had at least another day to play. The sad thing about Venice is that it's become so expensive to live there because of the high cost of maintaining a home due in part to strict government regulations in order to preserve that beautiful old world feel that people come to see. I could be mis-remembering this, but I think I remember hearing/reading there's a 60% vacancy rate in Venice right now. Kylie listened to a guided tour she took on her iPod that hinted at a concern that the city could one day potentially become one big museum if things continue the way they're headed now. We loved every minute of it, though. I took more photos in Venice than any other city... by far. And it's here that I ended up with some of my favorite images from the entire trip. So, with that, I'll shut up and get to the images already.

We were there the week before the annual Carnival celebration. From what I hear, it's kind a like Mardi Gras on steroids. There were ornate masks and and elaborate costumes on display everywhere we went as the city prepared for the event.

Thanks to Kylie, we stayed about a block away from St. Mark's square, so we were in the center of everything.

I bet this guy got a killer image. I mean, seriously, look at that backdrop.

Did I mention there was a plethora of pigeons in Venice.

I can guarantee you I would not have given up my gelato as easily - and joyfully - as this girl did. Me and some pigeons woulda had a throw down.

Lights lining a corridor of St. Mark's square. On the left is during the day, on the right at night.

A couple masks being painted for Carnival.

Brown delivers, even in Venice.

Saw this hot girl in Venice.

Our last night in Venice gave us an amazing sunset, probably the most beautiful one I can remember. Of course, having incredible architecture, a romantic atmosphere, a guy playing a cello in the background, and a beautiful bride didn't hurt.

And finally, I think this is my favorite image of the trip. I don't know what it is about it, but as soon as I saw it when I downloaded it from the camera, I got a big 'ol goofy grin on my face. This was the first morning in Venice when my iPhone forecast called for rain all day, and we walked out side to see the rising sun warming up and peaking through the overcast clouds. As a photographer, sometimes some images just speak to you more than others, and without getting all philosophical an y'all, this was one of those images.

I hope you've enjoyed the visual journey of Italy the last few days as much as I did revisiting the images. I may do one more post with a wrap-up slideshow that includes many of the images you've seen and a few you haven't, but then it's back to regularly-scheduled Project 365 programming and actual clients images. Thanks for indulging me on this ride down memory lane.

I'm finishing up the images from Venice to round out the honeymoon memoirs, and I'm really excited for 2 reasons... 1) Some of my most favorite images from the whole trip are in the Venice collection, and 2) it means I'll finally be out from underneath this daunting mound of Italy photos. I'm ready to be done with them, and you are no doubt also probably ready for a change of scenery on the blog. Italy has become this virus that's just kinda taken over the whole site lately, and I'm ready to get back to a little more healthy mix of images and content around here. Hopefully I'll get the Venice images posted tomorrow, but in the meantime, here's a couple quick images that grabbed my attention. First off, here's a photo of Kylie from about a mile away while I was still up in the top of the bell tower in St. Mark's Square.

And here's the elevator call button to get down from the bell tower. Call me crazy, but I think the quality control guy fell asleep during the naming meeting for this company. Doesn't exactly instill confidence in your upcoming ride.