Lucca through a Lensbaby Lens

Joe and I are now 3 weeks into our 6 week stay in Lucca, and I'm still in love with this beautiful city! I'm now up to 22 days of making my way everywhere on foot without the use of any cars, or even bicycles, my feet are in great condition, and maybe even I am, too :-)  

The weather has been excellent, warm days for eating lunch al fresco, and plenty of sunshine. Around 70's the last few days and always a treat walking around with my camera taking it all in.

These blog post images were taken with my Lensbaby Composer lens attached to my Fotasy adapter that fits my new Fujifilm X-T2... this way I didn't have to buy a new Lensbaby for my Fujifilm, as it was originally designed to work on my Canon dslr.  The Lensbaby works fine with the adapter, as it's a manual focus lens anyway. The trick is the get the focus on the right part of the image!

The outdoor market just outside of town is full of photo opportunities, as is the walk there. The Italians are very fond of their flowers and so am I!

The iconic Vespa, full size.

The shopping street, Via Fillungo.

Working on getting little hearts as my aperture shape on the points of light. Nice looking dessert, too.

The top of the Church at Piazza San Michele. Note that each column has a different design.

At the music school piazza.

Benches are liberally distributed throughout town.

Shopping at the outdoor market flowers.

Taking a break from mowing the extensive grassy area outside the walls.

Very active population here, especially on the wall.

A beer at lunch on the wall.

Panini are very popular... I found out panini is plural and panino is singular, now you know, too :-) And they are not always grilled.

Enjoying Lucca with Susan and Scott and a Little Rain

Our good friends Susan and Scott from Maine joined us in Lucca for a week, we've traveled together before and have the same ideas of exploring a foreign place, taking our time savoring our new location, enjoying the local food and culture and ourselves.. always :-)
 Ours is a slow method of travel, no rushing or overbooked days, and so far we still haven't been in a motorized vehicle of any kind. At 16 days that must be some kind of record for Joe and I! Our feet have been doing an excellent job of getting us everywhere we need to go, and it's easy to walk 8 miles in a day without even thinking about it.

Susan and I met when our children were much younger, nearly 20 years ago. It's wonderful to see her and Scott happy here in Lucca!

Scott enjoys playing his harmonica in the many tunnels of Lucca and the sound is awesome.

As we finished lunch outside in the Piazza Dell'Anfiteatro, the Amphitheater, this school group came through before it started clouding over.

A piece of ancient history randomly found on a wall.

This kitty seemed hypnotized while gazing out the window.

 Some small park tucked away in the back streets.

The rain made for some great umbrella images.

One of the larger camellia trees, many blossoms all over town.

A pottery shop off of Piazza San Michele.

A very intense bicyclist!

Students from Spain.

Still looks good all wet, Piazza San Michele.

Greeting an old friend....

...and spending a few minutes catching up.

Friday Evening Images from Lucca

I am walking around Lucca later the same day, during the evening hour with Joe. This time not just to photograph and so my attention was divided, but I find it hard to resist some of the beautiful things that catch my eye...! 

The window displays are gorgeous, this one especially if you sew.

Young woman very intent on her smart phone in front of a church.

Anything with books is fair game!

Sunset stroll on the wall.

Minimalism from the wall looking down.

The wall again, endless visuals.

From the top of the wall, looking down on the green area surrounding it.

Joe approached these young man to help them take a group portrait of themselves, and after he did, they wanted one with him in it. Friendly bunch!

Right off of Piazza Napoleon, a nice glow from an ancient time.

A Morning Walk Through Lucca

Yesterday I had the delightful pleasure of walking around Lucca with no design other than to see what was going on. Always wonderful happenings when walking in a town where everyone walks... being on the move with your feet creates it's own compelling energy. I love it!

These are the images I created from my rewarding walk in the morning for 2 and a half hours starting at 10:30am with the focus being on seeing and trying to make a good photograph. So lucky to be able to stroll out my front door and wander around town on a beautiful day with my new camera, the Fujifilm X-T2,  and my iPhone, but those will be posted later, maybe. Here are the mirrorless camera photographs (Fujifilm X-T2). I processed them in Adobe Lightroom playing with a new tonality I'm experimenting with, hope you like them.

Started the walk here, in the Piazza we live on. The view is always interesting and vibrant. The tables and umbrellas just went up yesterday, the warm season has begun!

The large structure behind the umbrella could use a facelift, any investors out there want to see what they can do with an old Palacio?

Everyday working people working. 

Live music under the old wall, on the way to Porta Elise.

A favorite view of mine... there are many :-)

A cool looking car for Andy, Ian's roommate and friend, to appreciate. 

Pasta!!

All kinds of fashion around, even little boys have it here in Italy.

Taking a child on a bike through an arch in the old wall. 

(You don't see that in Massachusetts!)

Spanking new notices put up as I walked by. 

Man bun. 

Such a sweet dog, very soft, too. 

Watering on the balcony in Piazza dell' Anfiteatro. 

Yes, everyone rides bicycles here. 

I love seeing the bicycles everywhere, adds to the charm of Lucca.

This last image was taken into Adobe Photoshop where I added a texture from Kerstin Frank, who is on Flickr, she generously provides free textures on her feed.  All the other images were only taken through Adobe Lightroom, both in the Adobe Creative Cloud version of these programs.