Trip plans for 2009 (?)

New year 2009 is coming, so it's good time to think over my travel plans for next year...

1. US Kidstrip 2009
This trip has been planned since at least a year. I arranged US Visas for my daughters and changed time and places many times. But finally we'll go in April/May and would like to spend two weeks in California. Main goal is to see all the amusement parks like Disneyland, Universal Studios, Legoland, Sea World San Diego, etc. - later I'd like to show some American nature to my daughters, it means I want share my love with them... :)

2. Norway Phototour 2009
This was planned as some economic trip to nice place near Poland where you can take amazing pictures. The best time for such trip is holiday period, so I'd like to be there in July or August. Would like to go there by car and drive as much as possible just to find the most beautiful places of the country and take perfect pictures. Hope that two weeks is enough...

3. US Phototrip 2009
I mentioned plans for this trip few days ago, so you're a little familiar what I wanna do. But the best news is that I have at least two people who'll go with me and their cameras confirmed. So this trip will be a bit different. It's planned for max. 4 people and some old/some new places... autumn colors for sure...

Hope I'll have enough money and time to achieve my goals... as usual please wish me luck!

Xmas lights in Warsaw...

This year Warsaw looks different than ever. So I decided to go and take some pictures. Maybe time wasn't perfect, because of zillions of people walking around, but rate pics yourself...

And last pictures showing man dancing with fire (and police...)

Art Wolfe #2

So it's not easy to buy Art Wolfe DVDs. I'm trying to get them since few weeks and still no success. I'll not have them before Xmas. I don't even think will have them this year. Mainly because of weather in US. They sent me some e-mails. First was:

"Dear Customer:
If you have purchased Travels to the Edge DVDs and DVDs with book orders we have
finally confirmed with our distributors that our DVDs will arrive here in our
Seattle Office next Tuesday, Dec 16th. All orders will ship next Tuesday and
Wednesday 3 day, via UPS. If you have travel plans in which you need us to ship
your order to another address, simply e-mail us your order number or name with
the new address and we will confirm receipt and send accordingly.

We sincerely apologize for these delays, our distributor has been working round
the clock to fill our order. Please e-mail us at info@artwolfe.com if you
have any questions.

Thanks again

The Art Wolfe Gallery
www.ArtWolfe.com"

The other:

" Dear Customer:
Due to inclement weather in the Seattle area, there may be shipping
delays over the next several days. For shipping inquires, please
e-mail us at info@artwolfe.com.

For a look at the Seattle Weather, see the Seattle Times:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/home/index.html

Best regards,
The Art Wolfe Gallery"

Just life! :(

Nintendo Wii for Xmas...

This year I decided to buy something different for my kids. As you may guess by the title, I've bought Nintendo Wii console. It's not because this console is the best in graphics quality or sound or whatever else. It's not like Playstation 3 or Xbox360. It's different. And that's why I bought it. It has some nice abilities that no other console has! I'm talking about remotes and physical moves transfer to virtual world. The Wii has a motion sensitive sensor that acts like a tennis racket, baseball bat, gun, sword or steering wheel or whatever else you can imagine. The Wii can be played by little girls, bigger girls, mom, dad, grandma and grandpa…EVERYONE! It's like Nokia - connecting people. But on the other side, Nokia is more like Playstation - a lot of marketing for a crappy product. Wii is more like HTC - perfect niche product, with no marketing and bunch of customers buying it and being happy with it. That's what I like best - when people vote with their money spent on good products...
I've only one thing that worries me - will I be able to touch my kids Xmas gift? Or they'll just play with it and not allow me to even touch? Ok, this is the risk....we will see...
So I'd like to wish Marry Christmas to all of you and let's have a chance to play with toys we bought for our kids!

Potential Autumn Phototrip?

Recently I visited my good friend who just came back from trip over the Southwest. He managed to get some nice pictures of Zion National Park in Autumn time. I must admit that colors of the fall in this park are really amazing and I have to be there next year! It's decided. The only left thing is to find someone who will go with me, because traveling some trails is a little risky and shouldn't be done alone.
So if you like to take pictures, sleep in the tent, trek mountain trails that are sometimes tough and risky, just contact me and we will think over if it's possible to do it together. My plans are to visit some deserted parts (Subway, Angels Landing, etc.) of the park and will also try to get to Toroweap, Monument Valley and later go to Grand Teton NP. Besides I'll try my luck in getting to Wave part of Vermillion Cliffs and hopefully recovered Havasu Falls.
I would like to spend about two weeks visiting these areas in early November 2009. Wish me luck!

Art Wolfe

Have you ever seen "Travels to the Edge with Art Wolfe" ? Probably not, because this great series is not broadcasted in Poland. You even are not able to buy dvd with the movies outside USA. It's strange, because this is one of the best documentary I've ever seen - especially for photographers. You can see places and approach used by the author to take perfect pictures of wonderful places around the world.
Fortunately friend of mine found place you can buy DVD pack with all the episodes published up-to-date. Unfortunately you can only pay for them with american credit card and have it shipped to location in the US. So I had to make few tricks to get the movies home. Of course I'm still waiting for them, but hope they'll arrive just after xmas.
If you're interested, please check this site: Art Wolfe.