Every year after Christmas we take a roadtrip down to Charleston, South Carolina to see family and relax. Here are photos from last year’s trip, plus some photos taken along the way.

No particular theme here, just some of the stuff that caught my eye while out and about in the months of October and November of last year.

Between family and the occasional work trip I am in Charleston, South Carolina a couple times every year. During a September visit, I took some extra time to just walk around as much of the city as I could. Here are a few of the photos I took.

Final batch of photos from my trip last summer to Athens. We were mostly covering old territory, so these are just snapshots from here and there.

We spent our fourth day away from the city on the island of Aegina, to sit by the water, check out some ruins, and do a little exploring. It was a nice change of pace and convinced me that for our next trip to Greece — whenever that is — we are going to have to do some serious island hopping.

On our third day in Athens last summer, we mostly went to museums and wandered around the Psyrri neighborhood of the city. I switched back to black and white film, which I think worked for these compositions. The Acropolis Museum.

We spent most of our second full day in town trying to see aa many of the tourist sites as we could manage. There was also plenty of walking and observing and eating and drinking. The photos I’m sharing here are from the Agora, the neighborhoods nearby, and the Acropolis. This one is a nice vista of the city, focused on its highest peak.

For our first international vacation since our honeymoon, my wife and I spent a week in Athens this summer, eating, exploring the city, and doing as much tourist stuff as we could fit into each day. I love spending time in an unfamiliar place and we both had a blast. I, obviously, took a lot of photos. I brought three cameras — one film, two digital — but imposed a few limits on myself to encourage a little creativity. First, I would shoot either color or black and white on each day, never both. And second, I would restrict myself to one focal length as much as possible for the length of a day. This is all to say that on the first day, I loaded up a roll of Ilford black and white film, slapped a 28mm lens on my Leica, and walked as much of Athens as I could with my wife (with a Rick Steves guide as our companion). When the film ran out, I switched to my digital Leica. Here is a selection of photos from that first day. These, I think, are the clear keepers — or at least, the ones I’m willing to share. As always, let me know what you think.

Photos from a short trip over the summer. _Camera: Yashica-D. Film: Ilford XP2 Super and Kodak Gold 200._

A few of the keepers from a car show I attended out in Louisa County over the summer. _Camera: Leica M4-P. Lens: Konica M-Hexanon 35mm f/2.0. Film: Kentmere 100._

random items from the first half of the summer

These are photos from a neighborhood in Charlottesville known, unofficially, as “Hogwaller” after the old stockyard that is still standing. I took them using a Yashica-D and Ilford XP2 Super film. I believe I took them on a nice August evening but I honestly don’t remember!

Seen on US-29 going north to Charlottesville.

Each year, Ashland, Va. has a big street festival celebrating the fact that it is a hub for various rail lines in the state. There are vendors and games and music and also people gather to watch trains pass by. It’s a good time! The festival was in April and somehow I forgot to post the photos. So, you know, here they are.

These are the keepers from a few rolls of 35mm that I exposed back in May. The color film is Kodak Gold and the monochrome is XP2 Super. They were taken in Charlottesville, Richmond and Washington DC, which is to say, the usual haunts.

I was in Cambridge for a few days in May and managed to take a few photos in-between sessions at the conference I was attending. Here are the keepers.

I _think_ this was a roll of Ilford XP2 Super. I shot it on my Leica, as usual, and all of these were taken in places around Charlottesville.

Back in April, my wife and I took a short trip to Savannah, Georgia while my kids were with their grandparents. We did our usual thing: wandered on foot and ate as much as we could. It was a good time and I took my fair share of pictures. These, I think, are the best of the bunch. The square format photos are film (Ilford XP2 Super and Kodak Gold 200) taken on a Yashica-D. Everything else is digital, taken with a Lumix GX8 that met its maker soon after the trip.

These are the keepers from the first roll of film I shot this past April. It was Kodak Gold 200 and I used, as always, my Leica M4-P. The photos are mostly from around Charlottesville but there’s one at the end that I took in Deerfield, Massachusetts. One of the things I was trying to do, with this roll, was play with color blocking, as you’ll see.

I took a very brief trip to New Orleans this past March — for a fun (for me) conference on Reconstruction and constitutional law — and had just enough time to wander and take a few pictures. Here are the frames, which came from most of a roll of Kodak Gold 200 in my Yashica-D. I also had a few snaps with my (now-departed) Lumix GX8.