Alpages in Annecy: Old World Traditions in a Modern Age

My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

France | Monday, November 7, 2011 | flickr photos

I am an expat from the U.S. living in a small town in France near Geneva, Switzerland. We like to joke about how we literally live across the street from Switzerland. I came here for a short term contract to help build a website for the World Health Organization (WHO). My partner still works at WHO, so we are still living here. I love it!

I grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona as a first generation American. My father is Czech-Italian and my mother is German. They are both geologists and this led to a lot of camping and hiking as a child. As a family, we frequently traveled to Europe to visit our relatives and see other parts of the world. I used to tell people I did not get homesick, but "travel sick" if I hadn't gone somewhere in awhile!

My love of photography started at a young age when I received my first Polaroid camera. I quickly learned which shots did not work so well (shooting out of a moving car at the desert) and which worked better (people, animals, and objects that were not moving too quickly). When I turned 16, I graduated to a Pentax K1000 just before a trip to Italy as an exchange student. I fell in love with this camera and still have it to this day.

These activities led to a love of travel and photography.

Currently I am still learning the digital world with my Nikon D40X and am considering an upgrade. I truly believe that luck=preparation + opportunity, so always carry around a Nikon Coolpix in my pocket because you never know when you might see something amazing to shoot!