Tuscan Hillside

After breakfast, we gathered for our first critique session with photos from the trip.  Submitting 8-10 images, Joe reviewed each and gave suggestions for improvement.  From the outside this might seem a little bit of an ego buster, but we all paid to improve our photography and constructive criticism is what we needed.

We departed for Montelpulciano (Travel Guide) for lunch on our own.  We ate at a lovely little café on the road leading up into the town.  Two Canadians we finishing up their lunch and offered us the outdoor table they were using.  We chatted with them a little and found out they had ridden their bikes across Italy.  Some of our group turned this into a photo shoot with the girls and their bikes.

Pienza (website) is a small town situated in the Val d’Orcia in the southern part of Italy.  There were two churches we walked through along with a town square where both locals and tourists gathered.  We engaged with a couple of groups of locals for photographs before departing for our countryside shoots.

Our first roadside stop was to photograph a lovely little church off in the distance along with a tree lined road.  Natalie again offered her modeling services and we all got in practice at placing and directing a model.  

When everyone finished, we moved on to a grove of cypress trees where Natalie demonstrated her dancing skills, posing in front of the trees and also the open landscape. 

We returned to a late dinner and then spent time reviewing the day’s pictorial bounty.

Tomorrow: Tuscan wine and pasta