Not Every Image Makes the cut.

 I've talked about Ernest Hemingway before. Mysoginist, lush, hero, and one of the greatest writers of all time. Pulitzer and a Nobel for literature. He said a lot of things, a few of which have stuck with me over the years:

1. The first draft of anything is shit.

2. The only kind of writing is rewriting.

3. There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

A little dramatic, perhaps, yet anything but boring. It's how I put my portfolios together. I'll save the entire planning process for another blog post and skip to the outbound plane part. Take this last trip to Riga as an example. 

The first leg was a BA flight from Phoenix to Chicago, Then on to T5 Heathrow, followed by a brief layover and on to Riga. Arriving at Riga, I purchased a 24 hour transit ticket, hopped on the #22 bus and a half hour or so later found myself somewhere in Oldtown looking for my hotel. Shouldering my backpack, hefting my satchel with my backup camera body and telephoto, chargers, cords, converters, plugs, etc. and dragging my carryon, consulted my phone for directions to the hotel and set off. Oldtown Riga is pretty compact, and it wasn't too far to the hotel. There were actually three with the same name, and I tried to check into the wrong one at first. They kindly gave me directions to the second hotel which thankfully had my reservation, and next thing I knew I was up on the fourth floor in my new home away from home. I unpacked, hung up my jackets and hoodies and collapsed on the bed, and fell asleep. Id been traveling for over 24 hours. 

If you have no idea whatsoever where to start in a new city, YouTube can be your friend. Or, you can book a bunch of tours. Both methods have their pros and cons. On tours, it always seems like there's hundreds of things to photograph, but not enough time, because the tour moves on. When you get back on the bus and realize everyone has been waiting for you for ten minutes, it's not a good feeling, trust me. On tours, you'll almost always have an informed, knowledgeable guide to give history, background info, interesting tidbits, and to show you stuff you might not otherwise see on a ramble about town. 

YouTube, on the other hand tends to be about other people's rambles about town, giving their perspectives and insights, which can be valuable, but perhaps not as inclusive as a guided tour. Full disclosure, In Riga I didn't book a single tour. It's an amazing city, and I barely scratched the surface of recording all the things I wanted to. If you love art deco, it's not to be missed. If you're tired of over-touristed cities, you have to go. The currency is the Euro, plus Latvia is a Nato country, and pretty much everyone speaks English. The tram and bus systems are excellent, they have an Uber equivalent called Bolt, and there's tons of things to see and do. Just do it!

Here is a link to a quick video of the city: 

https://www.patkofahl.com/Postcards-from-Riga/i-mWT7R9N/A

and here is the link to the portfolio:

https://www.patkofahl.com/Postcards-from-Riga

Enjoy!