As my wife and I headed out of the ruins area late in the afternoon (after spending all day touring the ruins, including the Colosseum), I turned back for one last look and caught this view. For some reason, there was a large group of people that appeared behind the columns and were headed towards us.

I took this shot just before being engulfed in the crowds. I guess that's the downside to visiting such a popular place- there's always a truck-load of people in front of you and also behind you.

Black and white conversion was done with Channel Mixer in Photoshop. I also cloned out a few heads in the crowd just to make the scene more empty. I also corrected the perspectve in PS. The original perspective shows the colomns leaning to the center of the photo.

In mid-April of 2004, my wife and I took a long vacation to Italy and Switzerland.
We stayed in Rome and Florence for a total of 6 days, and had a wonderful time.

This trip was my first serious outing with the Canon Digital Rebel. I used the kit
lens (18-55mm) about 90% of the time and it did well! I used mostly f/8 for DOF
and sharpness, and I kept it at ISO at 100 for smaller file sizes (shooting JPGs)
and minimum noise.