Chateau Chenonceau

So this summer, I went on this trip with my school's French and German classes, and we spent two weeks going to various places in Europe. During the time we spent in France, we visited a couple chateaux, mainly Chenonceau and Chambord. here are a couple pictures from Chenonceau, its smaller than Chambord, but still pretty :)

for those of you who dont know, Chenonceau was a huntin lodge situated on the Cher River. It was built in 1515 by Thomas Bohier, who was a revenue collector for King Francis I. However in 1535, Francis I took the estate in payment of debts.
When Francis I's son, Henry II, is king, and married, both his wife and mistress live in Chenonceau, and that is actually the reason as to why there are two large beautiful gardens, well one is bigger than the other... one was a gift to Catherine de Medicis (the wife), and so the mistress (Diane de Poiters) becomes envious and gets Henry to build her an even larger garden.

Des Moines

ever wanted to see the city of Des Moines? well as part of another photo2 assignment (a collage, to be exact) i went around downtown and took pictures of the various buildings :) Despite it being cold, i think i still got some decent shots. agree?

Fleurs de Des Moines

(yea, i tried to stay away from titleing it 'flower power') so because nature is perty (teehee!) and because my city has a lovely botanical center, i decided to go there and take pictures, both black&white and color of the flowers there for a photo2 assignment. here are a couple of them. ENJOY!

Lets get started...

just to get this thing going, i'm just going to post a couple of my early pictures from my Photography 1 class :)

2 perspective shots of downtown. and probably 2 of my favorite shots of the class