díreach ag dul trí

The first time ever I saw your face, dreamy green island 🍀 An iPhone snap will never be able to do justice to my very first glimpse of Ireland . My eyes were as misty as this coastline realizing my epic solo EU adventure was about to begin. First country of three this sojourn!

I did a 32hr layover in Dublin and saw the Book of Kells at Trinity College, took in some beautiful works of art at the National Museum, walked along the River Liffey and did some time lapse photography on the Ha’penny Bridge, strolled St. Stephen’s Green, and braved energetic Temple Bar on a Friday night.

And then I was gone. ✈️

Advertisement

Like a pulsating mix of champagne and meteors

A woman like me alone in a city like this spells trouble, which is presumed, and I wish that you were here for the adventure. I love New York City like I will never again love any inanimate object that seems real and breathing to me, she embraces me every time, my passionate lover.

I am seated in patient anticipation. I hear her voice from afar only to come around the curve after Newark and see her brightly dyed hair tumble upon the nape of her bone-white neck in the form of the latest color scheme on the top of the Empire State Building. Her hands stretch out to greet me with a different bauble for every finger of her warm-heart-cold-hands. I leave the train, climb the escalator, step through the automatic doors to 8th Avenue, and am intertwined with her once more. She steals my breath into her mouth and slaps me across the face with her icy January winds for not calling. I love her with all of my heart and I let her seduce me, caressing every part of me, until I look at my cell phone and see it’s after midnight and someone else is awaiting my arrival.

She pouts with her arms suddenly folded, the black lace strap of her bra slipping down over her shoulder, and I put my finger to her blood red lips, Shh, not tonight, but I will be back tomorrow. I’m just as disappointed to leave as she is to see me go, onto the ferry, where she closes her eyes in sorrow like a woman who knows she’s the Other One in my life, and I realize some of her glittering eyeshadow has rubbed off on my cheek. A man next to me thinks I am crying, and maybe I am a little teary at the heartstopping way her skyline is sparkling like a pulsating mix of champagne and meteors; he offers me a handkerchief.

Anyone would be jealous of the way I dream of her at night, the way I think about her throughout days away. In the morning, she awakes me with the memory of her warm deep kisses and here I sit at 9:30am, plotting the hour when I will steal away to my secret lover New York City. Oh, if only you could see us when we’re together…

words ©️Alessandra Nicole 2004

Winter Hush

The big beautiful Hush is moving through southern Chester County, PA, softening surfaces and dampening the usual sounds. 7:30am local time and it’s still coming down steadily. 

 
Follow Alessandra on Instagram @Alessandra_Official and on Twitter @novembergrlfoto

Cows, kneeling

  

Sturm und Drang

🍁🍁🍁🍁  

Tree up on the hill, in winter



March Force

It is March 4th and this week in southeastern Pennsylvania we have been experiencing the strangest winter weather yet. 

A 3-day storm is moving through and has brought us water in every form! Yesterday, everything was quickly encased in an inch of solid ice. Today brought temps in the 40s so the lingering snow from last week began to melt which caused a magical fog. Tonight it has been raining torrentially and after midnight the rain is forecast to turn to snow that will bring upwards of 6″ in accumulation. 







View these images on Alessandra’s Instagram: Alessandra_Official

ahctober

couple snapshots from early this morning outside of the studio…


sunrise! 645 am Octobertime

if I had to awaken on a bed of yellow mums, I’d be in the shape of a smile too. : )

We really got doused last night!

funny things one sees outside of the studio (DD!)

the solitary pair

Follow me on Instagram @alessandra_official

Dayfade

Watching another beautiful spring day fade away in southeastern Chester County, PA

more Winter in Chester County, PA

Boats at Rest

Gustavia, St Barthélemy

December in Chester County

Reunited

I was a diehard Blackberry user when my Pearl died in a puddle of beer at a Levon Helm show in Philadelphia 5 years ago and because my cellphone carrier wouldn’t give me a break on a replacement, I was forced into getting the iPhone 3. Like Dorothy crossing the threshold from Kansas to Oz, the technological upgrade changed drastically the way I saw the world around me and my compulsion to capture the moments that reach out to me.

Below is a reworked version of one of the first iPhone images I made. At the time, this composition to me was about two lovers in another time reuniting in each other’s arms once more.

day tripper

Near the top of my list of Most Romantic Experiences is taking a train ride up to NYC on a lazy Sunday, just for the day. NY Times in my lap, his head resting on my shoulder, swaying in a train… We arrive comfortable, relaxed and emerge into the city unencumbered by the usual gear, baggage; untethered to any vehicle. Free as a bird. Grab your mate by the hand and try it!

November!

I read a quote online recently that I can’t seem to relocate but the essence of it was something like this:

Who will regard your dying as beautiful?

Those of us in love with the season of Autumn as much as I must on some level regard aging and letting go as a beautiful process; a glorious celebration in bursts of colour, sexy textures, smokey scents. Summer’s tantrum is through and the following season is an eloquent, sensual eulogy before a snowy funeral, really; at least if you live in an area that experiences four proper seasons.

Where else in life do we regard the aging and dying process as such a gorgeous one? What if we were to embrace it in each other with such revelry, presence, appreciation as well?

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Posting this from a silver bullet in the shape of a vehicle on its way up the NJTP to New York City where we are spending the weekend; a lil bit of work and a whole lotta play!

The temps are unseasonably warm for October this year but the foliage is still popping with colour! Autumn brings elegant passion and beauty to dying. It’s such a brilliant and tactile season of vibrancy, crunch; the scent of smoke and apples, the gentle contrast of a chill in the evening paired with a renewed and electric awareness of the warmth of your lover’s cheek so close to yours. This is undeniably my most favorite of the four seasons.

Philly Murals

Philadelphia is home to more beautiful murals per capita than any other city I’ve been to. Here is one:

Hazy humid summer night

Lazy, hazy late summer evening in Chester County, PA.

think and be spring

The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.  -Ernest Hemingway

©Alessandra Nicole, All Rights Reserved

Shrouded

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in their way.” -William Blake

Prose: Chesapeake Bay Sunset – Alessandra Nicole

Once upon a time many chapters of life ago I worked out of Washington, DC and would commute at the end of each week back to Delaware and Pennsylvania. I wrote this on one such trek eastward this time eleven years past. Freshly “post 9/11”, having been immersed in a strange new world of confusing and radical precedents (especially regarding travel, which was a large part of my experience back then) and fear (I worked nationally and within a myriad of federal government buildings daily) what I felt below was like coming up for gulps of delicious life-giving oxygen.

Chesapeake Bay Sunset

by Alessandra Nicole
January 2002

The moon is bright and full and I actually got out of work before dark for once. The sun was setting over the great Chesapeake Bay as I crossed the five-mile bay bridge.

Suddenly, a feeling of euphoria welled up from somewhere deep within me, like my soul woke up from a nap and was stretching. I began to feel so peaceful and happy that tears came to my eyes. Seeing both the sun setting and the fat moon hanging in the sky like it was I had to pull over to give them my full attention.

I looked out over the Bay as vibrant violets and tangerines lost their tempers and exploded into an astonishing array of furious flames filling the clouds overhead with a raging fever. What was even more breathtaking was the reflection made in the water, perfectly mirrored as if there was no horizon line, and it didn’t even stagger as it was sliced in half by a sharp ocean liner. I stood there and imagined myself diving into that reflection, swimming and swirling with the mercury-stained sun and the shy stars, swept into a Technicolor tide of tremendous color play. I waited until the very tip of the sun vanished below the horizon, and filled my lungs with the sweet Bay air musk I grew up with.

The stars began to pop out by the thousands, fluttering like a swarm of sparkling fireflies. It was as if the Man in the Moon uncorked a bottle of glimmering champagne in celebration of the beginning of night. I waited until all of the stars appeared, bowing to their royalty that magnificent and full moon which was set up into the sky like a topaz gem set into the crown of a queen.

I waited until a gentle northeastern January breeze ran her chilly fingers through my hair, whispering into my ears that night had begun and the temperature had dropped. I climbed back into my little car and let the moon lead me east, and I drove up the moonbeams to my home.

Vineyard Fog

“The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.” -Oscar Wilde

Chester County cows

© Alessandra Nicole 2012 | All Rights Reserved