The actual idea for Topos Art didn't happen until relatively recently but the inspiration for the business happened a few years ago. It all started In September of 2005 when Jess and I were on our honeymoon in Greece.
Of course we both brought our cameras and there was no shortage of opportunities for taking some beautiful pictures. Everything was just so interesting. From the shapes of the ruins at the Acropolis in Athens to the vivid colors of the blue and white houses on the islands we visited.
We started off by spending a few days in Athens. The "Temple of Posiden" and "Maidens of the Caryatids" cards are both from the Athens area. We left Athens and took an over-night ferry to Greece's southern most and largest island Crete. The picture in our logo was taken on Crete in the city of Iraklion at the old Venitian Fort. We were just on the edge of the fort and I saw a commerical airliner flying over. I thought it would make for an interesting picture so I just pointed my camera up to the sky and shot.
After Crete we took a ferry to Santorini, one of the most beautiful islands in all of Greece. This was by far our favorite island. There were so many sites to see and things to do. The bulk of the cards in our
Greece Gallery came from Santorini. If you look at the Topos Art site you'll notice that we have several cards of animals. There were stray animals all over Greece and this was especially true of Santorini. We actually "adopted " a cat that would come and hang out in our hotel room. We named her Oia after the village we were staying in. We were in a great hotel called the
Aspaki Suites that my sister booked for us as a wedding present...thanks Michele!
After Santorini we took a high speed ferry over to Mykonos, the "party island". We didn't do much partying but did rent a scooter like we did on all the other islands and had a blast riding around and going to the beaches. We only spend 2 days there and didn't get many good pictures. After that it was back to Athens for an overnight then to London where we had a one day layover. London was great...one day was just not enough time and we would really like to go back some day. We got in as much as we could and even saw a show...Queen's "We Will Rock You". The next thing you know, a 13 hour plane ride and we were back home at SFO. We got a ride home, I carried Jess over the theshold and we said hello to our three furry cats who we hadn't seen in over 2 weeks!
Well I know that's more the story of a honeymoon and not of a business getting started but the point is that we came back with memory cards full of great pictures. We just didn't know it yet! Over the next few weeks we printed out our pictures and put them in an album. We even made a 2006 "Animals of Greece" Calendar and gave it to friends and family for Christmas. But then the image files just sat there innocently on our computer for a couple of years...
That's all for this post. Next post will be Topos Art - The Christmas Cards.
Happy blogging!
John
