After taking the photo posted featured in “The Gates” I turned around to see the sun was bathing the lane and dried out crops behind me in the perfect golden light the Piedmont region is known for. My family were waiting for me to get back so we could go to dinner, but I decided to take a few more minutes to catch this shot.
Today’s photo is another shot from Lake Como with a sailboat dwarfed by the surrounding mountains that rise, almost vertically, from the water’s surface. Can’t write much tonight as I need to get packing. I’m off to the Bahamas tomorrow for a meeting then taking a few days off in Florida. Don’t have a big enough bag to take all my camera gear at the moment so have some tricky decisions to make.
Cernobbio is one of the many beautiful towns lining the shores of Lake Como. We didn’t stop here, but I grabbed this shot as we passed by on the ferry.
On our way to our hotel in Piedmont, Italy, we drive past these columns and knew that we’d be returning to photograph them at some point. As we rushed home from Lake Como, running late due to a lack of understanding how the ferries worked. My family was waiting for us to join them to go to dinner. Taking photos really wasn’t an option. Then, this sunset began to light the sky. Shortly after we realized we were coming up to these columns and decided we couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Our tardiness was punished, however, those vines are covered in thorns and once they wrapped around your leg or arm they didn’t want to let go!
Lake Como is a really interesting place and I wish I’d been able to spend more time there. The lake is surrounded by towering mountains rising directly from the water’s surface. Villages are, therefore terraced up the slopes. I thought this one was particularly interesting. There was a dock at water level, but the village didn’t seem to start until quite high up the hill.
If you’ve been wondering when I’m going to add the next installment of my HDR tutorial I’ve got good news for you! It’s online now: HDR Tutorial 2. In this section I go through the Photomatix portion of producing an HDR image, where the three exposures are combined into one image.
If you follow my site regularly you’ll probably recognize the spring in Acqui Terme. I spent a long time waiting for that patch of blue sky amongst the gloomy overcast sky to make it’s way into frame. Once it did I fired off a few shots from different angles. This one shows the detail of the cobbles in front of the spring.
At the end of a morning out, I was on my way back to the hotel when I spotted this rundown old villa tucked off the roads amongst the vineyards. I pulled over and discovered that the building and trees framed the remnants of sunrise perfectly. So, I set up for the shot.
A visit to Lake Como was recommended to me by my uncle. I really knew nothing about the place but had faith that the two hour drive would be worth it. The plan was to hop on the ferry for a low cost “cruise” up the lake followed by lunch and a trip back. I thought it could provide a good opportunity to ratchet up a few photos.
As it turns out, Lake Como is beautiful. Mountains plunged from the blue sky into the deep water. Boats of all shapes and size plied the waters around us as the ferry chugged its way up the lake, from village port to village port. I definitely took a lot of pictures. I’m not sure how usable a lot of them are as a moving ferry doesn’t make for an ideal base. It was really a sort of spray and pray situation. I just kept taking photos in the hope I’d get a few I could keep. I think I’m happy with today’s photo. But, I do have to question whether it would make the cut if I’d gotten to go down to Portofino and the Cinque Terre where I had two days of shooting pretty well planned out!
Elia Locardi, over at Blame the Monkey, does this for each of his photos so I’ve decided to give it a try.
Camera: Canon 5d Mk II
Lens: EF70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/320, 1/1250, and 1/80 at f/7.1
Taking the Photo: This is one of the few photos I took on Lake Como that I remember putting a bit of thought into. I wanted to use as big a zoom as possible to compress the image and make the mountains loom over the village and the boats in the foreground. I made a quick switch from the 24-70mm lens I was using to the 70-300mm. I couldn’t zoom my focal length up as much as I wanted to, but the effect is still pretty satisfying. If you’ve read my HDR tutorial you’ll know that I usually keep my ISO down at 100 to minimize noise as the HDR processing emphasizes noise dramatically. But, as I was shooting handheld (no point in using a tripod on a moving ferry) and had a moving subject I wanted to freeze so I bumped the ISO up a touch.
Processing: It was a hazy day, and the camera emphasized this fact, so I wound up with a very dull, flat set of images. I processed them in Photomatix as usual and then did a lot of work adjusting the contrast in Photoshop to try to breathe a bit of life back into it. I used layers to selectively adjust the contrast, and saturation of different parts of the image. Then I realised that the mountains had come out very blue. I probably should have used a polarizer on such a hazy day. So, I made myself a digital, graduated warming filter with Photoshop to warm up the mountains a bit. Then, I used Topaz Adjust to boost the detail a bit. The higher than usual ISO and processing work resulted in quite a lot of noise in the sky, ocean and side of the sailboat. I created a duplicate layer of the image and selectively de-noised the problem areas before sharpening the foreground.
Software: Photomatix, Photoshop, Topaz Adjust, Noiseware Pro
I’ve got all my new camera gear in! So tonight’s not a long post as I’m in the middle of playing with it all. It seems fitting that tonight’s photo be another of the few photos I took in Italy before having all of my stuff knicked!
I’ve ordered all of my replacement gear and it should be arriving shortly. Buying most pieces used from BH PhotoVideo saved enough cash that I was able to add a macro lens into my kit. I’ve wanted one for years, so I’m looking forward to playing with it. Once it all gets here I’ll update my gear page with the new pieces and explain any changes I’ve made.
On my first day in the Asti region of Piedmont, we took a drive to Acqui Terme. On the way there I spotted a vineyard and winery that I wanted to photograph but the sun was dropping and it was in the shade of the hills. So, after getting up at sunrise and taking in the views from Alice Bel Colle I decided to go back to this winery. I took a lot of photos there, and fell down a hill. This is the first of those photos I’ve processed. I saw the village in the distance, with the dome, from all over the place, but never actually made it there. Looking at Google Maps, I’ve realised that it’s called Fontanile.
