I had a chance last week to visit Corfu, a small Greek island near the coast of Albania. The weather was cloudy and rainy most of the week, so there were few opportunities to catch the morning or evening sun. I didn’t realize until after I returned and flipped through my photos that many of my shots focused on diverging lines. I remember intentionally framing the linked shot to include the ferry wake, but it was a much more ‘gut feeling’ than even a year ago. I started this blog primarily entirely in my own self interest, since I imagined forcing myself to go through thousands of terrible shots to pick out the ones that worked would train my eye. I still have lots to work on, but I believe I’m finally gaining an intuitive understanding of what makes a good shot, and in the process have reduced the number of terrible shots to sift through. Progress!
One evening I hung out on the causeway by the airport, taking pictures of the Vlaheraina monastery (I think this is the name), which is a tiny building on a separate causeway. The sun was setting behind me, and the light on the monastery and boats was spectacular. The tide was rushing out, so I screwed on my ND filter for a long exposure of the monastery, trying to setup a bit of cotton look on the water. I really lucked out, as a person was standing, moving ever so slightly, in front of the church. I find it a bit haunting.
As I was putting away the filter I heard a plane coming in on approach to the one-runway airport. I had about 15 minutes to find a high spot to capture the landing. I placed the camera on a cement wall, at a coffeeshop, up a 100 feet or so. Without a bulb, my camera maxes out at a 30-s exposure. So I took 1 test shot, repositioned the camera, then tried to time it just right so I could get the plane crossing the field of view for the duration. Success!
I’m currently on another trip, back-to-back, so I rushed to get out these photos. The rest of the photos are fairly standard touristy shots.
