Sunrise on the Potomac River

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Stephen L Tabone

This morning, I got up at 0500, loaded the car and went to Leesylvania State Park just a few miles from bed. I was hoping to photograph the sunrise across the Potomac River. As I was getting closer to the park, I could see a few clouds and color, so I sped up. Fortunately, the park gates were open because it was well before the park’s opening hours.

After entering the park, I drove to the last and furtherest parking lot, quickly exited the car and began unloading my gear and mounted my camera on a tripod. I also attached a handheld shutter release and checked the ISO and set the aperture and shutter speed. Then, I put on my backpack full of gear and hurried through the park to the shoreline.

I was the only person there, not even a fisherman in sight. They too arrive early, but not today. I set up my Nikon D700 with the 24-70mm 2.8, carefully composed the shot, focused and began shooting. The sky was beginning to glow in red, orange, and yellow colors. This was going to be a good morning for capturing an awesome, colorful sunrise.

Below are photos from my iPhone. I will process and upload the Nikon images later. This is an experiment–I am preparing this blog post on my iPhone while waiting for Angela at her therapist appointment. More on that later too.

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The Island of Capri

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Stephen L Tabone

While in Positano, we took a boat to the island of Capri. It was about an hour ride, and the view from the boat the entire way there was gorgeous because of the rugged mountains and cliffs along the coast that dropped into the deep blue Mediterranean Sea. I did not process those images this evening, but will tomorrow.

Instead, this evening I processed some of the photos that I took while on the island of Capri, which is an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula on the south side of the Gulf of Naples. It has been a resort since the time of the Roman Republic.

After circling the island, the boat let us off in the Marina Piccola (the little harbor). Then, we took a taxi to the top of Capri, which rises high above the sea. Once there, we rode a chairlift to the highest point on the island where there were spectacular panoramic views of the villas, limestone crags called sea stacks that project above the sea (the Faraglioni), and ruins of the Imperial Roman villas. It was breathtaking, as can be seen from the below images.

After descending from the top, we boarded a tram that took us back to the harbor. The views from the tram were spectacular, and the small town around the harbor was very picturesque.

Although it was disappointing to leave Capri, the return boat ride and views made up for it. Below, my two daughters enjoyed the ride back in the warm sun on the bow of the boat while taking in the sights. As you can see from the photo, there was an interesting and photographic cloud formation that highlighted the Sorrentine Peninsula.

I do not know when I will return to Capri, but there is no doubt that I would like to spend more time on the island to capture its amazing beauty. However, if I never return, it will always be one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited.

Tomorrow, check back to see the images of the Sorrentine Penisula and Amalfi coastline taken from the boat while going to and returning from Capri.

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More from Positano

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Stephen L Tabone

I was not able to spend much time on photography this evening, but could not resist processing a few more images from Positano. What an amazingly picturesque, small city nestled into the side of a mountain along the Mediterranean coast! I could live there. Well actually, I could say that about most of where we went in Italy, but clearly, Positano was one of the most beautiful.

The below images were taken after returning from a trip to Ravello. We were dropped off at the top of the city to walk down to our hotel on the beach, and clouds were rolling in over the mountains making for a very different sight than when we left in the morning and when the sun was shinning brightly.

Flowers were everywhere and added to the beauty. The below image highlights some of the many flowers, in this instance geraniums in the foreground with some of Positano in the background.

Motor vehicles cannot drive down from the top of Positano to the beachfront hotels where we stayed, so we walked stopping at various small shops and stores. The streets are only wide enough for foot traffic. Positano, although very different from Venice, had something wonderful in common with Venice — there were no cars, no trucks, and therefore, no traffic. What a change or relief from here in the Washington DC area!

As we walked down the narrow streets, many were covered in vines and flowers such as the one below, which caught my eye because I could see the bells of a church bell tower through the opening above. The contrast in colors was spectacular against the otherwise cloudy, grey sky and white of the church.

The above image provides one view of the covered walkway, and the below image provides another with a focus solely on the beautiful flowers.

I have many more images from Positano and will eventually post them to my blog and Website, but that is all for this evening. I could do this all night, but unfortunately, I need to fight rush-hour traffic in the morning. More tomorrow…

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Pompeii, Positano and Ravello

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Stephen L Tabone

I am finally getting back to reviewing and processing my images from Italy and, therefore, have some images to post to my blog and Website. I “took off” a couple weeks to do other things to include attending a family reunion in Central Florida where it was actually cooler than Virginia. My photography during that time was limited to photographing the reunion and the nearly 40 people that attended.

Before getting to the Italy images, I have to share a photo I shot while driving home on Interstate 95 last week. The image is a bit fuzzy, because I was using my iPhone, did not have my tripod, and was actually concentrating on driving. I could not resist recording the temperature on my dashboard, because it was 106 degrees! That is CRAZY hot for Virginia, or for that matter, anywhere. Yes, I was doing almost 80 MPH, which is the mandatory speed limit under such conditions on a Friday afternoon just before happy hour.

In about three weeks, I will be attending a another reunion, but this time it will be with the people that I traveled with in Italy. It is my intention to finish reviewing and processing my remaining Italy images before the reunion. Now that I am back into reviewing them, I am very much enjoying it because they are a reminder of the beauty we experienced. I am ready to return!

While reviewing my images, I came across several from Pompeii. I can remember in my youth learning about Pompeii or maybe it was a movie (actually, it’s hard to remember that far back). Nevertheless, it was a place I had wanted to see having imagined what it must have been like when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. We had a professional tour through the ruins of Pompeii, and one the most interesting facts I learned was how Pompeii was buried under 4 to 6 meters of ash and pumice, and there were people farming above the buried city when the ruins were first discovered. The image below shows some of the ruins with Mt. Vesuvius in the background.

The next few images were taken in Ravello, a beautiful city along the Amalfi coast. The first image is of the Villa Cimbrone Hotel that sits high above the coast with amazing views.  While we were there, clouds or a fog began rolling in making for some very interesting scenes.

Below is the entrance to the gardens at the Villa Cimbrone Hotel.

The following two images were taken from the grounds and gardens of the Villa Cimbrone Hotel.

During the drive from Ravello back to Positano, I took the following photograph capturing a large sailing ship off the coast.

Finally, when we returned to Positano, I had a different perspective of the seaside city that was highlighted by a gorgeous tree in bloom.

As I have said with previous blog articles about Italy, there was an amazingly beautiful photograph to be made in every direction just about all of the time. My challenge is selecting ones to post to my blog. I hope you can see why from the above images.

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River Tiber Sculpture in the Vatican Museum

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Stephen L Tabone

If you have been following my blog, you know that I have been (very slowly) processing images from my trip to Italy in June. So far, I have processed and uploaded many images from Venice, Tuscany, and a few from the Amalfi Coast. I have many more to review and process from Positano, Pompeii, Capri, and Rome. Tonight, I am jumping ahead to Rome, which was the last city visited, but only briefly because I will return to the images from the Amalfi Coast tomorrow.

While in Rome, I saw and photographed the usual places tourists visit such as the Coliseum and other Roman ruins, several incredible cathedrals, the famous fountains and squares, etc. Instead of focusing on images of such places, this evening I processed a few images from the Vatican Museum and only one of the many sculptures I photographed while there.

Below is the sculpture titled “River Tiber” in the Vatican Museum. It is an Imperial Roman period sculpture of a river god reclining with a jug on rocks near a stream. Other than the very life-like details of the sculpture, the face in the jug caught my attention.

I have many more images from inside the Vatican Museum that I will process at a later time.

While reviewing my images from the Vatican, I could not help but stop, look at, and then process the below image of the inside of St. Peter’s Basilica. For those interested in photography, it was dark and dimly lit in the Basilica. I could not use a tripod or flash. So, in order to make this image, I shot (bracketed) three hand-held images at different exposures using a high ISO of 6400. When processing the images this evening, I merged and tone mapped the three images creating a single HDR (High Dynamic Range) image. The HDR process brings out details in the shadows while maintaining details in the brightly lit areas, like around the windows.

Yes, those are people at the bottom of this image. If you have been following my blog, you probably have noticed that most of my images do not contain people. However, there are times when it is useful to have them in the image, such as below, to give a sense of scale or size to what is being photographed. Then of course, there are times when it is impossible to capture an image without people in it, because they are everywhere, as was the case in much of Italy (except when I was shooting at 5:30 AM).

I have many other images from inside the Basilica and will eventually process them too. Part of the joy of photography is post processing and making the images, reliving the moment when the images were shot, and of course sharing them with others, and I have a lot more from Italy to share.

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