Rome

My recent cruise ended in Rome. This was my second trip to Rome. My first was 31 years ago; it was the first place I wanted to go in Europe. I was disappointed. I recall that it was hot and the buildings were crowded on winding, narrow streets. As a young man, I was impressed with the Vatican, put off by the run-down feel of the city, and disappointed with the condition of the Coliseum on other Roman buildings. Now, so many years later, and with the experience of visiting dozens of big European cities, I was hoping for a better experience. It was better, but my opinions are still the same. At least this time I got to do it with my teenage son.

We had only 2 days. We hustled straight to the Vatican Museum as soon as we got to Rome. I think maybe my wife and I must have missed big portions of it last time, or maybe they've expanded it. But it's WAY bigger than I remember. We spent a few hours walking around in the sweltering heat, looking at paintings and sculpture and other ancient Greek and Roman artifacts. The museum is not air conditioned. Finally we headed to the Sistine Chapel. There we were met with a crushing crowd of people milling around. The frescoes seemed dim and dirty last I saw. Now they look very nice. Perhaps there's been a recent restoration? The guards were busy yelling, "Silencio." They also kept telling people, "No pictures." One man kept taking pictures and was promptly thrown out. After that, we went to St. Peter's Basilica. It's just as I remember, huge, ornate, impressive. My son was stunned by the size of the dome.

We wandered back to the hotel, passing Castel St. Angelo and the Spanish Steps. The room never seemed to cool off, even with the AC on full blast.

That evening, we walked to the Trevi Fountain. Again, there was a crushing crowd. Cops were busy blowing their whistles every time someone tried to climb on something or put any part of themselves in the pool.

The next morning we went to the Altar of the Fatherland. Talk about big. Then we went to the Pantheon, a building that I didn't know existed last time I was in Rome. The exterior is in bad shape. The interior is stunning. The oculus is much larger than I expected. The Romans sure knew how to build.

Coliseum

Then we went to the Coliseum and waited in a long line to get in. And it was brutally hot by this time. We had a good time walking around, but spent much of our visit moving from scant shade to some other scant shade. It too looks just as I remember, well worn and crumbling. But at least this time I saw no bushes growing in cracks in the stone. We had planned to also stroll through the Forum, but the line to get in was excruciatingly long.

From the Second Level

Remains of the Cellar

And we went back to the hotel, having had our fill of baking in the sun. We spent a leisurely evening packing for our return flight. The next morning, on our trip to the airport, our van driver drove just like I remember Italians driving, weaving in traffic, cutting people off, horn honking, cursing others for cutting him off.

So, it was a nice trip. The macaques were my favorite part. The heat was my least favorite part. Clearing passport control at Dulles airport, with a 2 hour line, was pretty bad too.

Gibraltar

Gibraltar was easily my favorite place that I visited during my recent trip to Europe. It's a nice, clean, pleasant Mediterranean city.

Our cruise ship docked in heavy fog. My cabin was midship but I could barely see the bridge from the balcony. When I went to the top of the bridge, I couldn't see the stern at all.

Foggy Gibraltar Hides Part of the Ship

The fog was thinning by the time I went ashore with my son. At least, it was thinning on land. On the water it was still pretty thick. My son and I walked to the cable car station, paid the exorbitant fee, and rode to the top of the rock.

At the top station, we had excellent views of the Rock of Gibraltar and the surrounding water. We could see the city below, and we could see the west end of the airport. The fog still blanketed the ships.

Ships in the Fog

The Rock of Gibraltar is so famous. It shows up in the Prudential insurance company logo. I've seen it all my life in pictures and on TV. Well, here it is from my own camera. The cliff really is stunningly steep.

Rock of Gibraltar

After a while enjoying the scenery, we walked along the road on the ridge, to the south, looking for the famous macaques. It didn't take long. We reached a spot where the local wildlife managers had dumped a pile of food: potatoes, carrots, other vegetables. There was a small group of macaques and a larger group of people.

Gibraltar Macaque

I started taking photos, and immediately discovered that the macaques can move very suddenly and quickly. We had been warned about their tendency to steal food and other items, but apparently that warning wasn't heard by all. A large macaque grabbed a woman's tote bag, and while she was hanging on to keep it from being stolen, the macaque reached in and grabbed a candy bar. He then let the tote bag go and proceeded to unwrap the candy bar and eat it.

Eating a Stolen Candy Bar

There were other interesting events: macaques jumping on people, taking food from tourists' outstretched hands, and just wandering around. There was a female carrying a young macaque around as it tried to feed. There were nit-picking macaques. There was one episode where the mother macaque was angry with a male and expressed that emotion by making a gruesome face and clicking its jaw shut repeatedly. Sadly I missed much of this action with my camera because it was going on all around me, happening quickly.

Sleeping

Young Macaque Clinging and Nursing

Females with an Infant

Posing

I came away with lots of photos. It was quite a challenge, given their propensity for sudden movement. I would focus on an individual and wait for action, only to notice that there was a lot of action nearby among other animals. I would switch to them, only to notice that the animal I had started with was now active. I had my 70-200 lens, which was great for tight shots, but man was I working hard to get photos in focus as they kept moving around so much.

For me and my son, this rare chance to walk among semi-wild primates was the highlight of the trip.

Santorini

One of the port calls on my recent cruise was Santorini. We had a guide to take us around the main island, so we hopped on the very first tender and went ashore. At the dock, it was a short walk to the cable car station. At the top station, we had a few minutes to wait before our guide arrived, so I took the opportunity to shoot our ship. Here it has a small armada of tenders and the morning sunlight reflects off the balcony glass to create hot spots on the water surface.

Crown Princess

 Here's a view of town from the cable car station. It was early and it was very quiet.

Santorini

The famous parts of town are on the crater rim. There's a lot of land outside the rim, but it's not as photogenic.

Santorini

Santorini

We drove all over the island, stopping at a lot of places. The sunlight quickly became very unflattering. By the time we got to the spot for the obligatory shot of the blue domes, it was blazing hot and bright.

Santorini

 The cliffs are pretty dramatic.

Santorini

On this beach, there's almost no beach; it's cliff right down to the water, with a very thin strip of walkable sand.

Santorini

 As we sailed away, I was fascinated by the colors of the lava dome in the middle of the caldera, the blue water, and the layers of deposits from the various eruptions.

Santorini

It's an interesting place with unique scenery. I think I'd have liked it more if we'd had more than a few hours. A more leisurely exploration would have been fun. And it was definitely uncomfortably hot. Best to visit in shoulder season.

Athens

Ancient Greece, Athens, the Acropolis, the Parthenon. I've heard about them my whole life. I finally got to see Athens and the Acropolis.

The Parthenon

 It was hot. It was crowded. It was worth the trip. Visitors were not allowed inside and there's a lot of restoration work underway. The crane and scaffolding definitely diminish the view.

The Parthenon

 It was impossible to get a shot without a lot of people in the way.

The Acropolis

 The Acropolis has very steep, high walls.

The Lights are Coming On

After visiting in the morning, I went to a nearby hill as the sun set. I was joined by hundreds of other people who were there to watch the sun set and the lunar eclipse that was visible that night.

Full Dark

These last few shots (above and below) were an exercise in experimentation and patience. I was trying to travel light, so I left my tripod at home and used a Gorillapod. The camera and lens combination was pretty heavy, so I set it up with the base on the ground and the legs splayed out horizontally to steady the camera. This meant the viewfinder was only inches from the ground and I had to lie down to look through it. This made focusing and changing settings kind of tough. I was glad for the flashlight I brought. I used autofocus and manual exposure mode. After a few test exposures, I used mirror-up mode, with a cable release, to shoot. And I had to keep adjusting my shutter speed as the light changed.

Lunar Eclipse Early Phase

 The moon rose with the eclipse already underway, and there was a definite tint while the moon was in the penumbra. Shooting the Parthenon was a breeze compared with the moon. The Parthenon hasn't moved in 2000+ years. And the exposure settings didn't change after the sun was down and the lights were on. The moon, however, was constantly in slow motion and getting darker. I had to recompose periodically.

Lunar Eclipse Hides Part of the Moon

And finally the moon entered the umbra, leading to the darkest lunar eclipse I've ever seen. What a stroke of luck that my travel plans placed me in a location where I could photograph this. The only thing that would have made it cooler is if the moon had risen, eclipsed, behind the Parthenon. Sadly they weren't in the same field of view.

Photography as a Passenger on a Cruise Ship

Should I Take My DSLR on a Cruise?

I recently took a cruise on the Crown Princess. This was my second cruise. My first was on the Pacific Princess from Vancouver Canada to Whittier Alaska. I used my camera a LOT in Alaska, shooting glaciers, wildlife, and landscapes/seascapes. But this trip was in the Mediterranean, and I wondered whether I'd see wildlife or good landscapes or cityscapes that I'd want to photograph.

Crown Princess

While packing for the trip, I researched the ports at which we were scheduled to dock. I researched cruise ship features in general. I checked blog posts made by other passengers on that specific ship. I read posts by photographer passengers on cruise ships in general. I wanted to have a good idea whether to bring my gear and what pieces to bring. Here's how it worked out.

First, I didn't buy the gear to leave it at home. Photography is my hobby, and I'm going to take advantage of any opportunity to enjoy it. The real question was, what should I bring?

I saw several threads debating this very topic. Some people said, leave the gear at home, the ship docks and leaves port at times when the light is poor. Implication: the photos will suck. And when ashore, it's always mid-day when the sun is blazing and the light is very harsh. Again: the photos will suck. And I found that in fact the lighting conditions often were poor. Nevertheless, I managed to get some good results by being thoughtful about when and what to photograph.

So what did I bring? My DSLR, 24-70, 70-200, 300, teleconverter, Gorillapod, GoPro Session, and several mounts for the GoPro. The only thing I never used was the teleconverter.

The 24-70 was useful for much of the time ashore. The 70-200 was absolutely the right lens for Gibraltar. The 300 was perfect for port arrivals and departures. And the GoPro was great for short videos fore and aft, along with port arrival/departure timelapses.

Gibraltar Macaque

Here's the general breakdown by port:

1. Athens: 24-70 at the Acropolis, 300 and GorillaPod for night photography of the Acropolis from a nearby hill.
2. Santorini: 24-70 ashore, 300 for port (aka caldera) departure.
3. Kotor: 70-200 on the hike to the fortifications.
4. Mt. Etna: 24-70
5. Herculaneum: 24-70
6. Gibraltar: 70-200: wide enough for landscapes at the cable car station, long enough for great shots of the macaques, long enough for shots of the town below and ships in the bay.
7. Marseille: iPhone
8. Genoa: iPhone
9. Pisa/Florence: 24-70
10. Rome: 24-70

The ship has a promenade deck that allows passengers to completely circle the ship while outside. Many shots were from this deck. There's also access to the roof of the bridge. That was perfect for photography during port arrivals and departures.

Our cabin had a balcony. I used my GoPro on the balcony for timelapses during port arrivals and departures. I'm still working on it, but I was able to put a nice series of timelapses together. It shows several ports. They really are all quite different from one another. There are big differences among ports in terms of size, facilities, piers and wharves, and maneuvers needed to get docked or to depart.

Alaska is a wildlife photographer's dream. The Mediterranean, not so much. Aside from the Gibraltar macaques and some seagulls, there was hardly any wildlife to speak of. I saw turtles in the Bay of Kotor and dolphins swimming in the ships wake a few times. I don't know if my experience is typical, but this was definitely not a place for wildlife, at least not on this trip.

Bottom line: I'm so glad I brought my gear. I would have regretted leaving the camera behind in Athens and Santorini and Gibraltar especially. It was worth hauling that gear around for the macaques alone. There's no way I would have been able to get the same results with my iPhone.

Beaver Sighting

I've been making regular walks in the neighborhood, passing by the lake, looking for opportunities to photograph the beavers, foxes, and deer that are frequently there. The foxes and deer have been quite shy, running away at first sight or hiding in the shadows in the woods, meaning no photography is possible. But the beavers have been more cooperative.

Coming Right At Me, Tail Faintly Visible

Almost a Mirror Image

I'm not interested in lugging my big lens through the neighborhood so I've been using my 300mm f4. The beavers, deer, and foxes come out at dusk, which means lots of shadows, which means everything is dark. To get anything usable, I'm shooting wide open at about 1/500 sec, and ISO 1600. The dark brown animal in the dark brown water reflecting dark green trees and bushes in the shade means some pretty dim photos.

It's Hot!

Well July has definitely arrived in Northern Virginia. It's hot. It's humid. Even the eagles agree that it's really uncomfortable.

Do Eagles Pant?

There are two eagle nests at the refuge. One of them is now empty. The other had four eagles nearby, two parents (one shown above), and two juveniles. One of the juveniles has fledged. It was perched with its wings spread, seemingly trying to cool down. The other juvenile was down in the nest with only its head showing. The eagle shown here seemed to be panting and not interested in eating or feeding its nest-bound eaglet.