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.