Roma: Day 3
By now we had visited almost every site that we could think of, the only place left on my list was the Domus Aurea (Golden House) which used to be Nero’s Palace and is well known for the abundance of frescos it has on the walls. After looking on the map it turned out that it was very close to our hotel and we had even walked through the park it was in at one point without realising it! However disappointment soon set in when we found that it was completely closed for refurbishment! We had a sit in the park for a while where I took a portrait of Maria with the colosseum in the background.
Putting the disappointment behind us we wandered off to do a little shopping as we needed to get some presents for the people we left back home in Britain. On our travels we came across a square where archaeologists had been excavating a site where 4 temples were situated all within a very small distance from each other. The site, to Maria’s delight, was completely overrun by feral cats. We stayed here for a while admiring the view and watching the cats play/sleep before heading back towards the hotel. On the way back we came across a house/block of flats that was very interesting; extremely close to some ancient columns and interesting and, from a photography viewpoint, in shape. I instantly saw this in b&w. The icing on the cake was the groovy cloudage that was floating above the building, the resultant shot is shown below.
After seeing the city of Rome at night I was itching to take some nice long exposure shots of certain buildings, namely the National Museum and the colosseum. A lot of the main streets were adorned with vendors selling a plethora of different items, some sold tripods for instance. On now, the last night of our honeymoon, I took the opportunity and picked a cheap little tripod for 15 euros. The tripod itself was designed for light point and shoot digi cams and after screwing it to my camera I realised that it could barely support my camera with the 18-70 kit lens; it took a careful balancing act to get it to stay steady over a long exposure (15- 30s) but it was worth the struggle.
Finally we got to the colosseum, my main objective for the long exposure treatment, since it was situated next to a very busy road (read car headlight streaks). There was also a very useful marking in the middle of the road that I used to draw the eye into the shot from the bottom of the frame. The only obstacle now was that I had to crouch down in the middle of said road waiting for the camera to get these 20-30 second exposures while masses of scooters and cars sped past me. Also since the tripod was so small I was virtually lying on the floor to see through the viewfinder! I took about 5 exposures to ensure that I would get at least one nice shot without the tripod giving in, the resultant photo is shown below, I think it was worth it in the end.
Putting the disappointment behind us we wandered off to do a little shopping as we needed to get some presents for the people we left back home in Britain. On our travels we came across a square where archaeologists had been excavating a site where 4 temples were situated all within a very small distance from each other. The site, to Maria’s delight, was completely overrun by feral cats. We stayed here for a while admiring the view and watching the cats play/sleep before heading back towards the hotel. On the way back we came across a house/block of flats that was very interesting; extremely close to some ancient columns and interesting and, from a photography viewpoint, in shape. I instantly saw this in b&w. The icing on the cake was the groovy cloudage that was floating above the building, the resultant shot is shown below.
After seeing the city of Rome at night I was itching to take some nice long exposure shots of certain buildings, namely the National Museum and the colosseum. A lot of the main streets were adorned with vendors selling a plethora of different items, some sold tripods for instance. On now, the last night of our honeymoon, I took the opportunity and picked a cheap little tripod for 15 euros. The tripod itself was designed for light point and shoot digi cams and after screwing it to my camera I realised that it could barely support my camera with the 18-70 kit lens; it took a careful balancing act to get it to stay steady over a long exposure (15- 30s) but it was worth the struggle.
Finally we got to the colosseum, my main objective for the long exposure treatment, since it was situated next to a very busy road (read car headlight streaks). There was also a very useful marking in the middle of the road that I used to draw the eye into the shot from the bottom of the frame. The only obstacle now was that I had to crouch down in the middle of said road waiting for the camera to get these 20-30 second exposures while masses of scooters and cars sped past me. Also since the tripod was so small I was virtually lying on the floor to see through the viewfinder! I took about 5 exposures to ensure that I would get at least one nice shot without the tripod giving in, the resultant photo is shown below, I think it was worth it in the end.
posted by Rhys at 9:56 AM
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