That Time of Day



When taking travel pictures, it cannot be stressed enough that the time of day is so important. Well, there are always occasions when it doesn't matter much about the light -- getting the image is the key factor, although this is more to do with news and reportage photography. But to make tourist pictures become travel photography, the right light to shoot in is paramount.

Recently, I've traveled to Rome, Italy, courtesy of friends who asked me to look after their house. This was luxury; I was there long enough to pick the right time to shoot! So I did, and I got a set of pictures which should do well, since most major tourist attractions can be photographed any number of times because of changing fashions in clothes, cars and even street furniture -- not to mention light.

So here is a rundown of some of the main sights in Rome and when I considered the best times of the day to shoot them, in mid-summer with the sun in the right place for the classic view:

1 Spanish Steps - 2-3pm
2 Colosseum - 5-6pm; 7.30pm even better
3 Trevi Fountain - 2-3pm
4 Castel Sant'Angelo - 10am-2pm
5 Piazza Navonna - 11am-12pm
6 St Peters - 10-11am for views of the church
4-5pm Top of St. Peters Dome

You will get good results at other times, of course, but the kind of results the above times give are something like you will see on postcards everywhere in Rome.

I found that I had to use the 20mm lens a lot more than usual, and surprisingly even the 17mm lens in many places, but not just to get a 'wacky' image. At the Trevi Fountain, for instance, the only way to get the whole thing in frame was to use the 17mm and get right up to centre front, which meant that although there were many hundreds of people there, I didn't get a single one in the shot!

Now I have had the films processed, had a look through them with the usual mixture of happy surprises and gloomy disappointments, and got them off to my main photo library to be looked at for selection. Hopefully they will pick enough and get them online fairly smartly, and that's when it gets really exciting -- waiting for those checks to roll in!

Jeremy Hoare is a freelance travel photographer residing in London, England. Phone/Fax: +44 20 7722 2065. E-mail: jeremyhoare@hotmail.com. Web: www.travelwriters.com/jeremyhoare.

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How to Fix a Crisis

By Mark Abouzeid

Like in most professions, "Murphy's Law" is one of the ingriedients. Here's how I combat some of them.

Fogged lenses - While trying to shoot during the summer in Oman, my lenses, viewfinder and internal glass would fog up continually -- ruining every shot.

I was given one day to capture the Chedi Hotel in Muscat while temperatures reached 42% celsius with 100% humidity. My camera had been inside air conditioning during the night and the swing in temperature was too great for it.

Solution…leaving the camera in its sling bag, I left it outside for one hour before shooting. This gave the camera enough time to slowly warm to the outside temperatures reducing continual condensation. Before shooting, I took a microfilter cloth and cleaned the moisture from any area of the glass or body that still showed humidity.

Given that the shoot was done in three stages during the day and night, this added three hours to the job but ensured that once I started shooting, the lenses stayed clean and free of moisture.

Desert Rain - Given that a considerable amount of my work is done in the Middle East, I have had to adapt processes for keeping my cameras working while shooting in the desert.

Blowing sand is deadly to the workings of any camera type and will make the sensor almost unusable after even a quick lens change. I am accustomed to this, so I always carry two bodies whenever I shoot in the desert. I fit a wide angle lens for landscapes on one, and an 18 - 200 lens on the other. This covers 95% of my shooting needs and ensures I won't have to change lenses exposing the sensor until I am back inside.

But here was a time that was different. A sudden freak rainstorm provided me with a rare opportunity to capture the flooding of Wadis (river beds) that typically remain dry for years. Not having expected rain in the desert, I had no umbrella and the storm was too strong to risk shooting without protective cover for my gear.

Solution…I always carry a large zip-lock freezer bag for the rare case that I might have to change lenses on location. Using it and a bit of common sense, I have been able to avoid ruining the sensor even in sand storms. By putting the camera in the bag, pointing the lens out the opening and tearing a small hole for the tri-pod mount, I was able to protect the camera almost entirely. The only part exposed was the front glass which I wiped with a micro-filter cloth before each shot. I was drenched by the end of the shootinbg session, but the camera remained dry !

For the future, after speaking with some fellow photographers, I have decided to buy a diving bag for my camera. It's a plastic bag with lens fitting. This will protect against any weather conditions while still allowing the flexibility to control all aspects of the shoot.

Oops…I dropped the camera.

Ok, it happens to all of us. In the excitement to capture a dam in Jordan, I lept over a guard rail only to fall flat on my face…camera first. The power block broke and the camera stopped working. As luck would have it, I only had one body with me so, for all intensive purposes, my assignment was over. Renting another body was impossible at Petra, Jordan, so what could be done?

The solution - not wanting to return completely empty-handed, I found a photo shop that sold disposable digital cameras. It was a beautiful day; the light was perfect. With my assistant making numerous unkind jokes about the quality of my equipment, I set out to see if my eye was good enough to take useable shots with no ability to change lenses, adjust white balance, or even the focus settings. I spent hours finding the perfect angle, light and position for each shot. When I returned to civilization, I had the camera developed for high res CD…and, the final results (with a little help from photoshop) were more than acceptable to the client, who intended to use the photos in a travel book to augment prior work.

Mark Abouzeid is a freelance photographer, specializing in travel, hospitality and architecture. His work has been seen in The Washington Post and Arizona Republic Magazine. He regularly travels on assignment throughout Europe and the Middle East. His Tuscan landscapes and architectural work supply the websites Villasintuscany.com, Tuscanyandvillas.com and InTuscany.net. Mark was awarded the Standard of Excellence from the Web Marketing Association in 1999 and 2000 for his contributions. He has studios in Greenwich, London, as well as Tuscany, Italy. http://www.markabouzeid.com