In Greece

by Cecilia C
(Canada)

Standing on a mountain among ruins. I just wanted to capture the two things together.


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Ancient Greece – a photo opportunity around every corner!

Ruins are everywhere in Greece. The ancients were certainly busy folk!

In the same way that Spanish tourists can't help but leave Spain wearing a sombrero and clutching a straw donkey under their arm; photographers can't leave Greece without a memory card full of ancient ruins.

So what’s the best way to photograph them? Well, Cecilia has made a reasonable job of this – she's got close to a stone column to add some foreground interest, and kept some scenery in the background.

In my mind however, the real stars of the shot are the ruins. The background should be secondary.

Now what if Cecilia had zoomed in close to the detail on that column, throwing the background out of focus in the process?

I think that would have made a stronger photo.

I would also hunt around for more such shots, and then combine them afterwards in a montage of the ruin site. There's an example of this technique here.

Another way to improve photos of ruins such as these is to convert them to black and white. For some reason black and white photography really suits ruins.

Thanks for the submission Cecilia, and I hope there are a few suggestions for all of us here.

Ed.

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