Pearl of the Adriatic

Hopefully you didn’t notice, but I was away last week, with scheduled blog posts keeping things going around here in my absence.  I spent 8 lovely nights in Croatia, on the Adriatic coast, split between Dubrovnik and the island of Mljet.  Naturally I brought my camera, and took photographs (though Aoife says not as many as she expected).  I’m going to post a selection over the coming week so the blog will become a bit of a travelogue for the next few days, but as always I’ll discuss the photography too.  If you’ve not been to Croatia, this week on the blog might put it on your list of places to go.  If you have been there, hopefully it will bring back happy memories.  Today we start, as my trip did, in Dubrovnik.

We were staying for four nights in the old town, the most historic part of the city, built largely in the 15th century, and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  And for good reason.  It is a place like no other – a superbly preserved fortified town that has survived war as recently as 1992, and was subsequently rebuilt in it’s original style.  It’s nickname is, deservedly, the Pearl of the Adriatic.

I managed to take in Dubrovnik without taking in a lot of its history.  This was for two reasons.  Firstly, even in September it was exceptionally busy and an attempt to take in some of the old town’s museums and churches was quickly aborted due to the crowds of tours off cruise ships that docked daily.  To some extent it feels like the city is a victim of its own success.

Secondly, the day that we did spend sight-seeing, when we walked around the walls of the city, I opted not to take the audio tour in favour of taking photographs, although Aoife did keep me updated with some nuggets of information as we completed the circuit.

The walls are worth walking if you ever do visit, and even if you don’t take in the audio history, visually there is plenty on offer.  I found the views got better as you went around, and felt I was getting better photographs as time went on.  The shot above is taken about half way around, from the point where the walls jut furthest out to sea.  In fact this shot is showing the city outside the walls, but even the new town manages to be quite aesthetic.

Photographically, this shot was challenging because of the time of day at which it was taken – namely the middle of the afternoon, with an almost cloudless sky, and a very strong sun.  That resultant hard light from the sun made it difficult to get a good exposure, so I increased my chances by taking a series of bracketed shots around what the meter was deciding was the correct exposure, knowing that I could later pick the best one to post process.

I also photographed in RAW format, and used Aperture to post process the RAW file, using its full abilities to recover detail in the shadow areas while maintaining detail in the highlight areas.  The fact that I’m starting with a 12-bit RAW file rather than an 8-bit JPEG file (meaning the RAW file has 16 times more information in it) greatly improves my odds of being able to produce a decent final image.

Shortly after capturing this shot I turned my attention away from the sea and back towards the old town, as you will see tomorrow.