I know it’s been a while since we visited Greece, but I’ve finally had a chance to start going through my back log of pictures. When I originally went to Symi with my wife, Katrina, I was disappointed with the lighting when I took these pictures.
We had taken a day trip boat ride on The Aegean Prince II (a high speed hydrofoil) from Kos to the towns of Panormitis and Ano Symi on Island of Symi. We arrived in Panormitis early in the morning. Unfortunately Panormitis faces west, placing the morning sun behind its buildings for most of my shots. This greatly limited the angles available to me while I was shooting Panormitis.
Around mid-day we boarded The Aegean Prince II again and travelled around the island to Ano Symi, which of course faces mostly east, placing the late day sun behind many of its buildings. Fortunately, Symi is a larger town that is arranged in a horseshoe around its bay, providing more angles to photograph without the sun. Also, when we first arrived it was early afternoon and the sun was high in the sky. While this kept the sun out of most my photos, the sun is brightest at this time of day and tends to washout many of the colors in my pictures. Luckily I always use a high quality polarizing filter whenever I photograph in the sun. This helped to reduce the suns negative impact on my pictures, but it could not eliminate its effects.
I can understand why the Dodecanese boating company that scheduled (I apologize, but its name escapes me at this time) our boating tour of Symi preferred to end the day in Ano Symi. It is larger with more merchants and restaurants. I’m confident that the merchants in no small part sponsor these excursions for the business that it brings to their island. However, it would be nice if the boating companies provided a schedule for those of us looking for the perfect picture, who would love the opportunity to visit Ano Symi in the morning and Panormitis in the late afternoon. I’m sure the lighting would be superb.
Needless to say, when I got back to Kos in October 2013, I wasn’t excited to look through my photos of Symi. So, I stuck them away with the backlog of pictures I have on my hard drive and haven’t looked at them until last week when I was pleasantly surprised at how many pictures had turned out well. While I’m sure I could have had even better pictures in the proper lighting, these pictures are still worthy to be shared with everyone on my website. So please check out my photos of Symi. And check back again soon, as I continue to clean out my backlog of pictures from Greece, Puerto Rico and New York..
