Situated on the Italian Riviera,
and one of the 5 towns which make up the Cinque Terre region,
Vernazza is classified as one of the most beautiful villages
in Italy. With the only natural port in Cinque Terre, it
remains a true fishing village and is perhaps the the most
picturesque of the 5 towns with colourful antique houses
clinging to the cliffs.
'Vernazza
Clifftop Villa' is just one of those houses, sitting atop a
purpose built brick facade and overlooking the small harbour,
the bright yellow paintwork stands in stark contrast against
the blue sky and yet those colours compliment each other
beautifully.
On the day
this was image was made the sky was a perfect clear blue with
only a few small white clouds, which thankfully were out of
shot. This photo was taken with the intention of increasing
the dynamic range and the colour saturation, most specifically
with printing on canvas in mind. That said it does lend itself
well to printing on pure white Fotospeed archival paper too.
The villa was photographed from
several different vantage points and with varying focal
lengths using a Canon 24-105mm lens. This lens is not a tilt
shift lens, and is well known for producing converging
verticals (the edges of the buildings slope inwards when shot
square on) at the widest focal lengths. Of course this
distortion can be corrected in Post Processing but this does
mean extra work and to be fair the corrections don't always
look right to my eye. For this reason I always try to place my
buildings at an angle, although I will shoot some square on
'just in case'.
All 5
towns can be visited on a day excursion via coach from
Florence or Pisa, but the day can feel a bit rushed with
little more than an hour and a half in each village. In fact
the chances are that you will only cover 4 out of the 5
villages as we did. Cinque Terre is popular with hikers, but
the villages are accessible via train from La Spezia, and so
it is probably worth stopping here for a few days and enjoy
the villages at a more leisurely pace.
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