Ancient Segesta

Sicily is, at least for me, the ideal combination of sea, mountains and monuments. The ancient ones, for instance, are set in such places here that they impressed me more than in Greece itself. The first that I saw were in a place called Segesta.

You have to pay an entrance fee and then, on foot or by bus, set off to explore the whole area. It consists chiefly of a beautiful ancient temple, which is very well preserved, and an amphitheatre lying right at the very top of the site. The climb follows a footpath and partly a road and isn't too demanding. As you can see in the photos, the spots where both structures stand are truly exquisite. The ancient builders could hardly have chosen better. From the amphitheatre the view is so perfect that no theatrical performance, however fine, could surpass it.

Because there was plenty of light, I didn't even have to get out the tripod at an aperture of f9.0, and I shot handheld. The higher aperture was chosen so that even the grass close to the lens would be sharp and detailed. To make the clouds stand out better, I used a polarising filter. Only basic edits were then made to the photos on the computer. In the amphitheatre photo, 2 figures were retouched out, because it was essentially impossible to wait for a moment when none of the tourists would be spoiling the magnificent view.

In the next photo you can notice that even in a tourist spot where someone is always walking about and “getting in the way”, it's possible to create the illusion of a completely secluded corner of nature. All you have to do is find a suitable spot and make use of the undulations of the terrain, the trees and the bushes. At the same time, this often lets you hide various railings and other elements that would either be distracting in the shot or that you'd otherwise have to retouch out with great effort. What's more, by concealing part of the photographed subject you spark the imagination, because the viewer will have to picture the whole scene in their head. In cases like this it's also possible to work with depth of field, keeping only the main subject sharp (though that would require a lens with a longer focal length).