It was an exciting moment when I bought my first digital compact camera. It would mean that I could make mistakes and learn from them, since I could select what photos to print and what settings to test. Unfortunately, it would also mean that I was about to lose all customization of shutter speed and aperture value, but I guessed that the “automatic little miracle” would know what I wanted to expose and where to focus. Of course nothing was like that.
The camera exposed fast and correctly in bright light, but in the night everything came out dark, because it didn’t have a bulb exposure mode nor a manual exposure compensation setting or ISO boosting. So, having paid almost 350 euro at that time, the only thing I could do was to keep shooting to make my framing better!!! In fact, there were some beautiful photos shot with this little camera and they were more impressive on paper rather than on screen. Olympus is famous about complementing colors in their cameras and this camera was no different.
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| Mavromati - ancient springs |
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| Betsi area near Mavromati - St George church |
My first attempts on sunsets, difficult for every compact camera with the most memorable from this era being the one I shot my last day on my previous job, a sunset behind the Parthenon of Athens with the sun shining on top of the Parthenon. I will never forget that day since it was the best day at that job :-P!!
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| Kalamata sunset |
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| Sunset in Athens - The sun is setting behind Parthenon |
The following summer, I took the camera with me on holidays around Messinia, Koroni, Methoni, Kalamata, and Mavromati which actually had a lot of themes to shoot. I went several times there because I liked the place that was full with ancient ruins I had never seen anywhere before. You could touch them with bare hands and entrance was still free, walking in a big area that new ruins were excavated all the time.
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| Greek village near Neda |
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| Koroni sea through a crack in the wall |
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| Methoni - Castle entrance |
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| The pyramidal construction inside the castle of Methoni yard |
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| The castle of Methoni from a different angle of view |
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| Construction worker at the castle of Methoni |
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| Tourists (like myself) walking on the stone pavement, leaving the lighthouse |
My best shots in that area were taken much more later on, when I decided to arrive there early in the morning (around 9:00) and the morning sun gave me the best lesson I will hardly ever forget. The morning light is the best light for white subjects! Any other part of the day the light is populated with different color rays and goes from white to yellow, to orange, to blue. Of course neither of them is bad when combined with the proper subject, but that’s another story…
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| Setting sun through the trees in my village |
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| Carving took me two days in the noon sun. Those crazy days... |
It was an exciting moment when I bought my first digital compact camera. It would mean that I could make mistakes and learn from them, since I could select what photos to print and what settings to test. Unfortunately, it would also mean that I was about to lose all customization of shutter speed and aperture value, but I guessed that the “automatic little miracle” would know what I wanted to expose and where to focus. Of course nothing was like that.
