Visiting Mani II
Written by Saturday, 25 December 2010 10:26
For the following day we had planned a visit to Vatheia. On our way back we were to stop at Gerolimenas, a small port in the west side of this peninsula. Vatheia is located almost half way up a rocky mountain and is mostly uninhabited now. A number of houses are derelict or partly derelict. Yet the village is impressive to see. The view of the coastline is breathtaking while the local architecture is imposing, to say but the least. On a sunny day Vatheia is a unique for landscape photography: crisp, high contrast, scenes set against the mountain or the sea far below. On our way there, we could not resist taking a photo of one of the picturesque little beaches from above, a small touch of summer.
As you approach Vatheia you get the feeling that you are traveling back in time. Upon entering the village you feel as if people left it the previous day but you know this is not true. We decided to split in two teams and make a tour of the village independently in order to avoid shooting the same thing from the same angle.
We saw very few people during our visit at Vatheia. Most of them were tourists like us. In contrast, we saw quite a few very friendly cats (almost all of them black) and a puppy. Naturally we did not ignore them. The white dust on the cats is biscuit crumbles; the poor animals were starving and all we had to give them was biscuits. Next day it was party time for our new friends. We planned a special visit to Vatheia just to see them and give them some chicken. The cats recognised us from a distance and run to us; we have never seen an animal devouring its food so fast as they did.
Gerolimenas is a typical port. The town has the architectural style of Mani. Other than that, as with all towns heavily relying on tourism, it has gradually lost its traditional character. We took a couple of shots and stopped for a drink as it was a long and extremely hot day. At this point we decided to take a photo of all the equipment we had been carrying with us. We used a mobile phone for this shot to ensure all parts of our arsenal would be included. On our way back to Areopolis we took some landscape shots as the sky was particularly interesting.
The programme for the following day included a visit to Gytheion (the major port of the prefecture of Laconia) and the Delta of river Evrotas. Both places are outside the boundaries of Mani (with regards to the mountainous terrain) so we expected to see different things. Gytheion is a rather large city by comparison to the places we had been so far. The city is built around the port which (thankfully) still hosts old, colourful boats built of wood.
Marina, Mahi and George P. really enjoyed watching the fish jumping out of the water, chased by a Μediterranean barracuda (Sphyraena sphyraena) and spend quite a while trying to capture the scene. George R. and Nicholas preferred to get their macro lenses and shoot some unusually large insects feeding on drying octopus.
The sun was in the middle of the sky so we thought it would be wise to set off for our next destination; vertical light is the worst type of light for shooting landscapes. We decided to start with the Delta of river Evrotas to check for visiting or local wildlife. On our way back to Gytheion we would stop at Navagio (a shipwreck) to get some shots of it in the sunset.
The Delta did not look impressive in August; the water level was too low, due partly to the time of the year and partly to the fact that the river is used to supply water to the orange orchards in the area. We spotted some raptors but the spotted us long before we saw them so they gracefully flew away while they were still far beyond the reach of our lenses. We packed our landscape and tele lenses away and mounted our macro lenses on the cameras. The day was humid and extremely hot (around 40oC). Yet the light was perfect to shoot some of the very many magnificent damselflies which were abundant in the area, in every size and colour imaginable.
When the sun was low on the horizon it was time for us to move on. The ship wreck was an impressive sight indeed. Children were playing on the beach so we had to wait till there was nobody in the frame to take the shots we wanted. The most daring of us (Nicholas and George R.) got in the sea as far as they could, carrying their cameras, to try different angles.
We returned to Gytheion for evening shots and dinner:
Our last day in Mani we visited Porto Kagio at the south of the peninsula. The road takes you up to the mountains from where the view of the coastline is really impressive. The village itself has a lovely beach; there is a small path leading to one of the local capes. We later found out there is also a path leading to cape Taenaron where we could have taken some great sea shots.
For our last evening we had planned a visit to Limeni to shoot the sunset. It was a somewhat risky plan; if the weather was not good the sunset session would prove a disaster. Luckily the weather obliged. The sun was bright and there was not a sign of a cloud in the sky (though we could have done with some small clouds to add some interest to the photos). While driving to Limeni we spotted quite a few nice locations for sunset photos, so this time we selected four different vantage points to take shots. One was facing the village of Limeni, one was at sea level, one was in the village and the last one was quite high on the mountain facing both directions. We each chose a spot and sat waiting - this way we would not miss interesting angles.Seeing shots taken at the same place and time from four different points from four different photographers using different sets of cameras, lenses and settings is always thought provoking.
It was time to leave Mani and travel to Monemvasia. Five days is not enough to see a place, definitely not enough to 'live' it and get a feel for it. It has been said that "If you just scroll through Mani, you need three days to see it, if you walk you will need three months and if you want to see its "soul" you will need three lifetimes. One for the sea, one for the mountains and one for the people". We did our very best to see as much of it as possible in the short time we had there; still we felt we missed a lot.
N.B. During one of our coffee breaks at Gerolimenas we realised how much photo equipment we were carrying with us. All in all, we had two cars full, most of it ready for immediate use. Here it is:
Equipment used:
- Cameras: Nikon D3x, Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 7D, Nikon D700, Nikon D2x, Nikon D300, Nikon D80.
- Lenses, Nikon mount : Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8, Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 (two of them), Nikkor 18-200mm VR, Nikkor 10,5 mm f/2.8 fisheye, Nikkor 28-105mm, Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR, Nikkor 300mm f/2.8, Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro 1:1, Tamron 180mm f/3.5 macro 1:1, Sigma 20mm f/1.8, Sigma 15mm f/2.8 fisheye.
- Lenses, Canon mount: Canon EF 24-105mm IS f/4 , Canon EF 100-400mm IS f/4.5-5.6, Canon EF 180mm f/3.5 macro 1:1.
- Six flash units, two tripods, tons of batteries, chargers for all types of batteries, remote release controllers, cleaning kits and two cars to carry them along with us.
That apart, we had two laptops with external hard drives to download the photos at the end of each day. In addition to adding to the overall weight and volume of the things we were carrying, downloading the photos at the end of each day was a time consuming process. We needed on average about one hour daily to download the photos, clean the cameras and lenses, recharge all the batteries used (overnight), check for spots on the sensors and get ready for the next day. Lenses most likely to be used (according to the places we were to visit) were mounted to the cameras beforehand. Lenses which could be needed were ready on the back seat while stuff less likely to be used was left in the trunk (or left back in the hotel).
We took about 10.000 photos during our ten day trip which amounted to almost 150 GB of space on our hard drives, since we all shoot in RAW. Selecting the ones to include in this presentation was a tough task. We hope you enjoyed it.
Photos by the authors.
Notes
(1) A short presentation of Mani is available at Itilo.com
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