Want to add a bit of atmosphere to your pictures? Then you could add a bit of smoke in photos. One way is to hire a smoke machine, but a more economical way is a simple bee-gun (0r bee-smoker) that bee-keepers use to get into their hives. This burns hessian rags or better still in […]
bee-gun. bee-smoker, smoke, smoke in photography
Filters in the digital age. Photo filters are still useful. Although the effects of filters can be duplicated in Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture etc there is a strong case for creating the effect during the shoot. I use the following: Soft, neutral grey gradual, polariser, neutral density. Soft focus filter. A soft focus filter will […]
cokin filters, cokin system, grad, graduated, Portait photography, Soft focus
In these days of miraculous stitching software is it worth investing in a panoramic head? Well I think so. I use a Manfrotto 438 ( €55/ £50/$75) levelling base, and a 410 geared head(€200)- plus the indispensable hot shoe spirit level (about €5 from eBay the best fiver a photographer ever spent) A panoramic head will ease your Photoshop work […]
hot-shoe spirit level, levelling head, manfrotto 438, manfrotto junior 410, panoramic head, panoramic spirit level
In an out of the way corner of southern Tuscany, about 45 minutes from Orvieto, is a town perched on a volcanic ridge – one of the most evocative sights of Italy – Pitigliano Little Jerusalem as it is popularly known. George Dennis, the noted Etruscologist, described it thus in 1847: Pitigliano is a place of […]
jewish cemetery, jewish ghetto, jewish italy, jewish tuscany, little Jerusalem, Pitigliano, sinagogue
A photography workshop in Italy could not be based in a more appealing place than Ovieto, the most beautiful hill town in all Italy. It stands on its high rock plateau in Umbria, on the borders of both Tuscany and Latium. Orvieto is an ancient city going back to pre-Roman Etruscan times, on the top […]
hill town, Orvieto, Orvieto cathedral, Orvieto Classico, St brizio chapel, St Patrick well, William Turner
Civita Bagnoregio near Orvieto is a really ancient place, melancholic, picturesque…. and dying. The tufa cliffs on which it is built are crumbling into the valley below taking houses with them. Until comparatively recently the road signs pointed to Civita, la citta che muore – the dying city. They were removed as this gloomy message appears to […]
Cinema Paradiso, Civita di Bagnoregio, donkey-derby, Giuseppe Tornatore, St Bonaventura
Lake Bolsena is one of the magnificent sights of Italy. It has been considered a lake of great spiritual importance…. and mystery, for thousands of years. It was the sacred lake of the Etruscans and it still has a powerful effect on anybody who visits its shores. The painter William Turner passed by here in 1795 and […]
Bisenzio, Bizentina Island, lake Bolsena, Marta, saint Christina, Visentium
VULCI is one of the most picturesque spots in Italy and one of Camera Etrusca’s most popular photographic excursions. It boasts Etrusco-Roman ruins, a sinister mediaeval castle, an ancient high bridge, a deep canyon under stalactite cliffs, a rushing waterfall and a deep lake. Vulci was a rich and important Etruscan city founded about 800 […]
D.H.Lawrence, Etruscan city, George dennis, Lucien Bonaparte, Musignano, Vulci, Vulci photo excursion