You may not know this but Fira is on top of the Santorini caldera. And cruise ships visit Santorini for the day. And the question is this – how do all the passengers get from down there at sea level up to the top of the caldera and the town of Fira?
By cable car is the answer. Or by foot or by donkey. But the Santorini cable car must be the easiest method. And here is a photo of the cable car in Fira, which you can access from the path from Fira to Imerovigli.
And this is clearly something that I had not thought about that much – it was all a bit of a surprise to me! Yes I have to admit that I did not know that there was a cable car in Fira!
Why do I like this photo so much?
Well it is a different subject from the other photos of Santorini that I have shared so far, and the scene tells a different story. This is the story of modern day tourism, of day-trippers visiting this this small Greek Island for a few hours and then going back to their enormous cruise liners.
Not that there is anything wrong with that. If you search the internet you will find endless people complaining about the volume of day-trippers to Fira. This is my take on the subject.
If you don’t like Fira when it is full of day-trippers then don’t go to Fira when it is full of day-trippers. Go at another time. Don’t complain – the people on the ships don’t have a choice in the matter, but if you are based on the island you do.
I didn’t plan the timing of our visit to Fira, but expected it to be busy, it being lunchtime and all that. So it was busy. If we wanted to go when it was dead quiet we would have gone at a different time.
Santorini is popular for a reason – it is a stunning place.
As I said this photo is a bit of a contrast from all the other photos on this website, most of which are taken with no people or signs of people, from locations where I am in complete splendid isolation out on the caldera somewhere.
And I like this photo because it conveys modern tourism on Santorini.
How did I decide on this composition?
Well there is a path from Imerovigli to Fira. And it takes you right past the cable car. And from the path at the time we were there choosing a great composition is secondary to not getting crushed by the passing crowds!
So no science behind this one – I just got the composition I wanted and then moved on. I literally took this one photo and that was that.
I wanted the cable car visible in the corner and the cruise ships on the water – both of these in the image with all that stuff in-bewteen was the story of this image.
Where was the photo taken?
The red tab is the marker for the port in Santorini, which is called Athinios Port Santorini. This is an extract from Google Maps.
And here is the extract from the Map Module in Lightroom Mobile. I took the photo where the number 5 tab is.
Funny – the ship that is both map extracts looks erm identical. I had never even thought that the Lightroom Map Module would use Google Maps. Then again why wouldnt it? I had just never thought about it.
Any way if you were ever in doubt here is the proof!
What time of day was the photo taken?
12:33. Lunchtime. And my was it busy! At times you had to queue to squeeze through the narrower bits of the path. Looking at the photo you can clearly see two enormous cruise liners moored at the port, who had I assume both dropped off their day trippers by the time we got there.
Lunch time. Of course they had.
Who needs to plan things eh? The way I do things you get the authentic experience of the place!
What photography gear did I use to get the shot
- Canon 6D
- Canon 24 – 105mm F4 L Lens
- Hanheld – my Manfrotto 190 Go tripod with geared head was in my bag
- Peak Design Everyday Backpack
- Loupe Viewer – yes I still use it even hand-held
- No red hat
- Oakley sunglasses
- Red shoes (feet aching a bit)
- Squeezed against a wall by the passing masses.
- Starving pre-lunch so running on empty!
What camera settings did I use?
- Aperture F8
- Shutter speeds 1/1000th second, 1/4000th second and 1/250th second.
- ISO 400
- Back-button focus
- Focal length 24mm
- AV Mode
- 10 second self-timer
- RAW format
I notice that I take a lot of photos with my old faithful Canon 24-105mm lens at 24mm. Interesting. And I tend to use my Canon 17-40mm lens at 17mm most of the time.
Maybe I need to rethink my camera lens selection – sounds like I could do with a 14mm lens!
One interesting fact about the image.
When we got to the cable car from the footpath from Imerovigli to Fira it was a surprise to me. You might have gathered by now that I am not a big fan of research and planning a location that I am photographing. I just like to turn up and see what I find.
The truth is that I did not know that there was a cable from Fira down to the port until I walked into it!
And you can’t see all the people squeezing past as this photo was taken at a stupid time of day!
Is there a behind the scenes video of this shoot?
No. As I was squeezed against a wall it was a case of take the photo and move on.
How did I process the image?
This is how.
To be honest there was not a huge amount of processing work to be done. I wanted to make sure that the photo had that warm glow of noon sunshine, and the lovely bright blue water was just that.
I did some local dodging and burning around the foreground to provide a bit of depth to the image and make the cable car bottom right as prominent as possible. And a bit of cleaning up in Photoshop to finish the image.
What could I have done to improve the image?
I would love to go back there at another time, sunset would be cool, and capture this scene with the setting sun and an actual cable car going down to the port. That would be pretty cool!
And what are my thoughts on this image?
It is a travel photography image that tells the story that I want to tell. It also takes me back to that baking hot lunch-time in Fira.
If an image takes me back to the place I took it then it has done it’s job!
Enough of me – what do you think of this image?
Let me know what you think of this photo, and also let me know of your experiences of the cable or the footpath down to the port, be it by foot or donkey.
One last thing
If you want to buy this image, or want to speak to me about future collaboration email me at sales@rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk.
Rick McEvoy ABIPP – Photographer, writer, blogger
