Don't worry if you can't remember this church's formal name. Everyone calls it The Big Church. It's a well-known landmark in Oia, a spectacular cliffside town on Santorini.
If you arrive in Oia by bus, you'll enter the square after passing a row of shops. It's a popular meeting point for tourists and locals alike. It's a busy place. Neighbors chat with neighbors. Travels share stories of their adventures in Greece. Tour groups listen to their guides while snapping countless photos.
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| The Church of Panagia of Platsani - Oia, Santorini |
If you want take a picture of The Big Church without a single person in the frame, you'll have to be patient. Set up your tripod. Compose, focus, and meter. And then wait for a break in the continuous waves of foot traffic - five, ten, fifteen minutes...
And when you meet with that fleeting moment when the square clears, hope for perfect light and maybe a big, fluffy cloud passing behind the church.
Then there's that tree on the left. It actually sits directly in front of the church. I had to use a special optical technique in order to capture the entire front of the church.
Effectively, the image that you see is the left side of a larger, wider image. I didn't want to sacrifice resolution by cropping out part of the frame, so I used a special "perspective control" lens. This allowed me to capture the important section of that larger image without the penalty of cropping.
Santorini is filled with beautiful sites, the Big Church is unmatched for elegance and charm. This was not an easy photo to capture - I had to put some time and thought into it - but in the end, it was worth it.
Camera: Nikon D800E
Lens: Nikon PC-E 24mm f/3.5 II
Light happens. Be ready. Shoot hard.
Copyright © 2014 Daniel R. South
All Rights Reserved
You have shared useful information for all visitors. I’ve appreciated your effort. I’m a tourist and like to go different places around the world. For this purpose I recently came back us west coast tours with my business partner. The Panagia Platsani is a most beautiful and historical church in Oia town. It is a small town in Greece. I visited Greece many times but never get a chance to go this beautiful town. Next I want to visit there and see this historical place of this town.
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