Real Europe a la Tourist (more or less)

Finally, after a couple of months of inactivity, the Blog has an entry. As usual, there are reasons for this, especially the spring season where work around the house dominates, and then the arrival of the annual tour to Europe begins. This year the tour was to Portugal, up the Douro River Valley with Viking River Cruises, which happened during the last week of May and the first week of June.

Oddly, the Spiritual Energies were not with me on the Portugal excursion. I tried to make the most of it but came to the realization that “shooting” as it is know among dedicated photographers is not the same as “shooting” while on a guided European tour. First of all, there is no tripod (meaning a lack of some kind of sharpness in details), then there is the obvious time of day that tours take place (in bright morning or afternoon light), then there is the pressure of have myriads  of people (literally) around you that are interjecting themselves into your photo attempts. All of this is not to dismiss the really hard task of taking a photo if all of these elements were not there to begin with.  This background had a serious creep into my subconscious predisposing me to a less than creative spirit of discovering the wonders that the scene presented that was before me. The foregoing is my subjective disposition to shooting photographically. How I meet those challenges, ultimately, determines if I take a great photo.

I fought the good fight, and came to the conclusion that despite the limitation that tourist group photography has, that Portugal was a unique place, especially in regard to the rest of Europe. What Portugal still had in its favor was that it was authentic! It had commercialization but it seemed to reluctantly accept this, and favored the more true, rural, and individually developed traditions/customs/foods/ways of life that it wanted. That was refreshing!

This last fact became apparent when on a so-called tasting tour in Lisbon. I did not expect much, but I was more than pleasantly surprised that behind what appeared to be ordinary  store facades there were quite sophisticated establishments. The above photo tries to capture this fact, since within its apparent humble exterior this wine bar was exceptional in how it presented wines and other Portuguese delicacies. I applaud this Portuguese spirit!.

Such was my general impression of Portugal— it was one of humble presentation which morphed  into a true display of taste and style which would equal that of more refined European establishments.

The first posted photo above was shot with a Canon 5 DS, EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 24mm, f/9, 1/125″, ISO 1600, using a B+W Polarizer, and post processed with DxO Optics Pro 11, Adobe Camera Raw, and Nik Color Efex Pro. The second posted photo was taken with a Canon 5 DS, EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 28mm, f/9, 1/800″, ISO 1600, using a B+W Polarizer, and post processed with DxO Optics Pro 11, Adobe Camera Raw, and Nik Color Efex Pro.