Kourtaliotiko Gorge, Crete Photo

Photographer’s Note

Taken at a stop on the way south from Rethimno to Preveli through the Kourtaliotiko Gorge in western Crete during a lovely holiday in early July. Fabuously warm weather, beautiful majestic scenery and wild, crazy and fearless Greek drivers made frequent stops the order of the day.

Someone had kindly parked a red jeep in this large lay-by and I thought it made for a bit of foreground interest.

The area shows up quite well on GoogleEarth if you click on Map:[view].

Shot in RAW using a polarising filter and converted and edited in PSE6.

All comments/critiques/advice welcome!

macondo, graffer has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

Urs (2820) 2009-10-07 17:50

Dear John

You are very right, the red - jeep I guess - makes all the difference, otherwise the great gorge would not look that extraordinary. It's a very useful combine of nature and technology. Bold contrasts of the reddish rocks against the deep blue sky. Sharpness is perfect. well done.

Best regards
Urs

graffer (1764) 2009-10-08 2:07

Hello John,

I see, that like Gunnar, you travel with a large red object which is very handy to park at one of the lower "powerpoints" of your photograph!

Joking aside, this is a very fine picture which positively exudes heat. That portable object is indeed positioned just above an intersection of two lines of "thirds", making a strong and satisfying composition.

The gravelly road is a strong curving lead in from the bottom right corner, and those brown-green plants make good foreground interest.

That powerful polarised blue sky – anything paler would have looked a bit namby-pamby in this rugged landscape - tops off the composition nicely.

Kind regards,

Peter.

macondo (13099) 2009-10-08 3:59

Hi John.
A very bold landscape shot, in which the bright red vehicle really does all the work, creating a sense of scale, adding the human element even if it's a machine, and above all making that amazing combination with the deep polarised sky. It's well placed, too. But that shouldn't distract one from the other remarkable thing - the astonishing detail of the rocks and mountain grasses rising up behind the jeep. Superb picture from minimal materials.
Regards,
Andrew

Photo Information

Copyright: John Cannon (tyro) (2664)
Genre: Places
Medium: Color
Date Taken: 2009-07-12
Categories: Nature, Transportation
Camera: Canon 20D, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di-II LD SP AF, Hoya 67mm Circular Polarizer
Exposure: f/8, 1/400 seconds
More Photo Info: view
Map: view
Photo Version: Original Version
Travelogue: Crete, July, 2009.
Date Submitted: 2009-10-07 16:00