The Green Door of Amalfi
When visiting a new place, one of my favorite things is to just walk around and look for interesting things and views to photograph. Because towns on the Amalfi coast rise vertically from the sea up onto the cliffs, that usually means climbing a lot of stairs to get above the local landmarks and look for interesting views of the towns.
In Amalfi, you can climb up into the town from behind the cathedral. If you climb high enough, you can walk right on over the top of the hills and back down to Atrani, the next town along the coast Prior to getting up that high, there’s a long walkway called the Via Torre Dello Ziro. There are some nice views from here, looking out over Amalfi as you are nearly level with the cathedral tower.
Climbing up higher from the walkway, I looked back and saw a nice green door framed with rough-hewn stone that made up the passageway. Beyond that, the roofs and towers of Amalfi. I set up here and took a few photos, this one is my favorite:
The Green Door of Amalfi
Photos like this can be difficult to take. If you expose for the sky, the rock walls will be very dark and nearly black. If you expose for the walls, the sky will be blown out. There needs to be a very wide dynamic range to get all the detail. Perhaps the best way to expose a photo in this situation is to bracket several exposures — one over exposed, one under exposed, and one in the middle. Many cameras can do this automatically. Some can even combine the photos for you. If the camera can’t do it, you must combine them in editing software such as Lightroom or Photoshop. That’s why I chose to do here — combine three exposures to get one photo that shows all the detail.
