Photos

Hi all,

Today I offer you Fiskardo which is located in the north of Kefalonia. It's a lovely town + harbour, I especially liked the colours of the Venetian style houses. I dislike and regret the white sky a lot! Maybe I should have tried different settings on the Ixus 50, but there was less I could do as with my dSLR. Unfortunatly I don't have the PhotoShop skills to replace the sky with a sky from an other exposure, or other photo. I want to learn how to do it though!
I also like less the masts of the boats blocking the sight to the colourful Venetian houses. I would wish the boats from the left 2/3 away, those boats on the right are fine there, to my taste.
Nevertheless I think (and hope) it's still a quite nice shot, and I wanted to share with you the pastel colours of Fiskardo, I hope you look a little through the masts.

Fiskardo is a quite unique town on Kefalonia, because the earthquakes of 1953 didn't ruin most it's architecture, so it's still original. There are houses dating from the 18th century. Fiskardo's houses are the oldest on the island! On the rest of Kefalonia houses needed to be rebuild after the earthquakes, so you won't find these pastel colours often in other towns on Kefalonia.
The population nowadays : ~150 (except for high season)

[]
I have some more info for you, about Fiskardo and it's history, read it if you like :

Fiskardo, the island's northernmost port, and is a well known anchorage for yachts. It took its name from the Norman leader Robert Guiscard, who, during his second invasion of Kefalonia, died of a heart attack on July 17th 1085 near Cape Panormos. It is said that originally he was buried there. Panormos was changed to Piskardo after Guiscard and after the 13th century it became Fiskardo. Because of a peculiarity in the underlying geological strata here, the town was seemingly miraculously saved from the wrath of the earthquake. Fiskardo is perhaps the island's most picturesque town, as the English traveller Miller contended in the 19th century.

In 1975 it was declared a traditional town protected by law from unseemly development. If you leave your car in the parking area you can wander through the narrow streets lined with traditional 18th century houses, with tiled roofs and tiny balconies entwined with grapevines.

Fiskardo has every amenity to offer the visitor. Its jetty has been turned into a shopping centre with tourist shops, tavernas and bars and of course fishing boats, caiques, luxury craft and speedboats. One of the traditional buildings has a mermaid holding a ship painted on its façade. From the middle of the harbour, steps lead up to the Church of Panagia tis Platiteras. Where the church stands today there was in Byzantine times a country chapel. Around 1680 artisans from Souli built a monastery which was demolished in the earthquakes of 1767. It was rebuilt and became quite prosperous during the 19th century. The 1953 earthquakes created the ruins visible today behind the sanctuary. An important fresco dating from 1676 has been attributed to K. Tzane Bounialis.
[/info] [source : astro-holidays.com]


PP
* Crop portion of white sky
* Resize 800px
* Levels
* Shadow/Highlight
* Color Balance
* Saturation (enhancing the colours just a bit)
* USM ~60%, 0,7px, treshold ~1x levels.


Clone stamp was used here and there, aswell as Despeckle on two sections.
Wanted to remove the noise on the trees up that hill, but didn't like the blurry result.

I hope you like it, critiques are more then welcome as always. Be honest.