Roman tunnel
Oct, 2019Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This is the Grotta di Seiano in Naples, Italy. This tunnel was excavated by Roman slaves to provide land access to the Roman villa of Pausilypon, which was only accessible by sea prior to the construction of the tunnel. The tunnel is about 780 meters long and is carved through a ridge of volcanic rock. The stone arches are a much more contemporary addition to the tunnel, intended to provide greater structural integrity.Time
This photo was taken on our return trip, after visiting the ruins of the Roman villa. I had taken some photos near the entrance on the way in, using the natural light at the entrance, but on the return, I stopped to take some additional shots. This would make it late morning, not that it really mattered what time it was, this far underground.Lighting
Unlike my initial photos, taken near the tunnel entrance, this photo is largely illuminated with artificial light. The tunnel is now lighted with electric lighting along its entire length, although it isn't particularly bright, especially when entering on a bright, sunny day, like the day we visited. Still, the image stabilization in my camera allowed me to shoot a slightly longer exposure without a tripod or other physical stabilization. If you look carefully, you can see the color of the light change on the right side, about halfway back, where there is a side tunnel that allows some natural light into the tunnel.Equipment
This was shot with my Lumix G-85 mirrorless camera, using an Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 14mm-150mm Zoom Lens mounted. This is my standard travel set-up. The G-85 has some powerful features, including a wide range of built in filters and some really nice digital image stabilization. The Olympus lens gives me a nice range from wide-angle to telephoto in a single lens, and while it isn't the fastest lens in the world, it is a great general purpose lens when you don't want to be weighed down with lots of extra gear.Inspiration
Our visit the the The Pausilypon Archaeological Park was drawing to an end and we were headed back to the park entrance, which required us to backtrack through the tunnel. About halfway through the tunnel, I stopped and looked back. I was struck by how different it looked in the artificial light, as compared to the natural lighting near the entrance. I snapped a few shots, tweaking my settings between shots. This was my favorite of the set.Editing
While this photo was shot using one of the built-in filters in the camera (I'm not sure exactly which one, but I think I was shooting in the 'Expressive' mode, which increases the color saturation). But other than that, I did not process the image...this is how it came out of the camera.In my camera bag
When I travel, I normally take my camera, with my zoom lens, I also bring a macro lens and a fast prime lens on the trip, but may not carry them with me all the time, depending on what my plans for the day are. If I'm going to be doing a lot of walking, I often leave the extra gear behind, just to save weight, unless I know I'm visiting a location where they would be useful. I also *always* carry an extra battery or two. They don't take up much space, and I hate the feeling of seeing a gorgeous potential shot only to find that my battery is dead.Feedback
Tunnels are great places to play with perspective and vanishing points. The challenge, of course, is that tunnels come with challenging lighting. If you can use a tripod, the lighting challenges are greatly simplified, but otherwise you want to be sure to use a camera with robust image stabilization. Play with angles and viewpoints, to see how the lines of the tunnel look from different perspectives. The shot from the middle of the tunnel isn't always the most interesting perspective.
