The pool on top of the Renaissance Fira in Barcelona has a fantastic view of the city. As a shutterbug, that ranks pretty high on my list of amenities. I left the big boy camera in the room; all I had was my iPhone 7 Plus. I plan to upgrade, but this is not bad for an outdated iPhone if I do say so myself. I did indeed process it, as I do all my photos, but to get this kind of quality from a four-year-old phone is terrific. When I get the iPhone 11 with its new camera features, maybe I'll take a trip with just the phone. We are getting to the point where big cameras are becoming more of a niche item. Perhaps they'll always be around, but if you can get high-quality photos from a phone, why bother?
In case you were wondering, Platja is the Catalan word for Beach. This particular platja is in Barcelona. I took this panorama on a previous trip to Barcelona in 2017. On my most recent trip, I spent time at other beaches, North and South of here. I created this by stitching together four photos in Lightroom and then worked on it with various other tools such as Luminar and Photoshop. I intended to post this last month but ran out of time before my vacation. Some of the photos I publish represent many hours of work, spread out over time. I thought this was ready last month and then, after getting back, worked on it more before posting it this week. If there is a point in any of this, I suppose its that the end can be a moving target.
This scene is typical among the towns of Spain. In particular, this is in Lloret de Mar along the Catalonian coast. These types of street scenes are a favorite of mine because they convey a nightlife ambiance. I take photos like this by using a high ISO, (in this case, 2000), and a low f-stop, (in this case, 2.8). That combination allows picture taking as though it was daylight. Granted, I do post-processing to get the look I'm after - painterly is a word that describes this type of treatment. We stayed in Lloret de Mar on our first day of vacation. It's a little over an hour from Barcelona airport and is an excellent way to decompress from an all-night flight. And, because the body clock was on North American time, it was easy to stay up late and get these scenes, despite the lack of sleep.
