The Dubrovnik Trip: Ten Lessons Learned
Text and Photography Copyright Jim White - All rights reserved.
Like many European holidaymakers, my wife Vicki and I headed out last weekend to
visit one of Europe's most up and coming destinations, the walled ancient city of
Dubrovnik in Croatia. It was planned to be a combination pleasure trip and photo
safari into the middle ages. While the city itself was extremely welcoming and exceeded
every personal and photographic expectation, the journeys to and from the city proved
to be rather challenging. It was well worth every effort, and we learned a few things
along the way!
The Preparation
My basic packing rule: everything that can be put into the hold goes into the hold
and everything that is high value or irreplaceable goes into the carry-on luggage.
This means that some non-essential photography kit (e.g. filters, tripod mount for
the telephoto lens, battery chargers, etc.) gets packed, leaving the camera body,
lenses, laptop, and tripod to go on the plane. The tripod gets this honour simply
because it doesn't fit into my weekend case, so it stays strapped onto the backpack.
It's a lot to carry, but should the checked baggage go missing, I'd still be in
business as a travel photographer.
The real problem with separating the photography gear is that some pieces can be
overlooked. In this case, the cable that connects my camera to the laptop was left
behind. Now that shouldn't be an issue, especially when you realize that the cable
was bought in Switzerland on a previous trip when its predecessor went missing!
But Dubrovnik is not Zurich, and as it turns out electrical supplies are not so
common in a 13th century city.
The first lesson: Know your destination. Carefully pack everything you need
for that destination. I believe in packing the minimum required kit and no more,
but forgetting something as silly as a little cable can limit your photo shoot dramatically!
(Not to mention ruin your evening as you sit in a corner muttering obscenities and
questioning your own heritage and IQ, but I digress.) Fortunately I found a photo
shop in the old town that was happy to burn DVDs for an extortionate price.
Getting There
Vicki and I are seasoned travellers. One useless but supporting statistic: it turns
out in 1997 my average height above ground was 1,821 feet! So we are very familiar
with the high-speed taxi rides, time-pressured train journeys, late arrivals at
airports, last minute rushes to gates, and ultimately re-routing of flights for
missed connections. We discovered, however, when the serious business traveller,
disguised as a weekend holidaymaker carrying lots of photo equipment, meets the
off-peak travel world the collision can cause serious travel hardships.
Our flight to Dubrovnik experienced what the airline industry terms "an equipment
change". Evidently the scheduled plane was replaced by another jet that had approximately
three fewer seats than the original. So Vicki, I, and a lovely woman named Caroline
(who we subsequently got to know very well) were not going to get on the plane despite
having arrived in good time for our flight. The original version of this part of
the story was pages long complaining bitterly about unfairness of the universe,
but to save you reading time I'll skip a bit.
Frankly British Airways was brilliant about the problem, and got the three of us
onto a flight via Rome. I have high regard for their Customer Service staff who
only deal with irate, self-important customers like me when we're at our stressed-out,
humourless worst. On this occasion they did everything they could, and even provided
a pre-paid taxi waiting in Dubrovnik airport to take us to the hotel (albeit six
hours late) at the end of our ordeal. Thank you BA!
Second lesson: Arrive in good time for flights. Business travel and holiday
travel are two completely different experiences. Miss a flight to a popular business
destination, and there's probably another one in an hour or so. When you are heading
to a destination with limited flights per day (in Dubrovnik's case only a few flights
per week!) ensure that you are there in good time to get on the plane having passed
all check-in, passport control, security, etc., well in advance. Your alternatives
are limited, complex, and disappointing at best!
One other incident along the way happened in Rome's Fumicino airport. Security there
decided that my tripod was a risk, and wouldn't let me carry it on the plane. I
pointed out that it had been carried onto approximately two dozen flights originating
across London, Zurich, Warsaw, Budapest, Prague, Newark, Barcelona, and Frankfurt
within the last 90 days. The Security guard was courteous and reasonable, but adamant
that it was too close to a bat-style weapon to be carried into their secure area.
So my tripod was checked into the hold to go to DBV.
Third lesson: Know the rules, and never, ever argue with airport security.
Enough said.
Scoping the Area
After the travel ordeal, we headed into the city at about 10:30 pm local time Saturday
night to look it over, without the camera. I've had professional photographers suggest
this to me before, and since the sky was black, we decided to leave the Nikon behind.
The old town is small enough to peruse pretty thoroughly in an hour or so. Along
the way we found the greatest jazz bar I've seen since I left NYC! The Troubadour
Hard Jazz Café is a must for an after dinner drink. It has nothing to do with photography
except that it prevented me from getting up for a sunrise image the next day ... and
the next ... Okay, I have no sunrise images. Are you happy now?
Fourth lesson: Scope it out. The walk around the city was a good investment.
I noted obvious shoot locations and places with potential to explore all during
the walk. It made for a much more efficient prioritization of shooting locations
the next evening when twilight time was limited.
Fifth lesson: Research pays. Know where and when the sun will rise and set.
Knowing that sunrise would be behind the Dalmatian Hills, there was no need to forego
late night drinks!
Shooting the Town
Dubrovnik presents a combination of a target rich environment for standard images,
and a lighting challenge due to the extremely narrow streets and steep hills. On
the first day, we walked the wall under overcast skies. It takes about two hours
to circumnavigate the wall that encircles the old town, but that's because you stop,
stare, and shoot a lot en-route!
There is so much to shoot that I found myself constantly changing lenses and using
all focal lengths to compose images. The overcast conditions allowed the telephoto
lens to peer into alleyways that would have been too high contrast under direct
sunlight.
As if to repay us for the prior day's bad luck, the afternoon skies cleared to allow
beautiful golden sunshine into the city starting about an hour before sunset. Vicki
kindly offered to return to the hotel to retrieve the tripod while I re-walked (ran!)
around the city wall re-shooting many of the wide-angle shots again under better
light and sky!
Since the narrow streets would not be good for sunset images, we ran out of the
city to a point where the land jutted out far enough to get a brilliant view. On
the first night, the moon was too high to be effective in the images, and so the
focus was on the colour of the light against the city walls. As the natural light
faded and the city lights began to glow, we ran back into the city for classic twilight
images. This entire exercise (and that is the appropriate word for all that running
around) was re-enacted the following day with a lower, fuller moon in the sunset
images.
Sixth lesson: Bring the tripod. Whenever you are shooting an old city with
narrow streets and difficult lighting, it's best to bring the tripod, even for daytime
shots. You can always mix two images taken on a tripod if the exposure range is
too great for the film/CCD. It's hard to do that with handheld images. If Vicki
weren't so supportive, I would have had to make a choice between the sunlit wall
walk and the twilight images.
Get Out of Town
One day, we took a boat tour out to three of the Elafiti islands. The day featured
hazy sunshine, so polarizer filters were used across the board to try and capture
the beauty of the Croatian culture in these virtually unspoilt locations. All through
the tour, I kept thinking of Andy Morrison's advice about showing Overview, Portrait,
and Detail images to cover a topic. I started with the wide-angle, and proceeded
to the telephoto over and over again. Shoot the coastline, shoot a house, and shoot
a window. Shoot a monastery, shoot a doorway, and shoot a figurine. As a result,
I came back with complete sets of images to support the Dubrovnik trip and each
of the visited islands as well. Thanks Andy!
Seventh lesson: OPD. Overview, Portrait, Detail. Commit it to memory.
I had noted that the boat trip returned to Dubrovnik at sunset, and would be approaching
from the west. Needless to say, that produced quite an opportunity.
Eighth lesson: Spot and take advantage of the opportunity. But that is redundant
to my last article, so let's move on.
Wrapping Up
Having had three DVDs cut during the prior days to see what images had been successfully
captured; I took a pass through them critically to see what could have been done
better. (I also put about 10% of the images aside for a slideshow for my travelling
companions to view as a thank you for putting up with my photographic intrusions
into their holiday.) Most images were okay, but a couple could have had better crowd
patterns, or lighting conditions. So the last day was spent optimizing the collection,
and otherwise chilling out.
Another find for the trip was the Marco Polo restaurant, which was very unassuming,
poorly advertised, and virtually empty when we arrived. We usually don't favour
empty restaurants, but this place was a wonderful exception. The owner was very
friendly; the food was great and reasonably priced, and the experience blew away
the dinner we had at the city's most reputable and expensive restaurant. Why pay
London prices when you're in Dubrovnik! And the Marco Polo was conveniently located
near the Troubadour, so ... no sunrise images again!
Ninth lesson: Enjoy the destination. Don't forget to find out why everyone
else loves to travel when you're working hard to get images!
Going Home
On the way back to England there were no issues whatsoever with the air travel.
However, rail transport in England decided to make up for it. Due to "points failures"
and the scheduler cancelling a train (that we were on) in mid journey; we spent
an inordinate amount of time in train stations we'd never seen before, dashing between
platforms in hopes of making connections.
Tenth lesson: Luggage is heavier on the way home. To the extent that you
wish you'd brought more on your way to a destination, you'll wish you hadn't brought
as much when you need to perform platform callisthenics. So pack everything that
is required, and no more!
About the Author
Jim White is the Editor at Travel Photographer Online Magazine. Jim's work can be
viewed at JimWhitePhotos.com,
in
PhotoPortfolios.net, and in the TPN and NPN forums.
Comments on TPN travel photography articles? Please feel free to send them
to editor@travelphotographers.net.
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