Of the five villages that make up the breathtaking region of Cinque Terre on the Ligurian Coast in Italy, the two most photographed are Vernazza and Manarola. We made Vernazza our base a couple of years ago and I had ample time to build a reasonable portfolio of Vernazza images (the best ones can be seen in this album and will undoubtedly pop up in this series of posts in the future).
Manarola was a different matter. For a variety of reasons, we gave ourselves a criminally short window in our itinerary to get a taste of the village. In all other villages, we had at least one leisurely meal with a view and plenty of unhurried exploration. In Manarola, we only had time to walk up and down the main street for no more than a quarter of an hour and then spend about the same amount of time on the waterfront waiting for the next scheduled ferry ride to take us to our main target for the day, larger Portovenere.
While on the waterfront, I walked up the water edge path which I knew was the prime vantage point for the most striking images of Manarola. When I thought I went far enough to get a good perspective, I took a few different focal-length shots. One favorite is shown below.
Overall, I am not exactly unhappy with this photograph but I recognize that the visual mass tilts to the left. Back home, in post-processing, I compared this photograph with many others that you can find online and belatedly realized that had I taken a few more steps up the path I may have ended up with a better composition.
As happens to me quite frequently, evaluating something as good enough onsite turned into could be better upon closer examination. In photography, oftentimes taking a few steps away from your current spot can be a difference between an ok shot and a great one. If only I was a keener student to turn these lessons into results, I might have already become a renowned photographer.
Oh, well! At least, it is still a pretty good postcard reminding me of the spectacular Cinque Terre. And there is no doubt that one of these days I will do Manarola better justice.