Azenhas do Mar – Behind the Scenes
*Para ler este Post em Português, clica aqui.
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Azenhas do Mar is a small village on the coastline in Sintra and it’s a small paradise which resembles a little Cinque Terre, in Italy. I’ve lived many years a few kilometers from there and it was necessary to emigrate to finally go there 😀
To take this photo, I had to go to this place two times, because on the first try, I was already too late. On my second attempt, I had some spare time before the sunset to scout the location for the best spot. It was a little windy so I had to fix well the tripod so that it will not move during the shooting. If the tripod moves with the wind, the photo will appear blurry. It will also make the merging of several photos taken at different times very difficult to join on Photoshop, because of perspective changes.
Initial Photos
The final photo is composed by 5 initial photos, on which I joined elements from each one.
The first photo is the base of the final photo, the scene is well exposed, during the golden hour.
The second photo that I joined was the sky and I used also the lights of the street lamps.
On the third photo, I liked how the sea looked like, but I had to remove the red tones near the beach, due to the lights on the beach.
On this photo, I used only the rocks with the smooth water on them, near the oceanic pool. Here I had to remove the blue tone on the water foam, which should be completely white.
On this last photo, I used only the waves near the oceanic pool. Here I had also to remove the blue tone on the water foam.
Joining all of this photos and applying the Color Effex Pro, I’ve brought some life to the photo, with better colors and contrast.
On the final photo I corrected the perspective distortion of the wide angle lens. Some color failures were also corrected, like the red and blue tones on the water and the blue tone on the houses.
Before and After
And here is a basic step by step of how I post processed this photo. I hope you liked it.
I think this place is still relatively unknown to many people, which is good to who wants to visit Azenhas do Mar without the big crowds that are on places like Cinque Terre.
This is maybe one of my favourite photos, not only because of the final result, but because it’s near my House, in Portugal.
Have you already been in Azenhas do Mar? Leave a comment below with your opinion about this Post!:)
Happy shooting!
Luís
June 14, 2018 @ 8:24 am
Thank you for this, Luis. We are staying at Azenhas do Mar this summer and excited about this! Any tips of nice things to do there (or close by) also with kids?
June 14, 2018 @ 8:51 am
Hi Maria. Thanks a lot for your comment! Azenhas do Mar is a very small place but totally worth it to spend at least one day there. Close by you have the village of Sintra and Cabo da Roca (westernmost point of Europe). This is a great area for kids, as you have so many beaches around and also many small villages nearby. Ericeira would be also a nice choice but not so close as the other places that I’ve mentioned.
June 14, 2018 @ 8:26 am
Also, could you please share your photograph with me in high resolution so I can put it on the cover of our (private) holiday photo album? We would be very grateful.
June 14, 2018 @ 8:54 am
Hi again Maria! Sorry but this photo is only for sale on my Prints area, so I can’t share it. I hope you can understand and thanks for your interest.