The Artful Engineer

First doors and windows, now tables and chairs. I’ve started to find these latter items as interesting as the former. Outdoor seating at restaurants is very common in Rome, whether streetside, alleyside, or piazzaside, so there are plenty of tables and chairs about. It rained a number of times during my visit, chasing the patrons away and leaving the tables and chairs as I prefer: empty. The staff, above, is busy drying the morning rain from the furniture in hopes of a lunch crowd.

The table, below, is badly weathered despite being sheltered at the moment. This scene has a good supply of depth: the outer wall, the open room, the dark wooden trim, the ghostly people and lamps and wall beyond, and plenty of reflections, too. The blue-green chairs perfectly match the open doors and overhead trim, and that color coordinates well with the mahogany trim around the windows and the peach-colored exterior. The table’s green is somewhat dissonant, but this just gives it a little emphasis. If I had a wish, it would be that the green foliage on the left encroached more into the frame.

This is a quiet scene with a beautiful set of colors:

When I noticed these wrought-iron chairs and table behind the wrought-iron balcony railing in Piazza Navona, I knew that I really wanted to make something of it. Unfortunately, it was fairly high up (which meant I had to back up a lot) and I didn’t have my long zoom with me, so I composed a scene with the longest focal length I had, but it wasn’t really enough. The result was fine, but in preparing this post I decided to crop it square, only using about half the width of the image. I like the result, but wish I had moved about one foot to the left so that the left edge of the table didn’t touch the chair. If I had been composing this smaller scene instead of the larger one, I wouldn’t have missed that flaw.

I think the lesson I am going to take away from this is that I shouldn’t shy away from using the 1.5x in camera crop mode when I need it. The result on my Z8 is still 20 megapixels, more than enough for an 18-inch wide print. (I post most of the images on this website at only 1.5 megapixels, incidentally.)

I love this little scene:

All of the previous images were very “Rome”: earthy colors, lots of texture, weathered paint, cobbled streets, etc. This next image has a more modern feel. It is almost monochromatic, and the glare off the tabletops gives each an emphatic pop.

Thank you for visiting. I am only planning two more posts featuring Rome, so be sure to come back!

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