AUGUST 2000 – The train station of Manarola in Italy. © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com
The story behind the image
From Lerici in Italy, you should visit the famous Cinque Terre – a group of five villages built closely to the cliff: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso al Mare. They can only be reached by train or by using a trail called Via dell’ Amore (literally “Street of Love”) which starts in Riomaggiore, the first of the five villages in the East. We recommend using the train from La Spezia to Riomaggiore.
The first part of the hike (from Riomaggiore to Manarola) is easy and provides impressing views of the rugged coastline. As tempting as it may be, the full hike all the way to Monterosso al Mare is about 16 km (10 miles) and can be quite exhausting.
Despite their isolated location, the villages have a good touristical infrastructure. But, let’s face it, they are not really suitable for beach holidays as there are no beaches, just ramps for fisher boats. Those who aim for a tan or a cool-down simply use the ramps as bathing platforms. An exception is Monterosso al Mare in the West which has a couple of genuine beaches.
My photo shows the train station of Manarola which has also been built between the sea and the cliffs. The image would be great – if only the original slide would not be grossly overexposed (see below.) I don’t know what went wrong back in August 2000, but I was utterly disappointed when that slide came back from the lab, and no, it’s not their fault. It was the photographers fault. My fault. Or maybe it was the camera but I doubt that as other images on the same film have been exposed correctly.
Anyway, it was quite a challenge to transform this horrible image into something you can actually look at. While it is still not great by any means, it looks okay-ish now.
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | 28-AUG-2000 |
| Location | Manarola, Italy |
| Camera | Canon AE-1 Program |
| Image Source | Fuji Slide Film |
| Digital Image Source | EPSON Perfection 4870 Photo |
| Digital Image Source Format | TIFF, 48 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Format | JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Dimensions | 6368 x 3959 Pixels |
| Copyright | © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com |
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