This Is Cartagena
Cartagena Colombia has become a popular tourist destination in recent years for Americans. If you want to learn a bit more about travel to this Caribbean city, you’ve come to the right place. This is Cartagena.
The historical center is the main tourist attraction in Cartagena and it’s divided up into easy to navigate sections. Throughout the centre you’ll find inviting gardens with overgrown trees for you to escape the harsh humid and hot climate. Take a seat on any number of benches and simply watch the locals rush by in their every day lives.
You’ll also find various museums such as the eye opening Inquisition Museum, a modern art museum and even a museum for chocolate lovers. There is no shortage of places for you to learn a bit more about this brilliant city on the Caribbean Sea. Fancy a few colorful photos? Cartagena will delight you with vibrant colors that are sure to make your travel photos pop with beautiful energy.
As with any tourist destination you’ll find plenty of nice restaurants mixed with a bit of run of the mill eateries. Shops line the streets of this historic area which is also a Unesco World Heritage Site.
As the city hugs the coastline of the Caribbean Sea, you’re sure to find any number of beaches. Rent a chair or a cabana for the day and enjoy the sea and surf. There is plenty of sunshine in Cartagena for you to enjoy on any given day.
The short video shows what you can expect to find during your visit to Cartagena. Each image in the slideshow was captured solely with my iPhone. For iPhone travel photography tips, skip down below.
1. WORKING WITH COMPOSITION
The composition is also a crucial ingredient to great iPhone photography. Here are a couple examples where the rules worked very well.
There is a great tool on the iPhone and it is the grid feature. These lines exemplify the Rule of Thirds. They divide your composition into horizontal and vertical lines.
You can place a subject along any line. Or where the lines intersect (visual hotspots).
2. USING AVAILABLE LIGHT
Mastering all the settings of iPhone photography is certainly necessary to creating great photography. But you can’t forget the creative side as well.
Great lighting and composition are just as important in telling the story you wish to tell.
Outdoor natural light is defined by: Quality, Quantity, Direction, and Color.
The quality of light often includes how soft or hard the light is. Quantity relates to brightness. Lots of light is usually bright while darker conditions have less available light.
Direction defines the angle the light is coming from and Color is just that: the colour of the light.
3. HOW TO CREATE HDR ON YOUR IPHONE
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. On IOS devices, the camera takes three exposures: light, dark, and normal.
Then it blends them together to create an image with more detail throughout the highlights and shadows.
This is a very valuable feature. Use it when photographing high contrast scenes with dark shadows and bright highlights.
4. USE ‘VIEW ON MAP’
Have you ever captured a photo and later wondered where you took the photograph?
It has happened to me many times over the years, but the iPhone has a feature called View on Map. It is quite simple to use.
Open your camera roll and find the photo you are wondering about. Once the photo is open, slide up from the bottom and the map shows up with the location.
5. USING THE FLASH
Adding Flash to your subject can be very useful in some situations. The iPhone flash is not very powerful, so its usefulness is limited to a few feet. In bright sun, the flash does not do so well but in the shade, it can be a different story.
6. ADJUSTING THE EXPOSURE
The iPhone’s metering is for the most part automatic.
Average scenes with average lighting may expose correctly. But there may be times where the iPhone falls short.
Fortunately, adjusting exposure is quite easy.
This full tonal range image is easy to meter and expose.
Wherever you tap on the screen to set focus, you also are choosing that spot to meter exposure. Start by tapping on the screen where you will see the Sun symbol next to the yellow box.
The sun symbol is the slider to adjust exposure so slide the symbol up or down to lighten or darken.
7. CROP YOUR IMAGES
Sometimes you might capture an image and later discover something in your photo you want to crop out.