Latitude: Croatia, Sigma 14mm 1.8, Scratch That Itch

Brent and Brian discuss Croatia, shooting the Sigma 14mm 1.8, and how to scratch that travel itch without going anywhereTopic 1: BRENT: Company Announcement
I’ve been doing “free Saturday’s” for a while now but have never really advertised it. I want to go ahead and extend that through December. Place any order for whenever by December 31 and Saturday’s will be automatically counted free. No code, it’s just automatic.
Topic 2: BRENT: Croatia Highlights, lessons and inspirations
Topic information: Started in Zadar. Haven’t been there before and my initial thoughts are that, it’s nice, but not the pristine old town that I’d hoped for. Still lots of great subjects to photograph, and the weather certainly was varied.
On monday, it rained hard. Story about shooting in the rain and having to change my plans 🙁
Tuesday, went to Plitvice Lakes National Park; it’s not about the lakes. The waterfalls are amazing. But being a “day tripper” i wasn’t able to shoot crowd free. I hope to go back and spend the time I’d originally hoped to spend there.
Wednesday, bus to Sibenik. A great city on the coast with easy access to Krka National Park with more waterfalls. Krka was nice, but NOTHING like Plitvice. The sun was very bright so I used the 10 stop filter to blur the water. They also have a small monastery that you can take a boat ride too. It’s about 45min to and back and you only get 30 minutes there. Not really worth it. It’s a nice place, but I was slightly disappointed.
Friday I took the super early bus to Trogir. Holy cow. Amazing! This tiny island still has it. Tourism hasn’t ruined this one. Such an amazing place at sunrise. So glad I took the early bus and got their before the sun came up so I could shoot in the early morning. However the left-luggage opens at 6:30 at the bus station. I almost missed sunrise because of it! 🙂
I continued on to Split Friday afternoon. Diocletian’s palace is the big draw here. I was disappointed because of all the massive take-over by very high-end international luxury brands. But they do have a couple completely vegetarian restaurants, so that was nice. But it was sooooo overcrowded with people it was tough to get anything. Even people shots were hard since it was just so over crowded.
I take Saturday’s off, and it was no different in Split. I slept in so late. I finally got out for breakfast at about 11:30. I then walked up Marjan hill. A very nice place for a relaxing walk even though it is up a hill 🙂
Sunday found me on the early ferry to Hvar island, Stari Grad. 12 years ago I met an old fella that took me to what he called the last section of wall from the Greek civilization of Pharos, from about 382 B.C. He knocked on the lady’s door, got her to open her garage and I took a rather boring photo of this awesome historical artifact. Well, now that tourism is so much more, they’ve really developed other sections where Pharos sites and have a few maps to help you find these spots. I also looked for some lavender fields. Lavender is huge on Hvar island, and if I ever visit in late June photographing the fields would be awesome!
I spent the evening in Hvar Town, made it up to the Spanish fort that oversees the town and got a time lapse of the sun setting. I wanted to take the 8:00 catamaran ferry back to split, but it was sold out so I had to leave at 6:30, so I was out of luck for doing early morning pics in Hvar town.
Then it was the bus to Mostar, Bosnia Herzegovina. Wow, what a place. Way more awesome than I expected. Plus, I found so much info about the countryside of great waterfalls, landscapes and old cities that would be so wonderful to visit. It involved a mostly worry free border crossing.
The next day it was the bus to Dubrovnik, this time it was a much longer border crossing. Six passengers were flagged for further inspections. They were taken off, their bags were removed and they went through a very thorough s...