“En Zaragoza se tienen nueve meses de invierno y tres de infierno.”
(“In Zaragoza, one has nine months of winter and three months of hell.”)
–A local saying, highlighting their temperature extremes
Remembering Zaragoza
Ah, yes, Zaragoza… or, Tharagotha…
Until days ago, my only memories of this place came from a decades ago visit as a US Air Force F-16 pilot stationed at Hahn Air Base, West Germany. We deployed out of the fog and mist of drab and dripping Deutschland to the glorious golden sunshine of Zaragoza Air Base so we could get in some practice on the low level routes and at the nearby Barcenas Reales Gunnery Range.
Seems like a dozen lifetimes ago. My, how times have changed (and so have I, certainly).
While there, back in the day, I can’t believe I never visited these two churches. If memory serves, I think most of the squadron was more interested in eating fried baby bird embryos at a downtown tapas bar (don’t panic, they are now an illegal food item in the EU). Yep, nothing like a deeply informed and healthy immersion into local culture.
Fast forward some 36 years…
Very recently, a friend and I stopped off in Zaragoza while on our way to the August 12 solar eclipse, and I was happily surprised to rediscover the city–lots of culture to absorb, much of it centered around a huge central pedestrian plaza and the narrow streets of the old town area. It is definitely worth an entire day or two or even three, visiting the churches, museums (Goya!), and just hanging at an outdoor cafe or by the riverside.
iPhone as a Travel Camera
Was the mobile phone camera good enough for my Zaragoza travel pics? I think so, yes.
Hopefully, this blog post–with photos of the two main religious sites–will give you a good idea of what can be achieved by these convenient little devices (that just keep getting better!).
For basic tourism and sightseeing, I almost never haul around my brick-like bag with the Nikon D850 and the holy trinity of heavy lenses. These days, that gear is generally reserved for very specific projects (see my Portfolios tab).
Instead, my iPhone with the flexibility of its three “lenses” do just fine. Especially since the images I make with the phone usually go no farther than this blog or to send off to friends via WhatsApp.
And… post-processing?
Sometimes I just pause for a minute or two to use the editing tools and filters available right there in the iPhone.
If I want to get the most out of the images, though, I will run them through Adobe Photoshop Elements and DxO/Nik Silver Efex (if B&W) or DxO/Nik Color Efex (if color).
The most common adjustments I make? Cropping, leveling, brightness, shadow/highlight corrections, contrast, cloning out distractions, then adding a filter via Silver Efex or Color Efex. Maybe five minutes work.
One example…
Compare these two images… the before and after. Can you see the changes? Look especially along the bottom edge.
La Basílica, or the Santo Templo Metropolitano de Nuestra Señora del Pilar
The above is its full, official name. But most locals just refer to it as “El Pilar”.
Records indicate some sort of religious structure existed here as early as the 9th Century, but the current building dates from the late 17th century, with further additions and renovations in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
It is a huge, imposing basilica/temple that dominates the peatonal, or pedestrian area, of central Zaragoza with its many green-capped towers.
For a pigeon’s-eye view of all of Zaragoza, add on the tower visit as well.
Interior shots are still difficult with most mobile phones as there tend to be extreme contrasts between shadows and highlights in these cathedrals, something these small devices still do not handle very well (poor dynamic range). I used the HDR Like filter in Color Efex but it didn’t completely solve the problem (note the washed out highlights and muddy shadows).
Another point… I tend to like symmetry, so I used the cropping and perspective adjustments in Photoshop Elements to fix what I wasn’t able to do at the moment. (It is very difficult to line things up perfectly with the iPhone held in an unstable hand.) Also, as mentioned above, I cloned out some unwanted tourist craniums at the bottom edge of the pic.
La Seo del Salvador en su Epifanía
Or simply, “La Seo”, originally founded in the 12th century with many additions, changes, and renovations in the intervening centuries.
A gem. Don’t miss it if you are passing through. From the outside it doesn’t look nearly as impressive as El Pilar, but the interior is spectacular and much superior to the larger church (IMHO).
That is the entrance door, bottom left…
Here, with more uniform lighting and some nice sweeping lines, the iPhone camera does pretty well. I cloned out all the roof drainage holes, wall speakers, and security cameras to make for a cleaner image… oops, looks like I forgot one drainage hole–can you find it?
I have a good childhood friend who played the organ and is also a collector of images of these instruments from across the world, so I spent some time peeking at this grand specimen from various angles. Here’s to you, Craig!
