Greece – Volos & surroundings

Volos between coastal strip and city grid

In the series, the area around Volos appears as an open coastal strip and as a densely built-up city. Parallel streets and long rows of houses can be seen from the water. Further out, the beach dominates, behind which the Greek mountains rise steeply.

From the city grid to the open beach

In Volos, the coastline becomes the boundary of an orderly grid of streets. A side view makes it particularly easy to see which streets lead to the sea and which run parallel to it.

From a low angle, a beach often looks like a narrow, light fringe. The bird's eye view reveals its actual shape and shows where it widens or ends at a protrusion. In addition, connections to the hinterland emerge. The section where a path or buildings reach the beach can be particularly interesting for a townscape. There the location can be specifically named and the individual motif can be found within a longer stretch of coast.

What the roofs reveal about the floor plan

If you look at it at an angle, the houses not only show their roofs, but also their facades of different widths. This gives the motif more depth than in the pure top view. Even the change from a low neighboring building to a taller building reveals something about the gradation of the place. Such a view is particularly useful for a local chronicle if the caption indicates the starting point of the view. Readers can then follow the rows of houses themselves to the edge of the picture.

The coastline as orientation

At the sea, the direction of view changes the picture even over a short distance. If you look almost parallel to the coast, you will see ledges and bays one behind the other. From a steeper view, the actual contour of the bank is easier to follow. A piece of open water can deliberately remain in the cutout. It gives the land a recognizable outer edge and creates distance between two shapes extending into the sea. In a publication, an indication of the location together with the name of the visible stretch of coast helps to classify this view more precisely.

The distribution of blue tones

To switch between two of the 71 aerial photos, shot 38 and shot 63 can be called up directly in the gallery. In the first excerpt, shades of blue play a smaller role. In the second shot, blue areas take up more space. Blue can extend over a large contiguous area or only appear in individual parts. What also counts for the effect is whether these areas extend to the edge of the picture or surround the main subject.

Shot 1 and Shot 71 are among the views from October 11, 2017. According to the camera's time information, there are approximately 297 minutes between the two images. The exposure time for the first of the images mentioned was 2/7143 second and for the second 1/4115 second.

A moving view is also available. The clip “Volos & Surroundings” can be found under Aerial Videos. The linked preview leads to inclusion in the aerial photographer's portfolio on Adobe Stock.

Select the coastal view for a photo series

In a coastal view, water is both a motif and an open space. Whether a large piece of sea remains in the picture depends on the story. When reporting on the shoreline, it holds different landforms together. For a portrait of a coastal town, the development may need more space. An aerial photographer can take this difference into account when choosing the angle of the image. When publishing, it's worth taking a final look at the final format so that a headland or riverside path at the edge isn't accidentally cut off.

Related motifs in the aerial photo archive

Two additional views can be used in the archive for comparison. The first can be found under Italy – Spiaggia di Punta Penna. At the Spiaggia di Punta Penna, the bright beach forms a flat arc in front of the open sea. The second belongs to the article Greece – Agria & Surroundings. At Agria in Greece, overgrown slopes meet a narrow fringe of water.