Submitter's name:	Fernando Gonzalez Gentile
Title:	Marco de los Reyes
Subject information:	This is a portrait of myself and María José, my 11-year-old daughter, last February 2005.
Location and History:	The Marco de los Reyes, the marble structure behind us is one of the remaining two from a total of three; they were built in Portugal and in Spain to trace a new limit according to the Tratado de Madrid, signed in 1750 to allow Spaniards to recover Colonia del Sacramento (under Portuguese domain) in exchange for a large land extension beginning at Punta del Diablo, at the ocean shore where the first one was put, passing then through the Cerro de India Muerta where the second one was put. Then this third one which was put on the Cerro de los Reyes, into the Sierra de Carapé on January 8 1753. The inscription 'Hispania Rege Catholico' is sculpted on the eastern side of the pyramidal structure (and can clearly be read on the Provia) that is, it can be read if facing to the West, towards Spanish domain. On the opposite side, facing to the East and to Portuguese domain the sculpted inscription is 'Lusitano Rege Fidelissimo'. On the background, the three domes of the Maldonado Cathedral lit by late afternoon sun can be seen aligned with the Marco de los Reyes. It took me a while to find this alignment. I like those domes very much and are quite difficult to picture from ground level. The Tratado de Madrid was little lasting . Soon after signed, the virrey Pedro de Ceballos (named virrey when the virreinato del Río de la Plata was founded in 1776, but having already been governor of Buenos Aires from 1757 to 1766) conquered the lost territories and Colonia del Sacramento as well. The Portuguese had begun building the Fortaleza de Santa Teresa, with very few soldiers. Ceballos took the Fortaleza and finished it, and destroyed the Marcos breaking them into pieces. The pieces of this one remained lost and forgotten in the countryside, partially buried, until 1895 when local authorities named a group of people to look for them and bring what could be found in Sierra de Carapé to Maldonado. Not surprisingly, few people know of this story there at Maldonado.
Gear and technique:	After finding the spot and proper natural lighting, set my 85~250/5 tripod mounted with the OM-2 attached. A shoe mounted T-32 was connected to a second one via a short TTL cable, which rested somehow on the old Manfrotto #141RC head pointing forward. Set shutter speed at 1/30 on Manual Mode. Zoomed into the marble stone and focused using a 1-8 screen, and set the according diaphragm. Zoomed back to compose picture, at ~85 mm focal length. Made the calcs according to distance to the Marco so to determine which f-stop to use in order to obtain a *small* fill-in. Think it was 'round f16, which helped a lot to get enough depth of field to capture the almost blown out domes. Pity the flash dump reflected on my glasses, and flash power was not enough to lit up a bluish cast present in the original scan, so subtle corrections were made in PS. Had to run a few meters but the 12 seconds self-timer gave me enough time to choose posture and even to groom my hair. I'm not usually bearded, but this summer holiday I felt too lazy even to shave my face. A little more info can be found here.
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Comment left by: Olaf Greve (no e-mail specified)

Sounds and looks like a very cool location!

Comment left by: Chris Barker (no e-mail specified)

This is a nicely exposed shot, Fernando. Even though the cathedral's domes are quite bright, the effect is pleasing.

Comment left by: Fernando (no e-mail specified)

Now that I'm looking at it again, with FFox3 color-aware and a fairly well calibrated monitor, I find it quite underexposed, to the point of my daughter's and mine sun tanned skin looking too dark and my white T-shirt and her white dress too white. Think I misadjusted the blue curve or color space changed - I'm sure I had uploaded an adobe RGB 98 .jpg, should check it. That one was done in summer 2005, and I didn't scan it myself.

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