Lights and colours

Urban landscapes

2011-12-08T12:57:00.001-08:00

I took a short training session with a professional photographer. We had to take some pictures by using only standard or wide angle lenses. Long lenses were forbidden. This teacher wanted us to pay a special attention to the composition and the exposure. According to him, the real photographer has to master his camera and therefore a full manual setting is recommended , at least for steady subjects.
So, I did ...

more pictures

2011-07-06T13:23:00.001-07:00

This time , in colour .

Horse-ball

2011-07-06T13:12:00.000-07:00

There was a national horse-ball tournament not far from my home. I decided to have a look and to take some pictures. I was not familiar with this game. 2 teams of 5 riders, 2 times ten minutes, one ball , 2 nets . The goal is to put the ball in the net of the opponent. If I well understood, 3 passes between 3 different riders are mandatory before scoring .

The coast between Marseille and Toulon

2011-07-06T13:04:00.001-07:00

Sunsets on the Mediterranean coast

2011-07-06T13:01:00.000-07:00

Other animals in Yellowstone

2010-09-07T11:02:00.001-07:00

Canyon in Yellowstone National Park

2010-09-07T10:55:00.000-07:00

The waterfalls are impressive .

Although the Canyon is not as deep as the Grand Canyon , the overlook is great .

some geysers

2010-09-07T10:46:00.001-07:00

I almost forgot to put some pictures of the Old faithful Geyser

Other geysers are nice too

colour splash !

2010-09-01T12:51:00.001-07:00

Mammoth hot springs

2010-09-01T12:47:00.000-07:00

Is it really on Earth ?

some pictures of Grand Teton National Park

2010-09-01T09:27:00.000-07:00

The next time, I think I will stay in this park a little bit more . It deserves more attention.

Grizzly Bear

2010-08-30T13:27:00.000-07:00

It was time to play with my new toy :) By the way, longer your lens is, safer you are !
Among other very advanced amateurs, I looked rather like a newcomer. The real wildlife enthusiast has a 600 mm with a range extender, mounted on an heavy tripod standing on the plateform of his truck.

Morning lights in Yellowstone

2010-08-30T13:20:00.000-07:00

I stayed at the campground close to the southern entrance. Early in the morning, I took my car to drive north in order to see some samples of the wildlife. On the way, I took some pictures at West Thumb and on the bank of Yellowstone Lake and Yellowstone River.

Teaser 3

2010-08-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

This one is easier to identify. Almost everybody has seen a picture of this place, usually shot from a plane.

Teaser 2

2010-08-29T07:39:00.000-07:00

I didn't say , I stayed at the same place all the time :)

Another postcard :

Teaser

2010-08-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

Hi,

I am back from my vacation. Guess where I was ....

Just for information, the fall is 25 meters high

Some pictures of the southern Brittany

2010-05-31T12:51:00.000-07:00

Sea, wind, salt (yes, salt), wildlife ... this is a nice place to take some photographs .

No more lighthouse pictures, please !

2010-05-03T11:27:00.000-07:00

The sunsets were rather nice last week. The rays on the second picture are rather strange, perhaps due to some dust in the air.

Landscape ...

2010-05-03T11:22:00.000-07:00

People are more and more demanding ;)

Yes, I tried an horizontal frame but only with higher speeds. The next shots could be the best ones. Tell me what you think.

After the sunset

2010-05-01T08:46:00.001-07:00

no need of ND filter, this time

A little bit later

2010-05-01T08:43:00.001-07:00

long exposures ....

2010-05-01T08:39:00.000-07:00

some waves, the warm light before the sunset , "pink rocks" , a tripod, a ND filter , let see what could come from all of that.

Surprising Brittany

2010-05-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

3 days in the northern part of Brittany and no rain !

Where was it shot ?

2010-05-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

A very sunny day , a kind of pine tree , do you guess ?

Horse race

2010-04-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a friend of mine, it was my first time at a horse race. Always fun to take some sport pictures :)

Sipping the nectar ...

2010-04-19T10:52:00.002-07:00

This sunday was sunny. Some bugs are back but difficult to catch as usual
.

.

Red !

2010-04-19T10:52:00.001-07:00

Blue !

2010-04-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

The spring is coming up ! (part 2)

2010-04-11T13:24:00.000-07:00

Some flowers are blooming.

The spring is coming up !

2010-04-11T13:18:00.000-07:00

On saturday, I drove to St-Hubert for watching birds. The place is located near Rambouillet, this is quite nice and in the morning the light was good.... I like my 70-300 VR very much , but what I need for this kind of pictures is more a 600/4 ! Nevermind, it was fun !

Judo tournament

2010-03-29T13:39:00.000-07:00

This week-end, I was invited with some colleagues to take some pictures of a judo tournament for kids and teenagers. I did not really prepare it , that was a mistake ! Next time, I will pay more attention to the white balance, to the fine tuning of the JPEG rendering and to the number of memory cards I will need. But I had the opportunity to try two professionnal lenses and I was amazed by the autofocus speed. I put on this blog only a couple of shots, people can not be easily recognised :)

this winter will last forever ...

2010-02-16T10:09:00.000-08:00

I hope, it won't. I took this picture in december . Even the swans were freezing .

Christmas

2009-12-27T10:29:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to everybody !

A Christmas evening deserves a good dessert. Yes, it was as good as it looked !

Orange ...

2009-11-28T05:55:00.001-08:00

Nobody in Paris

2009-11-28T05:44:00.000-08:00

Some new postprocessing tests

2009-11-28T05:42:00.000-08:00

Let's call this photograph 'alone in Paris'

some post-processing

2009-11-22T11:04:00.000-08:00

A friend paid a visit to us this afternoon . That was the opportunity to play with the beta version of Lightroom 3... I tried to improve some pictures (exposure, contrast , local sharpening ...),all comments are welcome !

horse riding

2009-11-22T11:00:00.000-08:00

My girlfriend and I attended a contest in Versailles in august. I like to think that two shots (out of 50 !) are not too bad for a newcomer.

Some postcards from the French Alps

2009-08-11T11:31:00.000-07:00

Hello,

We spent two weeks in the French Alps. It was great ! The landscapes around Chamonix are quite breathtaking.
Some pictures taken along our hikes ...

Bird watching

2009-04-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

At the same place, some birds can be seen, especially at the end of daytime. Of course, the light was rather low. But at 400 ISOs and with some strong post-processing, I got some raisonable results with my basic telephoto lens at 300 mm. To be honest, one was taken by my girl friend.

Blue

2009-04-15T11:03:00.001-07:00

Les Etangs de la Minière

2009-04-15T10:57:00.001-07:00

That's quite a nice place between Versailles and Guyancourt. One can have there a romantic walk and it is also possible to practice mountain biking around.
There are plenty of blue flowers, badly lit at the end of the day. In the morning, it should be better.

a week-end in brussels (2nd part)

2009-03-01T07:45:00.000-08:00

Even if I didn't take my tripod , I took some nightshots . I used every possibility to stabilize my camera and with a high ISO setting and some noise reduction post-processing , I got some quite acceptable results.

a week-end in Brussels

2009-03-01T07:41:00.000-08:00

I am used to go to Brussels for business. Then I am used to see only the train station and the underground. This time, I was in Brussels for a weekend and I took my camera with me ...

Yellow house in murano

2008-11-09T03:59:00.000-08:00

Murano can be really quiet if you avoid hundreds of glasswork shops .

2008-11-09T03:45:00.000-08:00

everything starts with fire

2008-11-09T03:43:00.000-08:00

Of course, without flash, I used a massive D-lighting post-processing . Prined out, it should show some noise...

Murano

2008-11-09T03:31:00.000-08:00

Hello,

I am still working on the pictures from our last vacations in Venice.
Near Venice, there is a small island, named Murano. This place is famous for the glass art of the very numerous craftsmen. There are around 300 furnaces in that small island . A long time ago, the government of the Venice Republic decided to move the furnaces from downtown to this place for two reasons:
- in Venice, all building structures are made of wood. You can imagine what could happen with furnaces everywhere
- they wanted to protect their know-how , that was a long time before Japanese "tourists" and after them Chinese came to "visit" the factories.
We visited a factory too and I took some pictures without flash and from a not very good point of view . Let's see ...

Sunset on venice

2008-10-26T08:38:00.000-07:00

At the end of the day, the city is given beautiful colours.

2008-10-25T01:43:00.001-07:00

My girl friend got inspired too

night shots in Venice

2008-10-25T01:40:00.001-07:00

I got inspired by the cover of GEO magazine ...

2008-10-25T01:38:00.001-07:00

Towards San Marco Square. On the left the campanile, on the right the San Marco church and the palace

2008-10-25T01:36:00.001-07:00

And of course, in Venice there are some boats ....

2008-10-25T01:30:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I have some time to put some pictures shot in Venice (in Italy, not muscle beach in L.A.). What a beautiful city ! We arrived by train and 15 minutes after the arrival we were on the Grand Canal and the show was on !

2008-09-29T11:12:00.001-07:00

As I said, the depth of field has not been well controlled for the picture of the 3 hammer technic .

2008-09-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

Hello !

Some pictures taken at the Garde Republicaine exhibition. First time I saw smiths making horseshoes. Those guys work so quickly. They use the 3 hammer technic.
I am not used to take action pictures in the field. I didn't manage to use the right camera settings all the time... I hope I will be better next time .

2008-01-05T01:21:00.001-08:00

Happy new year!

2008-01-05T01:15:00.000-08:00

Before warming up a little bit with some pictures of desert and canyons, we can enjoy the cold weather. I shot the next 2 pictures with my 70-300 VR . Initially I was getting out to shoot birds ...

Hello !

2007-12-20T10:20:00.000-08:00

I open this blog to share some pictures with some friends of mine and anybody else interested in photography. I start with a first picture taken near Big Sur (California) to introduce other pictures shot along a trip in Western USA.

Critiques and comments are welcome.