Pic Spocket

I am finally done with processing all the pictures taken in France last march. Can you believe how long it took me! I really need to simplify my workflow given the lack of time I have for this. Maybe I’ll have to shoot ‘jpegs’ in the future. We’ll see..

Back on topic, I have updated the Paris online album with the latest pictures. They are miscellaneous pics taken walking in Paris that simply did not fit in the other albums.

I reached the downtown area using the most convenient transport system over there: the subway. I snapped a few shots but I was stopped quickly by a police woman: seems like taking pictures in the subway is not allowed.

Back on the surface, I just walked around randomly taking pictures along my way. Here is a HDR picture (processed from multiple exposures) that I really like even if I pushed the effect a bit too far compared to my usual taste:

Typical French architecture and coffee shops:

The ‘Hotel de ville’ (City Hall) and the ‘Centre Pompidou’ (national art museum):

Lugging around my full size tripod was a chore during the day, but I was really happy to have that night. I could capture some very nice and sharp night views of the city.

Pubs/restaurants:

These 2 are among my favorites of the night shots, I am just not sure which one I prefer. The amount of headlights tracks in the first one maybe a bit too distracting.

 A few more pics:

As usual, more pics and larger version in the album below:

Paris Misc

All pictures from the Paris trip are found in the ‘Paris March 2009′ album of the Travel Section in the photo album.

The Sacré-Cœur Basilica (Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus) in Paris is located on the highest on the highest summit of the city, at the “Butte Montmartre”. The interior was really nice but picture taking was forbiden - and enforced

Skyline from up there:

The basilica

Some architectureal details:

Local performer trying so get a few $ from the tourist crowd…

More pics and larger versions in the album below.

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Paris Sacre-Coeur

Here is one more serie of pictures from my stop in Paris last march. Here are the pictures of  “Sainte-Chapelle” also located on the “île-de-France”. This is another example of French gothic architecture.

From Outside

Lower Chapelle

Upper Chapelle

More pictures and larger versions are in the album linked below.

Here are a few more pictures from my stop in Paris last March. The album I added is of the Notre-Dame Cathedral. This is one of the finest example of French Gothic architecture. It is located on the “île de la cité” (“city island”).

I really like the next picture with the flock of birds taking off..

Using the 70-200 zoom, I could get some nice detail shots.

The interior of the cathedral is also really nice. My 50D camera proves very useful at ISO 1600 in low light conditions.

The ceiling of the cathedral also proved to be interesting.

More pics and larger versions in the album below!

Notre Dame

Here are a few more pictures I just added to my photo album, from my visit in Paris last March. This serie is taken around the Louvres Museum. I went late at night after my day of work (this was a business trip) so the actual museum was actually closed. So I took pictures from the surroundings.

Here is the hotel in front of the museum, and one of the entrance.

The water features were turned off and the lack of wind made the water still, offering a nice reflection.

Once again, I tried to force myself to find some unusual angles to give my own twist on a very well known tourist attraction.

Few more pictures…

Finally, a wide crop of the area.

As usual, many more interesting pictures are available in the dedicated album below.

Louvres Museum

Finally got some time to process and upload some more of the pictures from last March in France. I had yet to look through the pictures from Paris. Here are a few shots from the Eiffel Tower, probably the most well known landmark of the city.

I arrived on the site as the night was setting in, so most pictures are night shots.

Some of the sourroundings…

Here, I tried unusual viewpoints of the landmark to get something different. For the first one, I have put my ultra wide angle lens to work. The second picture is shot from under the structure. The third picture is shot with the 200 mm zoom.

Two black and white treatments:

Finally, a self portrait…

There are many more pictures in the photo album.

Eiffel Tower

I’ll post more pictures from Paris soon.

Here is the 3rd installment of my trip to France last March.

I ended that travelling weekend with a stop to the famous Mont St-Michel, (St Michaels Mount) which is the second most visited tourist attraction in France after the Paris area. It is a tidal island in the North of France.

The tides vary greatly around this rock island, by about 14 meters at times, and sometimes the Mount is an island, sometimes it is surrounded my a huge marsh. The speed at which the water retires (and come back) is notoriously astounding.

I left early in the morning hoping to get good light for my arrival, and maybe some light fog to have a mysterious look to my pictures. Be careful what you wish for. There was so much fog when I got there, that I could not even make out the outline of the Mount while I was standing barely 100 m from it. So no pictures of the overall St Michels Mount that morning. Here are a few of the fog pictures. The first one is taken on my drive there, the other ones are taken on the site.

Most of the rock is covered by the Abbey, which offers a really medieval feeling.

Later that day, the fog lifted and I could take more compelling pictures of the exterior of the area. Around the abbey, there is a small village with hotels, restaurants, gift shops, etc.

The marshes are surrounding the rock formation during my visit.

Finally, on my way out, I finally had the chance to take pictures from further away showing the area.

See more of my pictures of Mont St-Michel.

All the pictures from this trip are available in the album below.

France, March 2009

This is the continuation of my France Business trip last March. That previous article also included a map of the cities visited.

Once my work finished in the Vendée area, I had the weekend to head back to Paris. I decided to not take the shortest path, but to visit a little bit along the way.

I headed first to the West Coast, where I have never been before. I stopped in Sables-d’Olonne, a well known vacation area. However, I was not lucky that Saturday morning because the fog was so dense that we could not see much of anything.

I followed the small roads following the coast for a while, but my progression was slow, and the view did not improve much.  I then rejoined the highway to go further north and west. I stopped in Vannes, a small interesting town with a lot of character. Once again, the architecture of a church interested me.

Here are other pictures taken in Vannes, giving a hint of the architecture.

Then I headed to Carnac, a small village of 5000 people, known for its alignment of monoliths (standing stones). These stones were erected thousands of years B.C. without much understanding of their meanings even today. More informations found HERE.

I also processed a few HDR pictures of the alignments:

Few sheeps were occupying the area.

See more pictures from the Western Coast of France drive.

After this stop, I headed to Rennes for a good night of sleep. My plan was to go to see the famous Mont St-Michel in the North of France on Sunday before heading back to Paris for my last week of work there. To be continued in part 3.

Back in March, I was in France for work, but not in the south this time. I passed 2 weeks in Paris and 1 week in the Vendée area, near the western coast. I have yet to sort and process the Paris pictures (I took like 1200 photos) but I did process the ones from the other areas visited during this trip. These areas are highlighted in the map below:

Some of these areas will be covered in part 2 and 3. The week outside Paris was in Vendée. My hotel was in Les Herbiers and the customer located in Saint-Prouant. This area is mostly rural. I wish I had some time to search for nice landscapes, but work occupied a lot of my time.

Here are a few pictures snapped on my way to work in Saint-Prouant in the morning. The first one is a HDR of a small road going in the woods, with early sunlight rays piercing through morning mist. The second one is a reflection on a lake.

In Les Herbiers, where my hotel was located, there was a small castle that I would also pass every morning on my way to work. This picture was obtained by combining several exposures since it did not fit in my viewfinder even with a wide angle lens.

A few hundred meters from my hotel, there was the ‘Mont Alouette’, having windmills on display and a small chapel on the other side of the road. These pictures were taken at sunset at the top of this hill.

On Friday afternoon after work, I went for a car ride in the area and ended up in the village of Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvres. The chuch there mostly captured my attention, but also the façade of a building.

See more picture of the Vendée area.

To be continued…

This article is the second part about our cruise in the Bahamas. The first part is found (here).

DAY 3

On the 3rd day, we woke up while we were pulling in the port of Nassau, along with 2 other cruise ships. After a good breakfast, we went on firm soil to wait for our boat shuttle.

We had booked a discovery tour of the Atlantis Paradise Island, which is a huge resort complex and water park.  There is also an aquarium with a lot of marine life and a beach. We did not do the water park because it felt kind of expensive (like a CAD$400 excursion for both of us for water slides!) and it was a good thing because it was too cold that day t for that purpose. I am sure that it must be fun though. They have a very high water slide and when you get to the bottom, you go in an underwater glass tube that passes through a pool of sharks… Cool!

The place is huge. Here are a few pictures of the complex.

There was a nice suspension bridge above water infested with sharks (aquarium). 

All around, we could see open pools of the aquarium, with the fish in them. If you look on some of the pictures, you can see the underwater glass tunnels, part of the aquarium path.

We also went to the beach but did not stay long because it was chillier that day.

(See all pictures from Atlantis)

Of course, we visited the aquarium section to see some of the marine life they had on display

They had the glass tubes underwater a little bit like we saw in Hawaii in Maui.

(See all pictures from the Aquarium)

Finally, we rejoined our boat.

DAY 4

The last stop of the cruise was on the Great Stirrup Key, which is basically a private uninhabited island owned by Norwegian Cruise line. This was actually much better than I thought: we had a fantastic beach day. The boat does not dock anywhere: they just drop the anchor in proximity of the island. They have shuttles carrying people (and all the other stuff such as food and drinks) continuously between the boat and the island all day long.

I decided to leave the big camera at on the boat that day (but should have brought it), but good thing Corinne had our pocket camera with her, so we do have some pictures from that day. We left early for the island, using the second shuttle so the island was almost empty when we got there. That gave us the chance to pick a good spot. The beach was like a crescent with a large rock at the end, so the beach had very calm water. The sand was almost white, and the water turquoise. A true Bahamas picture!

You could also take a 2 miles hike to a lighthouse, but we sticked with the beach. They had an awesome barbecue for lunch on the island, with enough choice for my strict diet (grilled chicken, vegetables, lots of fruits, etc). They also had a few bars open for the party people, and a live band playing. Weather was perfect. This was an awesome day. Just the water was a bit cooler than expected…

(See all pictures from the Private Island)

The complete album for this trip is linked below.

Bahamas Cruise

We had the “VIP” treatment when getting out of the boat in Miami: Corinne is always flagged by the US Immigration. The good thing about it (for once!) is that we bypassed the long waiting line, and just waited a short time, sitting comfortably while they checked our papers. No sweat

What’s funny is that we had no motion sickness at all during the cruise. The problem was after the cruise, on firm grounds. For several days, we felt weird and nauseous at times, especially in closed spaces.

As mentioned before, overall, we really liked our first experience of a cruise vacation, and I am sure we will do it again sometime in the future!