A very soft dawn on Annecy lake

A very soft dawn on Annecy lake

 

Perharps this image will make you remind this post ...

Purple dawn on Annecy lake

Purple dawn on Annecy lake

Dawn time on Annecy lake

Dawn time on Annecy lake

 

One more view of Annecy lake from Col de la Forclaz.

LINKS :
My photo gallery about Annecy and its lake.
All my images about Annecy.

Annecy - Dawn on the lake at Imperial beach and 5 sites to discover

Annecy, dawn on the lake at Imperial beach

Another image from Annecy lake at the Imperial beach.
Done the same day but a few time later than this one.

The 5 sites to discover if you're interested in photography :

• http://www.xavifuentes.com
  Beautiful long exposures from Xavi Fuentes.
  
• http://www.friedmanphoto.com
  Amazing panoramic landscape by Stevel Friedman.
  
• http://dudewithcamera.com
  Various and beautiful images from Jesse Pafundi.
  
• http://www.85mm.ch
  Street photography by Thomas Leuthard.
• http://www.mikehollman.com
  Stunning landscapes from New Zealand by Mike Hollman

Weekly commented photo #3 - Annecy, dawn on the Imperial beach

Annecy - Dawn on the Imperial beach

This beach is named Imperial beach because it's in the park of the Imperial Palace.
It's a very well know and appreciated place for all the people living in Annecy. They bath here in summer and have some walks in other seasons. When i was a child, what is a palace now was an old and derelict buildind but the diving boards were ever there and i loved to play with them. It was a frightening but very exciting game.

When i moved back to Annecy in july, it was one of the first places where i wanted to come and make photos.
The two first times i arrived there at dawn, the gates to the beach where locked by chains. A little disapointed i made other images of the lake and abandonned the project waiting for the doors to re-open.
Recently, while speaking with a friend of mine, he told me that the gates were no more locked and seemed suprised because he had some walks here almost every day. Perharps did i just arrive too soon in the morning ...

On saturday morning, i arrived in Annecy at about 7 am, found the gates opened and did a few tests searching for the best point of view.
The image presented here was done about one hour after my arrival and is my real fav from this day.
I have others with the same composition done a little time before but the light is a little more dull and others made later with different framing but the blue is a little too intense for my tastes.

On the technical side, the photo was done using a Nikon D200, a 17-35 zoom, a Hoya ND 400 filter for the long (more than 100s) exposure and a 0.6 soft GND filter to balance sky and foreground. Raw file processing was minimal and done with SilkyPix.

If you like long exposure photography with or without filters, you can click here to find all my posts about it or here if you just want to see the ND 400 in action.

Don't forget : click on the image to see it large :)

A very cold dawn on Annecy lake

A very cold dawn on Annecy lake

I went yesterday morning to a new place around Annecy lake. More precisely it was the pier of Menthon Saint Bernard. It was really soon and really cold. I expected more snow on the mountains but the dawn light was beautiful.

A big thank you to Nikon for making large bodies still comfortable to use with frosted fingers.

Annecy - dawn over the channel

Annecy - Dawn over the Vasse channel

The very first lights of a new day on this famous place in Annecy.

Dawn time in the forest

Dawn on the forest of the Massif des Maures - Provence

The caption gives the location, what could i add more ?

I just really love this image,i don't know why. Perharps it's because of the moments i lived there. Alone in the wind, breathing the forest and waiting that the clouds and rising sun give their most beautiful show.

The other side of Bau Rouge beach

Morning light at Bau Rouge beach

Regular readers will easily recognize the cliff in the background.
Here we are still on Bau Rouge beach but not on the part of the beach where i usually go. This one is some hundreds of meters more to the west but we can't move from one part to another by feet while carrying some photographic equipment.
This place is less wild and looks more to a real beach than the other one. I hope i'll find a way to go still more to the west.

A very soft dawn on the Mediterranean coast

Mediterranean dawn at Le Port du Niel

During the second part of august, we went twice to sleep at the sea. To park the van we choose the little pier of Le Port du Niel on the Presqu'île de Giens. That's a very peaceful place and you can't see it on these images but the coast all around is really wild and beautiful. I hope to return there before the end of summer for a more serious photographic work.

Morning light on Le Port du Niel

Autum dawn on the sea

Autumn dawn on the Mediterranean sea

Large view here

Calm at dawn

Calm at dawn - Le Pradet - Provence

Peaceful mediterranean seascape in Provence.

Stormy dawn on the sea

Stormy dawn on the seaMediterranean seascape at Le Bau Rouge in Provence.
Don't miss the large view.

Stormy sunshine

Stormy sunshine on the Mediterranean sea
Yesterday i was soon, really soon on the field and the weather was not rainy, not too windy but not too nice. So i did more skyscapes than seascapes.

Need some time to process the files.

Another Mediterranean sunrise

Bau-Rouge sunrise
Another Mediterranean sunrise, not sure i'll post many more before some months. I wish i'll be able to wake up at 3 am next night (in a few hours) to go to the sea and not arrive too late. I've some shots in mind but not sure the weather will be ok. Today we had crazy wind here and tomorrow rain is not impossible. A not rainy dawn with a not too strong wind would be fine...
If tomorrow i can do what i plan, i think i won't return to the sea (for photography) until the autumn. The sun is rising really to soon and summer dusks are often crowded.

The above shot was done from 6 exposures and post processing includes HDR, tonemapping and exposure blending.

Orange dawn

Orange dawn on the Mediterranean coast
Sometimes i find difficult to start the day so early ... but sometimes it can give some wonderful moments.

Interval shooting and HDR photography

First lights on the Mediterranean coast
With springtime, the sun is rising more and more soon every week and shooting seascapes at dawn time is more and more difficult. One day of the past week, i left home at 5am, drove to the Bau Rouge and walked to my favorite place while the sun was just shining. Arrived on the place, i realised that i had left my remote controler at home ...
Remote controler is a nice tool and a good help for long exposures but if you don't have one it can often be replaced by the camera self timer. When you have to shoot serveral long exposures to build a HDR image, the remote controler is really a must : No camera shake means sharp and easy to align images.
So i was very annoyed to have forgotten mine when i remembered that my D200 had an interval shooting function. In this mode, the camera can take n images every x minutes. If you also define a bracketing program, the camera will execute this bracketing program at each interval.
So i put the D200 on the tripod, locked every thing, programmed the camera and ... it perfectly worked : without touching the body, i obtained 7 exposures with 1 IL increment.

With their large bracketing and very fast shooting capabilities, recent Nikon DSLRs are very nice HDR tools. With the interval mode you can perharps save the money of a remote controler and save your day when you left your bed too soon.

Water colors

Water colors - Les couleurs de l'eau
Colorful dawn during a short rain stop on the mediterranean coast in Provence.

Mediterranean dawn

Dawn colors on the Mediterranean sea
Dawn colors on the sea at the Bau-Rouge.
A few minutes soonner, it was raining !