Clouds at dawn

Mediterranean dawn with clouds at Bau Rouge beach

An image from december.
Nikon D200 + Sigma 10-20, HDR and blending from 3 exp.

HDR tones and colors

HDR seascape at Le Pradet in Provence

That's not my prefered kind of shots, i always say that as an apologize when i post this kind of image but i know some of you love them.

Tech info : Nikon D200 + sigma 10-20, 3 NEF files processed first with SilkyPix, converted to a real HDR image and then tonemapped with Photomatix.

In the cold light of a summer morning

Cold morning light on the Mediterranean coast

These colors are unusual for me and since July i hesitate, keeping this image or not ? I think i'll keep it.

Stuck in the waves

Waves on the Mediterranean coast in Provence

After the impressive rains of the 5 previous days i wasn't in the mood of showing a sunny landscape.

Autum dawn on the sea

Autumn dawn on the Mediterranean sea

Large view here

Private pool in the red dusk

Dusk light on the rocks of Bau Rouge beach - Provence

I name this place my private pool because in winter i'm always alone there. At summertime it's another story and tourists start to arrive around 7 am.

That's an HDR work done from 4 exposures with soft tone mapping under Photomatix.

A big thank you to 622press for featuring 2 of my fav seascapes.

A colorful winter afternoon on the Mediterranean coast

This image was taken the same day that the one in my previous post but one or two hours before. When i arrived on the place, the sky was just of a beautiful deep blue and the rocks had their usual yellow tint. Some minutes after some white clouds came and started to hide the sun in my back and then the rocks became really more red and orange.
I took two long exposures for this image : 40s and a little more than 60s.
The final photo is the result of some manual blending and true hdr work.

Feeding the web

Dusk tint on the Presqu'île de Giens

Some days, thinking to this blog i'm wondering if all these posts are anything else than food for the Web. I'm wondering if the Web is not only a big black hole aspirating all my images, writings and time. But more and more of my sales are done from the Web, the Web gives me instant delivery of my work to my clients, free phone calls and many other usefull thing in my everyday job. So ...

I love when she's wild

Splashhhh

Another night where i left my bed at before 5 am, another dawn where i was on the beach before the sun, another fresh morning with wet feet because of waves and because of the little pools you can see on the rocks, another morning where the light was not so nice. But i love when the sea is like that !

Large view here or by clicking the photo as usual :)

HDR morning on the Mediterranean coast

November morning on the Bau Rouge beach in Provence

In an early autumn morning, it's very rare to see somebody on this place but when i shot there in the summer, tourists start to arrive from 7 am.
I love to be there.
It's a wild place when you feel into the sea. It's not easy to come when the weather is too strong but it's not impossible and just on the right there is a little cave where i love to stay during the storms looking at the waves splashing.

This photo was done with 2 exposures blended in one HDR image and tonemapped with photomatix.
I've kept it natural, maybe i'll post a more crazy version in the next days.

In the flow

Sunny morning on the Mediterranean coast

An other one with moving water but under the sun :)

Large view here

Crazy night, strong wind and wild sea

Mediterranean storm in Provence

For a few days, we had here a kind of wind storm. The wind was so strong that some of the big ships sailing beteween the continent and Corsica were seriously delayed.
Yesterday in the evening things were going better, so i planned some seascapes for this morning at dawn. In the middle of the night, we were awaken by the noise of thunder, wind and crazy rain. At 5 am, no more noise, i left the bed and drove to the sea under a beautiful starry night. Arrived on the place, standing on the top of a cliff 40 meters above the sea, i was in a really crazy wind with salt water vapors all around me and i saw that the rocks where i wanted to go were under the waves. So i decided to move to an other place not too far. There i could approach the sea a little more but not as wanted. I spent there a few times, took a few shots of the crashing waves but it was definitely not a good day for beautiful seascapes.

Dusk light on the beach

Dusk light on the Presqu'île de Giens

It was late when i shot this one and i had to have a 3 minutes long exposure. I had to frame in the dark, to focus manually and my head lamp was of a great help, to read the lens focusing scale but also to climb the little path threw the cliff to go back to my car.

Colors in the sky

Sunshine over the Presqu'île de Giens

Birth of a new day - HDR version

Birth of a new day, HDR with Photomatix 3.1

This is the same image that the one shown in this post, but for this version, the two exposures where processed with the newest version of Photomatix.

I really don't want to write a review of this new version of the most popular HDR software. I had these images to process, i had just read that a new version of Photomatix was available so i have updated my setup before processing my files.
If you look at the Photomatix website, you will see that the list of updated and new features is long but i was specially interested by this one : Option to reduce chromatic aberrations / color fringing added to "Generate HDR options" dialog. I have to say that i wasn't impressed by this new tool.
My most usual workflow for the HDR job is the following :

• First processing of the raw files with Silkypix.
• HDR generation and tonemapping using Photomatix.
• And sometimes, tweaks on the resulting 48 bit TIF file.

Usually, i use the SilkyPix tool to reduce chromatic aberrations during the raw processing. This time i first tried to process the raw files without doing anything about chromatic aberration and give a test to the new Photomatix tool. I was not very convinced by the results ... So i reprocessed my raw files, asked SilkyPix to reduce chromatic aberrations and processed the resulting files in Photomatix without checking the CA reduction option. I found the new result better than the first one.

Vivid colors and long exposure plus one happy feature

Long exposure of some rocks bathing in the Mediterranean sea.

This one is the most recent of my long exposure of rocks bathing in the Mediterranean waves collection. Sometimes, the photographer needs a little luck, capturing such vivid colors and keeping the water perfectly smooth is not always easy.

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Natural threat : cloudy sky over the Mediterranean sea

FishHack, another blogger has just featured this image in his blog and he asked me if i liked his choice.
I mention it here because i really like his choice. This image is one of my big fav from this year. It was done in May. The day before, the meteo said that weather will be very fine during the next days and then i decided to be on the beach before dawn to be able to capture some soft and beautiful blue and pink tones ...
So i woke up before 3 am, drove to the sea threw a little fog and once on the beach i discovered that the weather was not be exactly what i was expecting. I was a little disappointed during a short time but decided to stay and try to catch some skyscapes over the sea. I did two when the sun was just rising and this one a short time later because i noticed the clear blue in the water contrasting with the gray sea and sky. The first two are probably more beautiful because of the rising sun but i think this one is my real fav, probably because it makes me really feel the atmosphere of this morning.

Birth of a new day

Birth of a new day at Le Pradet, Provence

Another day on the beach before dawn ...

Manual DRI from 2 exposures. Depending of the subject of course, i tend to use more and more this technic instead of graduated ND filters.

Large view here.

Color is back

Vivid morning on the Mediterranean sea

After two black and white shots, it was time to come back to my more usual work :)

Autumn on the sea - black and white

Rocks in the Mediterranean waves

Here, it's raining for days and days, so i work on some of my previous images.
This one is from the first days of october.
138 seconds exposure.

Still

That's one of my long exposures from August, just processed because since i'm back from Corsica i'm too busy with administrative things and file processing.