Mediterranean perspective

Mediterranean seascape in Provence - Carqueiranne

A winter shot. HDR work with a very light tone mapping.

In the green field

Nicely shaped chestnut tree trunk

A fresh dream

Winter stream in La Plaine des Maures - Provence

For some days, we have a real summer here. So i've decided to look at some of my winter Provence images and found this one.

Calm at dawn

Calm at dawn - Le Pradet - Provence

Peaceful mediterranean seascape in Provence.

Colors and shapes

Rocks in the Mediterranean sea

Long exposure in full day light.

When the gray sky makes the sea gray

Récif in the Mediterraneans sea large view

Long exposure by a gray morning at Le Pradet - Provence.

The old trunk

Closeup on an old chestnut tree trunk

These old trunks are sometimes incredibles.

Natural threat - Cloudy seascape

Natural threat : clouds over the Mediterranean sea
large view

An incoming storm over the Mediterraneans sea at Carqueiranne in Provence.

The sky was done by HDR processing 3 exposures, the sea and ground come from a unique shot.

Natural art

This is a photo of a small piece of wood which was receiving the last sunrays in the dark hole of an old chestnut tree trunk.

A very few words about color management

Colors and waves - Mediterranean seascape
One year ago, i've promised to write here something about color management and ...I'm re-thinking to that know.

An in depth explanation would be too technical for my basic english so i will just say that with digital imaging color management is the only way to control how a screen color will print and (if possible) how other peoples will see the colors you see on your screen. So :

• If you're a photographer, colors management helps you to produce the prints you want.
• If you publish images on the web, with color management you can have an idea of how your readers will see your colors.
• If you're just looking at photos on the web, with a color managed display you can see the colors and tones the photographer wants to show.

If you're interested by these few lines and want to know more, i recommend the 2 following links :

• One from Tom Niemann, easily understandable and focusing on monitor calibration.
• One from Norman Koren, more complete (monitors and printers) and more technical.

In conclusion i will just add that for some years, i profile my screens and printers with Datacolor products. I don't know if your screen is color managed so i can't know how you see my images but prints coming from my printers or from printing companies have the colors i want.

Springtime in Provence

Springtime landscape in La Plaine des Maures
I'm late ... this shot is two years old and this blog was not ever borned.
La Plaine des Maures is a protected natural area. These ponds appear and disapear very quickly with rain and dryness and their neighbourhood are some biodiversity kingdoms.

Lonely cliff

Lonely cliff - Provence landscapeI thought that some of you could be fed up with all the seascapes i post for some months. So, i've decided to add a little more variety to the images i will feature here.

The village where i leave is in the middle of thousands hills. Between all of these : this cliff. I've always found this place fascinating, no road to come, nobody, just a few guts ...

This shot is two years old today and for two years, one print hangs in my office, just in front of me.

Don't miss the large view.

Stormy dawn on the sea

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

Mediterranean colors

An april shot just processed. It was at Le Bau Rouge near Carqueiranne.
Just a long exposure at dusk.

Dusk lights and shadows

An other Mediterranean seascape in my new place near Le Pradet.
The large view looks really better.

Tips for zoomify on blogspot

Powered by Zoomify

You can also have a look at a larger version of this image.
One of my old posts recently received some commments asking for help about Zoomify implementation on blogspot so i decided to post some tips here.

Files hosting : You need a web host for the zoomify viewer and for you image file folders. Don't try to upload them directly on blogspot, you can't do that.
On this web host, create one folder to receive the zoomifyViewer.swf file. Then, create one subfolder of this folder to receive the content of the tiles folder and the ImageProperties.xml file created by zoomify.
For the next part, we'll assume that :

• Your web host URL is :
  http://mywebhost.com
• The URL of the folder receiving the swf file is :
  http://mywebhost.com/zoom/
• The URL of the folder receiving the files generated by zoomify is :
  http://mywebhost.com/zoom/image/

Code editing : Zoomify gives a Template.html file. You need to edit its content in the following way.

• Replace the width and height values with the values you want.
• Replace the URLs of the swf file and of the image folder with the above values.

When done, save the html file on your local machine, open it with your browser. If you have all done correctly you should have a blank page showing your image in the zoomify viewer.
If it's OK, edit again the Template.html file, remove the first 3 lines and the last 3 (html, body, div tags). Remove also the blank lines.
Blogspot doesn't like the newlines into the html tables codes. So delete them all until you have all the code on one unique line. Connect to your blogspot account, post one new message, go to the Edit HTML code tab and copy the big code line int the text area. Check the preview and it should be right :)

Digital darkroom power

I'm shooting digital since the end of the 90'ies but i'm still amazed by the power of the digital darkroom.
I'm writting this post in front of two fresh prints of the images posted here. Nobody could tell how much these photos were processed. They both come from the same raw files and just differ by the post processing.

A little more :
At the begining were 5 exposures from the same frame with one EV increment between each. I converted them to 5 tif files and then blended theses new images using several masks to obtain the photo shown on the top of this article.
The bottom photo is just a variation of the above one.
I've re-processed the first resulting image to obtain 3 new tifs simulating 3 exposures (still 1 EV increment). Once more i used masks (geometric, brush, tones) to blend these 3 new tifs into a new one to which i finally applied some little tones and colors tweaks ...

Of course, the first image looks very more natural than the second one but i'm not sure about the one i'll hang on my wall...

One new place

Wild and peaceful
My regular readers know that i try to make natural landscapes. I try to feature the nature, without people, without man made things.
I don't know excactly why. Here are some possible reasons :

• I've always loved natural landscapes and the most wild they are, the most i love them.
• When i sell prints or licence an image, i don't have to deal with a model release.
• Such landscapes often involve a little hike.

During the past months, i've spent hours and hours shooting seascapes at "Le Bau Rouge" near Carqueiranne. I love this place for a long time but it's very small and for some weeks i was feeling the need to change. So, i asked some friends, looked at the map, and found one new spot. From there, i can see the other face of the "Bau Rouge"'s cliff. The access is easy but the beach (kind of) is not really flat... I think that's why i've never seen anybody bathing there. I also think it's possible to walk on these rocks during hours.
So i think it will be my new spot and i hope to show you soon many other photos.

Back from the ocean

Atlantic coast near Guidel in Brittany
Last week i had to move with my wife and daughter from Provence to Brittany.
It was a 2600 km trip in our old van and under a non stopping rain. We spent 3 days in Brittany near Guidel and we had just one non raining afternoon. It was not a photographic trip but i couldn't resist to a little game with the waves.
The ocean is beautiful even under the rain !

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.