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.

On the road

Panoramic landscape in Provence mountains

That's another old shot just published for not being too boring with my most recent seascapes.
I remember this day. It was during 2006 springtime. After several days of rains a strong Mistral was blowing on the mountains around my village. I walked the 7 kilometers from my house because cars are not allowed to use this road.
I arrived on the place in the late afternoon just with this beautiful light and could shoot this pano and a few other frames before darkness.

For the tech addict readers, the pano was done from 6 nef files from my Nikon D100 converted with SilkyPix and stitched with PTGui.

Large view here.

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 ...

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.

Roquebrune panorama

Rocher de Roquebrune sur Argens

This one was done from 16 NEF files, processed in SilkyPix and the stitched with PTGui.

I love this place for a long time. This image was done in April 2007 but i still remember the feeling of this end of afternoon alone in this little bush, waiting for the light with my tripod and camera.

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.

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.

An other shot in the forest

Autumn path in Provence forest
I don't have posted anything there for a long time. No real reason, i could say it's because i'm too busy but i'm always too busy so i'll just say that's because this autumn gives me a lazy feeling.

HDR colors in autumn vineyard and another thing

Autumn hdr landscape in the Provence vineyard
HDR from 3 exposure with 1 EV increment.
Don't forget do look at the large view.

And know, the other thing :
Usually i only write about photography on this blog. But sometimes i have to make some exceptions ...
For a little more than 1 year, i try to sell fine art prints of my job on Etsy. During this year i've only sold 3 prints. It's my worst selling place and i stay there for 2 reasons :

• It makes a good publicity and it gave me many sales in other places.
• Some other Etsy sellers are very friendly and chatting with them in the forums is always a pleasure.

So, last week i was tagged by Jetty and some weeks ago it was by Estella ...
Tagging is a blogging game and here are the rules :

• Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
• Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
• Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving theirnames as well as links to their blog.
• Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

7 things about me :

• I'm an happy man living in a beautiful place with beautiful wife and daughter and i love my job.
• I was a rock climber and spent some years chasing for cliffs around the Europe.
• It looks like climbing was a important part of my life for a very long time : When i was less than 2 i climbed on the walls of my baby bed and broke my head :), when i was 12 i often climbed on the roof of the house to shoot sunsets etc...
• Know i still have to find 3 other things to say.
• I love many kinds of art. Photography of course but also painting and sculpture. I think i really discovered painting while many paintings photographs.
• When my daughter was borned, a famous french painter offered us (her) a huge and beautiful painting. I think that's the most amazing piece of art i've ever owned.
• I think i know why i've so many hearts and so few sales on Etsy. I'm really more expensive than the other photographers selling there and i some peoples still don't trust in inkjet printing. So i've decided that i will soon try to sell lab prints in my Etsy shop but for me they won't be really handmade and they won't be real fine art prints.

and the 7 victims :

• ArtMind
• Pamela Angus
• Leina
• Renate
• La pomme
• Marianne
• Ira

Autumn colors in Provence forest

This morning i had some early work with some clients. On the come back road, i stopped in the forest to make some autumn landscapes. This one is not my usual kind of work but sometimes i like to play :)

No texture added, no digital blur, just 5s exposure while moving the camera on the tripod.

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.

PTGui update

Parasol pines panoramic landscape

A new version of PTGui was published during my Corsica trip. I've downloaded it yesterday and did some tests with old images.
I was interested by two points of the evolutions : better memory management and better blending quality. For some years, i think that PTGui's blender makes a wonderful work in most of the cases so it's difficult to say from my test images if the new version is a real improvement. I'll need to try with some more problematic pics.
While i was doing these tests, my main workstation was busy with processing Corsica shots so i tried the new version on an old HP Vectra with PIII and 384 MB RAM. I can say that developpers have done a great work with memeory management and speed because the software was running very fast with this old config :)

Just back from Corsica

Waterfall in Corsica

It's not often that i have to stay a long time without any internet connection.
I'm just back from a 10 days work trip in Corsica. It was to shoot gardens and pools in some new villas. Villas, gardens and pools were beautiful but they were also very new and didn't had any land line phone.

Corsica is also known as the Island of beauty and after many trips there i've to say that i'm always amazed by the wonderfulness of her nature. Unfortunately i only had a very short time to shoot some landscapes because good lights were reserved for my work shots. The first afternoon, before things really start, i could have a bath in a river with pools and waterfalls. This shot was done from a big rock in the middle of the waterfall pool.

A very soft time

A very soft time - Le Pradet - Provence

Same place, other light, other shot

Récifs in the Mediterranean sea - Le Pradet

Just one month ago, i've posted an other view of these rocks in the Mediterranean waves.
This morning, i went to the same place before dawn. Around 8 am the sky was really blue and i could make this new shot with deep some blue water.

Some other tones

Mediterranean vapors large view

Long exposure (more than 70s) on the Mediterranean sea at dusk time.
Usually this kind of shots is done in black and white and mostly with a strong contrast. Here, i've prefered to keep a few colors and some very soft tones.

One minute for the sea

Recifs in the Mediterranean sea at Le Pradet - Provence

Another long exposure in full daylight.
Don't miss the large view.