Weekly commented photo # 31 - Dusk light on the Alpine meadow

Dusk light on Grand Crêt d'Eau mountain

That's another scheduled post because i'm not at work this week. No office work, no blogging and a very few photography. I hope to retrieve a better posting rate here during next week.

As you can devine, this image is from the same serie that the previous one of my Weekly commented photos. It was done a little later and i was still around the Chalet du Sac on Grand Crêt d'Eau mountain.

Usually, chalets are built with wood logs but the word also designates these little houses used by sheperds spending summer with their flocks in the mountains.
This one is not still used by sheperds but i've read that anyone hiking there can stop here and spend the night in a safe place.
That's not difficult to devine that i will probably try that in a short time, just to be sure not to miss the first lights of the day.

The photo is a HDR one done from 5 exposures and processed with SilkyPix and Photomatix.

Why did i use HDR photography here ?
Just because that the scene dynamic range was really too high to give a nice and good result even with a very strong GND filtration.

Weekly commented photo # 30 - Alpine meadow on Grand Cret d'Eau mountain

Alpine meadow on Grand Crêt d'Eau mountain

That's a really recent image taken just a few hours ago.

After my first visit a few weeks ago, i returned this evening to the Grand Crêt d'Eau mountain. I wanted to explore a little more and eventually make photos of Leman lake and Jura mountains in dusk light.

As i left home under a beautiful blue sky, i was surprised to find such a cloudy and windy weather on the mountain. The elevation here is only 1380m but beleive me, i was happy to have a polar vest to wear over my t-shirt.

Surprised by the clouds and seduced by the light i spent the last hours of the day here, trying different compositions and lights.
After a short time, all the cows probably intrigued gave me a little visit to see who was gesticulating in the field with a big black tripod. They looked at me during a few minutes and as i'm definitely not an interesting people they returned to their place where grass was probably better.

Weekly commented photo # 28 - First visit to Grand Cret d'Eau mountain

First light on Grand Crêt d'Eau mountain - Haut Jura Natural Park

This is a scheduled post. While you read it i'm enjoying a very few days of holidays, probably around the lakes of Jura mountains.

The Grand Crêt d'Eau mountain overhangs the end of Valserine valley on the left side of the river. It's also the last (or first) summit of Jura mountains range. It also overhangs the Rhône river and it's really close to the Vuache mountain.

Visiting Grand Crêt d'Eau was a project i had for a long time. Even if summer is not (in my mind) the best season for landscape photography i decided to go there at dawn on monday. To prepare this first exploration i did a little of internet scouting looking for photos of the mountain and words about hiking there.
I didn't found any very beautiful image but some texts describing some nice walks.

So, on monday i walk up at 4 am, took my car and drove to Grand Crêt d'Eau.
Arrived at the end of the road, i left the car and follow my instinct to decide which path to take.
After a relatively short anf beautiful walk between forests and fields i arrived with the first real lights of the day on that place just before the Col du Sac.

I would have liked to look for a better point of view but i knew the light would stay like this just a very short time. So i stopped on the path took this image plus a couple of other similar ones and continued my walk.

A very short time after i arrived at the Col du Sac. The place is really beautiful and inviting but the light was ever too strong to give some very interesting images.
I pursued my explorations during about one hour in the mountain meadows trying to find nice point of views and to devine what would be the best time to come back for landscape photography.

As usual for first explorations i didn't made a huge harvest of interesting images but at least i came back with a few decent ones and more important with many ideas and a very large area to explore.

For people interested in technical things, this photo was done using a 0.9 (3 stops) soft GND filter and the raw file needed just a very few adjustments (done with Silkypix) to produce the final image.

Along the Valserine river - Haut Jura Natural Park

Along the Valserine river - Haut Jura Natural Park

I post this one in a hurry before leaving for a very few holidays.
My weekly commented photo post is scheduled for fryday :)

Weekly commented photo # 27 - Cascading water in Valserine river

That's obviously the same place than on my previous weekly commented photo and that's also one of the 36 images i processed yesterday afternoon and that will be uploaded on my french stock website in the next days.

So this week, my comments won't be about this lovely place in Haut Jura Natural Park neither why and how i took this photo. I just want to say a few general words about photographying this kind of scenes.

On several photo sharing sites i've seen many popular images of waterfalls or running water whitout any details in the water. This kind of image can probably give the illusion to be a nice photograph when viewed rapidly on a screen but they certainly won't make beautiful prints.

If a photographer wants to show the water movement there are two things he has to think about :

• Shutter speed :
  A low shutter speed is perfect for the silky water effect but if it's too low it may kill the effect. I don't know any rule to estimate the right one, it depends of the water speed and quantity and also of how is the light on the water. Of course huge shutter speeds can be used to create other effects.

• Avoiding over exposure :
  Over exposing the water can destroy a waterfall photo more surely than any other mistake and that's a mistake easy to make with rivers running under the woods like this one. Such places are often relatively darks and the contrast between shadows under the trees and white parts on the water can easily exceed the dynamic range of a camera.
  Avoiding to over expose the water at shooting time is the most important thing but the photographer must also be careful when he processes his raw files. Such files often contain a large part of dark pixels and a small part of highlights corresponding to the water. Lightening the shadows is often needed to give a pleasant image but that must done without sacrifying the highlights.

My french Waterfalls, Rivers and Stream gallery starts to be popular and i'm often asked about how to photograph moving water. These words i choose to write here today are what i answer most of time.

The little road through Valserine valley

The little road through Valserine valley

The place around these very few houses is named La rivière (The river) and the images posted here about the Valserine river where done a few km far.

Weekly commented photo #26 - Cascading water in Valserine river

Little cascades in Valserine river

I just had a very long and busy week since monday and i really had no time to blog since my last weekly commented photo. If it was a bad week about blogging, it was a good one on the money side.
I have closed two big clients projects : all the shooting is done and all the files processed. Another nice thing is that i had many nice print sales in june. In fact, i can note a real increase of these sales from 3 months. I can just hope things will go on like this in the future ...

On june 24, i returned at dawn to the Valserine valley.
Four days after my first visit, i wanted to explore more the river banks.
That was a nice walk. Sometimes in the water, sometimes in the forest but it ended with a little canyon surrounded by two small cliffs that i couldn't pass safely with my rubber boots and all my photo gear. I think i'll have to find another path to discover the next part of the river.

The image shown above is one of the really first place i found in the river.
On my first day here, there were some big branches across the rocks and the cascades but between my two visits some big rains have cleared the place.
I now have a little ton of raw files from this place and this one is the first and only one i had the time to process during the past week. Things should go better in the next days ...

Weekly commented photo #25 - Valserine river in Haut Jura Natural Park

Valserine river running through the forest of Haut Jura Natural Park

The Valserine river runs in Haut Jura Natural Park.
It's a small river : a little less than 50 km long. It starts in the mountains near the Faucille pass and ends in the Rhône river at Bellegarde sur Valserine.

We have some friends living in the valley under the Faucille pass. That's about 50 km far from our home but climates are very differents. The place where they live is probably one of the coldest in France :)

So, i often take the road through the Valserine valley.
I was first seduced by the beautiful mountain forest and spent many and unsuccessful days exploring it but never found any interesting place for photography.
During one of these tries, i noticed a little path which seemed to go to the river.

So on june 20, i left home before dawn and drove to the path's entrance. Then i walked about 10 minutes through the forest until i arrived to a beautiful old bridge over the river. I left the path and walked along the river bed.

It was really a beautiful place with little waterfalls between mossy rocks.
I spent about two hours making images all around. I choose this one to post here today because it features the forest as well as the river.

I plan to return soon to explore the place more deeply. Perharps will i also find a nice place for forest photography ...

French countryside in Valserine valley

French countryside in Valserine valley

An image done this morning in the beautiful rural landscape of the Valserine valley. Just near Chezery Forens in Haut Jura Natural Park

Mossy trunk abstract in Valserine forest

Mossy trunk abstract in Valserine forest

All my visits to the Valserine valley look the same.
I spent there a little more time on Saturday and once more i was not the right place at the right time.
In the forest, i found some trunks nicely covered by moss and after a few stock shots i started to play, moving my camera vertically during the exposure.
That's an easy game but it doesn't always give interesting results. I was quite lucky with this one.

Weekly commented photo #19 : Coniferous and deciduous trees in Valserine forest

Coniferous and deciduous trees in the mountains of Valserine valley

After my first and unsucessful try in the Valserine valley, i returned there last week under a beautiful blue sky. It's not my favourite weather for photography but at least it was not raining cats and dogs.

After about one hour driving i arrived in the valley. My initial thought was to make some photos inside the forest.
I found one place to park my car along the (very) narrow road and started to walk, searching one place to penetrate the forest.
It was not an easy thing. The forest was hardly steep and i had dead leaves up to my knees. Most of all, stones were falling down from the cliffs over the forest ...
Although i've been an active rock climber and alpinist during more than 20 years i didn't feel very secure.

My tripod helped me to climb and stay on my legs in the slope but event a Manfrotto one is not a real mountaineering tool :)
I probably spent a little more than one hour in that place, trying to make images.
Composition was very difficult in the steep slope and even the tripod was not easy to set up.
I think i've one acceptable image from this uncomfortable hour.

Then i went back (down would be a more exact word) to my car and continued my exploration of the valley.

I drove, stopped, walked, drove, stopped, walked and so on until the end of the afternoon.
I found one or two beautiful places for landscape photography but it was not the good time.
I was fed up before dusk and decided to come back home.

The image above was done from the road side while drinving back in the valley.
It would probably have been really more beautiful if i had waited one or two more hours but i was not in that feeling.

I've spent more than half a day scouting there and i still don't know exactly where and when to return to make the images i want ...

Some news :)

In the Jura forest

So, i took a long summer break, at least from the online point of view.

We started to go to Jura which is a cold and wet mountain region. The van trip with my wife and daughter had a little smell of adventure, crossing the alps under impressive thunderstorms.
We spent about one week in Jura with friends living there and then we moved to an other alpine region where my parents are living.

After that we came back to the strong heat of the Provence summer, i worked a little and had great moments with my wife and daughter.
We left the sea to the tourists until the second half of August where we started to explore the wild coast of the Presqu'île de Giens.
I'll tell you more in the next days :)