La Compote, mountain village in Massif des Bauges Natural Park

La Compôte en Bauges

 

An image from july.
In this hot summer day afternoon, i was driving through Massif des Bauges Natural Park, back from a client assignment. I had spent the morning making architecture images of a wood made building and wanted to relax a bit and explore the park.
I love driving on mountain roads, climbing the passes and discovering the landscape all around.

I arrived at La Compôte in the second part of afternoon, had a fresh drink in a café, hiked the hills all around for a few shots and drove to Annecy lake and Duing castle.

Grande Rivière village in Haut Jura Natural Park

Grande Rivière village near Abbey lake

Chateau des Pres, village in Haut Jura Natural Park

Rural landscape around Château des Prés, Haut Jura Natural Park

 

This pretty place was along my road last week when i was driving to Abbey lake ...

Nernier harbour

Nernier harbour on Geneva lake

One more image of Nernier from past month.

I've published an important update on my main website. Until last week, the only way to view my stock images was to browse the galleries but it's possible to reach directly all the images corresponding to a specific tag (or keyword).
For example all my images of Nernier can be found here.

Musieges, hilltop village in Haute Savoie

Musièges

One new image in the serie about the rural landscapes around my home.

I could have titled it View from my window but that's not exactly true. I really have a view on this village from my home but i had to climb another hill to find this point of view.
I've always loved this scene but despite the proximity, i don't have any outstanding image of Musièges. This recent one is one of my fav, i think this point of view is one of the best on the village but i need to return for a better light.

Dusk light on Nernier harbor

Dusk light on Nernier harbor

One more from my last visit to Nernier.
It was not easy to get because the wind was blowing strongly at dusk time making the boats to move and many duks were crossing the lake leaving some "dirty" tracks on the silky water.

Bouchoux village in the mountains of Haut Jura Natural Park

Les Bouchoux - Haut Jura Natural Park


On march 3, i went for an exploration drive in Haut Jura Natural Park.
I was surprised to discover that, excepted in Valserine valley, all the snow was gone.

The tour started when i left home before dawn. I drove through Valserine valley until Mijoux village. Then i took the mountain road to Lajoux and Bellecombe.
A little road i wanted to visit was still closed because the snow had not been cleaned since the beginning of winter. I walked on the first kilometers, and explored a little bit the surrounding forest.
Then i went back to my car and drove to Septmoncel, stopped to visit some new streams and took the car again to another place near Saint-Claude where i could make a nice walk through a beautiful forest to Horse tail waterfall or Cascade de la Queue de Cheval in french.
Back once more to the car, i drove to Saint-Claude where i stopped just a short time to visit the cathedral.
The afternoon was beginning when i left the cathedral to take the road through an unknown part of the Park. This road sent me near the village of Les Bouchoux.
Once more, i left the car, explored some forests and finally climbed a little hill for a few images of te village itself.
Some other and smaller mountains roads drove me back to Mijoux and Valserine valley. Finally, i was back home about one hour after night fall.

20 images from this day were recently added on my french website. You can have a look here.

Pietrapola i Bagni - Corsica

Pietrapola i Bagni - Corsica

I had a few time today to process some old images from our 2 months trip in Corsica last year. This image is one of the 13 i've just added to my french website.

Pierapola i Bagni is a village in the Abatesco valley and is known for it hot springs. We spent a few days around this place before leaving the island.

Weekly commented photo #8 - A high resolution view of Collobrieres village in Provence

Collobrieres village in Provence

So, this a view of Collobrières village in Provence. I lived there during 15 years.
The photo was done in march 2004 and is about 7 years old.

In 2004 i was mainly using a Nikon D100 for my landscape work but i've always loved smaller cameras for family images or holidays, etc. During the film era, i was really often using an Olypus XA2 with Velvia or Provia slide film. When time cames to digital i tried many compact cameras but was never really happy with their image quality. My favourites non DSLR cameras were the Dimage 7i and A1 from Minolta.

This view of Collobrières was done with the Dimage A1. It was a 5mpx bridge with a 28-200 f2.8 zoom. The sensor was smaller than the one of my DSLRs but really larger the the ones in compact cameras. The lens was a high quality one done by Minolta and i've to say that in many circumstances this camera gave me some amazing raw files.
Of course it was not the camera for low light images but for most common images it was a very good one. It was also compatible with the very good Minolta flash system and i often used it with a 5600 HSD flash with a real pleasure.

So, let come back to the photo :
I was at home and saw the beautiful light of this end of afternoon. My Nikon gears were at my office about 30km far. I grabed the A1 and a tripod, climbed the hill above the village, made a few single shots and as the light became better and better, i decided to make a stitched high resolution image.
It was something i often did in these old years because DSLRs cameras didn't had all the pixels they now have.

So, i took 11 images with the Dimage A1 and the zoom at its longer focal length.
I gave me 11 raw files that i processed with SilkyPix and stitched with PTGuiPro.
The resulting image weights about 20 mega pixels and when i look at the full resolution file i can't distinguish it from a file done with a HD DSLR.

Poggio di Nazza a Corsica reminder

Some minutes ago, i was browsing and sorting some old images on my computer and then i found this forgotten one. Beleive it or not but all the colors are real (as much as something can be real in a photograph) and the incredible sky is due to the outstanding wind that was blowing this evening in the Corsica mountains.

Chaumont village and the Fornant river running under the woods

Chaumont village
Here are 2 recent shots from our new place : the village near which we live and the Fornant river just before the nice Barbennaz waterfall.

Note 1 : The panoramic view was done by stitching 20 images taken with a long lens. The job was done as usual with PTGui.

Note 2 : I'm still busy with building my new office and working in the house so you will have to wait a little more for the return of regular posting here.

The Fornant river running under the wood

Evening light on Collobrières village

Evening light on Collobrières village - Provence

This image perfectly illustrates the adventure life of a landscape photograper.
About one week ago, i was washing my hands in the bathroom when i saw the light.
I opened the window, installed my tripod, took my camera and made this one :)

Place Rouget de l'Isle

Place Rouget de l'Isle in Collobrières - Provence

For the peoples interested in technical things :

This image was created from 3 exposures blended into one real HDR image with Picturenaut.
A first tonemapping was done also with Picturenaut and then the HDR file was also tonemapped with Photomatix.
The 2 tonemapped images were then blended to give the final result.

The most difficult thing is to wait for the wind to stop :)

Vezzani village in winter - Corsica

A typical mountain village in Corsica.

Three images stitched with PTGui.

Snow falls in Provence

Snow on Collobrières roofs

A view from my bathroom's window this morning.
It was just a short snow fall but that's unusual enough to deserve a photo.

HDR from 3 exposures, tonemapped with Photomatix.

Some will ask why to use HDR when the scene doesn't need a large dynamic range.
Just because i was sure at shooting time, to love the effect of tonemapping on this image and a tonemapped image is always cleaner when done from multiple exposures instead of a single one.

Colorful houses in Provence village - HDR

Rue Galilée in Collobrières - Provence

As many of you seem to like this kind of pictures, here's a new one :)

Same place and same day than this one.

A little street in Puget Thenier

A little street in Puget Thenier

Puget Thenier is a little village above Nice in the Alpes Maritimes region. We went there for a mandolin festival and i took a few shots to post here.

For this one i did 3 things i very rarely do :

• I shoot right in the middle of the day.
• I didn't use any tripod.
• I exposed the shot for the highlights and then did a HDR processing with 3 exposures from the same raw file.

A narrow street in Collobrières - HDR

Traverse Montesquieu - Collobrières - Provence

This is an old street of my village, near the Place Rouget de l'Islse.

Some english friends live in the houses on the left so we come there very often but i had never done an image here before :)
I was walking there yesterday morning with my daughter when i had the idea of this HDR shot. So after the walk i came back with a camera and a tripod.

Grimaud from the sky

Aerial view of Grimaud in Provence

 

Grimaud is a hilltop village in Provence, just a few kilometers far from Saint-Tropez and famous for its quaint looking and its old castle.

I took this photo from a helicopter a little more than 2 years ago. It was during an assignment about the construction of some luxuous villas in the hills around that place. This one was quickly done the road to work.

2009 first one

I've a very few shots of my village but yesterday in the evening i had to cross this place and thought it could give a nice image. So, around midnight i came back with a camera and tripod.
The night was very cold but a guy living in one of these houses saw me and came out to speak about photography :)

This image was done from 5 exposures, processed with SilkyPix, converted to HDR and tone mapped with Photomatix.