I first noticed this view with the church framed by the trees of the beautiful hedgerow during a walk with my daughter. I just returned yesterday after the rain with a camera.
Monday, 13 May 2013
Some good maps to prepare your visit in France
Anywhere you plan to travel, maps are some very good tools to prepare your trip.
If you want to come and visit France, you can start with Google services like Google Maps, StreetView and GoogleEarth. I use the first and last very much.
If you want some more precise and accurate tools, you can have access to our best maps done by our National Geographic Institute (IGN) for free or a very small amount.
On your desktop, you can go to Géoportail where you will find all the maps and datas you could need even if you plan some wild hikes in the nature.
Internet on desktop is nice when you're at home but once arrived in France, you may prefer your mobile device.
Iphigénie (website here) is an amazing app available for Android and iOS giving you access to the maps from Géoportail. A nice caching system lets you prefetch your maps when you're online and read them offline if you're lost in the wild.
There are 2 versions of Iphigénie :
- The basic and free one.
- The extended and paying one.
The app will give you access for free to all the maps from IGN during one month but after you will need to pay. Maps can be licensed annualy or monthly. The annual license costs less than €15.
Of course, you can also buy the paper editions of these maps but they will be more expensive than the electronic ones.
I will end with a screenshot of my Google Nexus 7 showing Iphigénie displaying the map of one of my most recent outing along the Rhône river.
Saturday, 11 May 2013
The blue shutters of Pyrimont castle
Pyrimont is a small hamlet of Chanay village in Ain department. This "castle" stands above the Rhône river where i was making images a few days ago.
I was actually on the other side of the valley, walking along a narrow country road when i first noticed this big house and its blue shutters.
I walked until finding a nice point of view on the river, made the photos i wanted to do and on the way back to my car, i stopped for 2 or 3 images of the "castle".
At this time, i didn't know anything about this house. Back home i looked at several maps and aerial views. Then, i was almost sure it was Pyrimont castle. I made more internet searches looking for images to confirm but the only one i found was a very old postcard. I also learned that although its name, this "castle" is more an aristocrat's house built at the beginning of 19th century.
A little improvement for mobile readers
When i started this blog some years ago, Blogger wasn't offering the lightbox function to show large images.
I didn't really know Blogger specific coding rules and was a little afraid to implement my own css and javascript in the template. Instead, i choose to setup a page on my web server dedicated to show my photos at large size.
I wanted the most clean and simple design, so it just displays a black background with the image centered horizontally and vertically. The basic css code is automatically generated by a php script on the server according to the image sizes.
When Google included the lightbox in Blogger, i didn't want to edit all my old posts and decided to keep my own solution.
As far as i know, the blog displays nicely on mobile devices (tablets and phones) it just had a problem when users tried to open the large photos on with "small" screens.
As more and more people browse the internet with mobile tools i had to do something.
So, this morning i took a few time to add a little javascript to my system. It resizes and recenters the image according to its original sizes and to the display resolution.
Friday, 10 May 2013
Golden feathers
I was under the trees, waiting for the rain to stop.
I spent a short time playing with a long lens and the yellow springtime flowers all around.
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