Cameras today are mini computers with a lens fitted; the software is amazing and something I have not yet got to grips with. Making taking photographs easier has created another problem of being able to use very complicated systems to fully utilise what is on offer. During our trip to France this month, I resolved to try to get to understand some of the sytems available. The scene options I soon discarded as they seem to ruin an image and Photoshop can reproduce the effects anyway. The exception is perhaps the black and white setting which gives a good photo.
I used a polarising filter which organises light and this is why the reflections are dramatic. In addition I learnt how to use manual focus which gives better control over the shot.
This is fuzzy at the edge as I used an effect but you can see how clear the colours and reflections are due the polarising filter.
The left image below is looking upstream and you can see the fish-viewing windows on the left the right hand photo looks down stream so they are on the right. The clarity of colour can be seen.
A polarising filter also cuts out reflections on water but, fool that I am, I did not use it for the following shots. Some of the carp are over 50 cm. long.
Though I think that not all reflections are bad, they can add an ethereal quality to the photos such as in the one below which is of a sunken dinghy outside of the kitchen window. You can just see one of the ten carp investigating.
The telephoto lens is great fun and for the following shot I used it with manual focus. The spider was only about 5mm long and I was about three metres away. It hangs around the balcony on one of the railings.
The railing he – or she – inhabits is to the right, out of shot. It was our coffee break.
Writing this, looking at the images made me think of how it was 15 years ago. One of my first A/Vs, Epron, starts and finishes at our house a decade ago and you may care to watch it. It is not too long and it gives an idea of how it was after a couple of years renovation. In the beginning there were no doors, roof or windows. Just 200 year old stone walls.
Niort is a biggish town nearby. It has a food market and some odd shops such as this Broccante. It must have been 75 metres long altogether. The proprietor sat reading at a table in the entrance and was taking no notice of what was going on. It is near the river featured in the headline image.
Reflections fascinate me and I spotted a good one in the glass front of the food market.
The colours and contrasts the slight confusion caused by the reflection intrigued me.
I then noticed the figure on the left so I zoomed in. She was about 250 metres away but the camera telephoto coped very well.
I like the vertical lines and the different blues. Even though it was a long distance photo I was able to crop it and still have a reasonable and fascinating image.
Even if the image is poor good old Photoshop can transform it as this profile shot, which I cropped from the main food hall image above, demonstrates. I used an ink outline function. Again it is the vertical lines and blues I find interesting.
Time came to leave and we made our way to Roscoff via Quimper where we stayed the night and what a lovely town it is. Beautiful, gentle, creative and the hotel, Best Western Hotel Kregenn was fabulous, quiet, welcoming and we both had a good nights sleep. Quimper is well worth a visit.
Here is a night shot taken with my ever-present iPhone
and here a day shot taken with a camera.
The street with a single woman walking down seemed an evocative shot; a slope, clean and no litter with the bollards at the end. I like roof tops as well as reflections. The roofs were taken from our hotel window.
We set off for Roscoff but first Valerie wanted to see Brest as it was such a strategic town in World War II. We didn’t stop so there are no photographs. We were amazed as to how many large factories there were along the coast. Every thing seemed new. We then headed towards Brignogan-Plage . The tide was out but the beach looked so interesting with rocks, the boats and trees. I tried out the panoramic setting; I am still amazed by this feature of modern cameras.
We had a picnic of bread with goose rillet, cheese and tomatoes with tea made with water from our trusty Thermos. It is not mentioned in Wikipedia but I believe it was invented in Enfield
The bench was too wet to sit on but was a lovely blue
and the red boat looked very pretty.
The wind was getting up as we set off for the ferry and I was not looking forward to crossing in the tail end of hurricane Ophelia. I sailed a lot with my Dad, in the Thames Estuary, but was never a good sailor. Fortunately I was OK I suspect that the hardening of the bristles in my inner ear which causes my age related deafness, afforded me protection to this dreadful condition.
After a night in a noisy hotel room in Torbay we went to hear our friend Jennifer Johnson read at the Torbay Poetry Festival. This is one of the first such festivals in England and is a well known event on the poetry scene held in the Livermead Cliff Hotel with a wonderful view over the bay. I like to hear Jennifer read. Her poems have an honest, well observed quality and are sensitive and heartfelt.
As I was listening I spotted yet an another interesting reflection with commere and organiser Patricia Oxley and one of the audience so out came the iPhone again.
A final look at the fish at Epron. As the wall of the house is the bank of the leat, we can watch them from our kitchen window. As the leat or millstream, is surrounded by private land the fish are safe from fishermen so it is a form of sanctuary. This year there were ten large carp and myriads of little fishes about 10cm long. It is lovely to watch them, both a beautiful and calming experience. Here is a short clip of a couple of meandering carp.
