Take off April 30, 2008
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While on Holiday in Canada, Vancouver, 2007 I stayed in a house right next to some kind of bird sanctuary. On a sunny afternoon 2 eagles came resting on the top of huge pine tree. To get a better shot I went to the roof balcony of that house and waited for the 2 eagles to fly off… and waited…. and waited… and waited… AND MISSED THE FIRST EAGLE TAKING OFF!!!
In fact I had to wait for about 20 minutes and they just stayed there… I had my biggest lens on, ready to shoot and the camera was getting heavier and heavier… as I decided to take a small break and let the camera loose… one of the eagle decided to fly off!!! my last chance was this the remaining one, I really wanted to take it while taking off, so I waited some more but was finally rewarded when he must have had pitty on me and decided to fly somewhere else!
The idea I had was to take different stages of the take off and frame 4 or 5 of those shots in a long frame. I never done it in the end. I probably have enough shots showing the different stage of the “take off” but haven’t had the time to find a suitable frame for this! (for the little info, I found one in IKEA where you can put 5 photos, but ended up liking the photos already in there… and on top of that I would have to crop my photos for them to fit in!)
Slow Ferrari April 29, 2008
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Voila the crashed ferrari which I mentioned yesterday. (Brands Hatch, London, UK, 2006). This was was being towed away while its driver was left standing there on the side of the road, watching.
I like this photo mainly because of the symbol of a Ferrari being on a tow truck on a race circuit. Using a 300mm zoom lens also made the track much more “compact” than it was. Especially around this corner which was much longer than it seems on that photo.
Lost Driver April 28, 2008
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This photo was taken at the end of a race day at the Brands Hatch circuit near London. On that last course many cars did crash (one of which was a Ferrary, I will post that photo tomorrow). Once the race was finished and all the car were gone I noticed that driver, standing alone and apparently waiting for something.
On that moment he looked kind of sadly funny! standing there, looking at his car being towed away.
I was too late to be able to take him and his car on the same shot, the car was too far by then.
I took 2 shots, one of him standing on the left of the photo and one on the right… Somehow this is the one I prefer. Kind of leaving an emptiness behind him rather than in front of him! Ok, that was my “philosophical moment”. Now, another main reason why I prefer this photo of him standing on the right is because you can see his full shadow on the left (shadow… dark… emptiness… ok I stop! 
Morning sunset April 27, 2008
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In 2005 I went on holiday in Turkey. This photo was taken near the town of Fethiye. As a matter of fact I was staying on a small island right in front of that town and this was the view I had from the balcony every night! 
The sunsets were amazing each-single-night!! This sunset though, was one of my favorite because of the many things that happen in that photo and all the different layers and colors!
For a start the sky had a bright blue color at the top (almost day like color) and an orangy tone at the bottom, almost if you could see the morning and night sky at the same moment! The clouds also were making a nice break from those 2 colors. The sun as you can see was just in those clouds. I had to take many shots before getting this one right, sometimes there was too much sunshine, sometimes it was just too dark, why did those clouds kept moving!
Then there are the layers made by the mountains at the back, this is one thing I remember and really liked about that part of turkey, how all those mountains had so many different shapes and seemed to be one after the other (although in this photo it isn’t that obivous).
When I noticed that small boat coming through I was undecided if I should include it or not… thinking it was a bit too “clichee” but decided in the end to add it to get a sense of scale but decided not to have it right in the center.
Jailed Sky April 26, 2008
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On my last day (New York, 2005) I had to walk on Brooklyn Bridge!
Somehow I thought it looked different, for a starter I didn’t know it had this kind of mesh of metal on each side of the bridge. To me it almost looked like a metallic fence and I just wanted to play with the idea of prison versus freedom.
So I selected a spot and angle which could give me a sense of depth/perspective (a recurrent theme I know! and which would look as it one has “emprisonned” the sky. I assure you, I did not smoke anything while I took that photo
Well, that’s what this photo makes me think about anyway!
Unfinished building April 25, 2008
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Photo from my New York trip in 2005, this was quite early in the morning on my way to Central Park. I woke up in a city completely submerged by fog!
It was amazing to see all those tall building disappearing in the sky. Although I shot a few building this one got my attention. First, it was not “touching” any other building which made it stand out more, then it just had the right color tone so the fog blended nicely with it.
I am not sure how tall that building was actually! as I don’t remember walking down that street again, once the sunshine finally said hello!
Heaven April 24, 2008
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Ok, this will be the last photo from Vezelay, France for a little while
Taken in 2006, this is the front entrance of the cathedral I showed you in the last 2 shots. A few days before I took this photo I first experimented with over exposure on my photos and liked the effect. Yes, I went through a phase where I overexposed all my photos during a whole day of shooting… although the effects were good I was a bit disappointed that all my photos were overexposed!!
So as I was ready to leave the over exposure alone, while walking towards the entrance of that building you could see the windows right inside the building filled with light and it contrasted with the darkness of the cathedral… but trying to take a photo of that “effect” was almost impossible… either the outside/front of the cathedral was too bright, or the inside too dark… I tried to take a photo right at the entrance door… but the I was loosing the effect (contrast between the dark inside with bright windows and the outside)…
So here I remembered my recent attempts at over exposing….
Did a few tests, but nothing came up right… I decided to try overexposing in black and white and finally was happy with the results… Yes I must have taken 100 photos right there and probably stayed for 30 minutes trying to get that photo… which in the end is just… an over exposed photo!!!
But hey! at least the end result is what I wanted… contrast between the inside and the outside, the cathedral appears almost like a sketch, it almost creates a sense of “negative” where what should be dark is inside and what should be bright is outside.
Also, if there is such a thing called heaven, then this is how I would picture its doors
Someone to open the door? April 23, 2008
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As with the last post, we are staying near the town of Vezelay, France, 2006. There were a few small rooms in that cathedral in ruins. While wondering around (maybe in places I was not allowed!) I came across a small room, very dark and with frosted windows.
At first I didn’t notice it was missing a piece but while walking in this room something caught my eyes, in fact in the corner of my eye I thought I saw a door…
Looking closely I could see a door on the over side of an inner court yard. I just liked the idea of having a door framed into a window.
As usual nothing too hard taking this photo, but it took me quite a bit of time to get the angle right… I wanted the door right in the hole, but I also wanted to take the full window frame, not just a bit of it! In the end I had to compromise a little and have part of the bottom of the window cut off a little bit.
Light Perspective April 22, 2008
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In 2006, I did a road trip to France and stopped in many small villages. There was an old and partially destroyed Cathedral near the town of Vezelay (Champagne region).
This was in the main part of the cathedral, it was HUGE and empty… which I guess made it look even “hugier” (if that such a word in the english dictionnary . On the side though there were some very bright window, made even brigther by the fact there were no lights inside the building and it was a very sunny day.
I just liked how the light seem to only scatter on a small portion of those huge columns, it also helps creating this sense of 3d/perspective.
A rainy day April 21, 2008
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This is the photo I am actually using as a banner for this site. It was taken in Ireland, Shannon, in 2006. There was a huge storm that day and even a bigger one during the night!
The white bits at the back is the sea, rather “angry” one I would say
The idea of this photo actually happened with a mistake… taking a photo of the view I forgot I was on manual focus… when looking back at the photo the background wasn’t in focus but the window was…
I liked the result so I tried to get the rain drops in focus rather than the background in a couple of shots I took.
