France
We spent a week on a photographic tour of France, starting with Andrew on a conference call with the office, whilst overlooking the Mediteranian.
Andrew had hired a 90mm tilt and shift lens for the week and wasted little time before trying it out. The general idea is to adjust the plane of focus to match the angle of the scene to get everything sharp. In the picture with the boat, the plane of focus runs from near left to far right, to get both the boat and the distant house sharp at the same time.
The focal plane is aligned with the angle of the bridge.
The next three images have the focal plane tilted so that it is close to us at the bottom of the frame and distant at the top.
As we worked our way Westwards along the coast of the South of France, we went out of our way to take pictures during the golden hour around sunset and sunrise
And by sleeping in the van we could easily be out and about in the dead of night to take pictures of stars and of the moonlight landscape.
Orion fits neatly into the view through an 85mm lens. Even at this meagre magnification, you can clearly make out the nebula in Orion's sword. (Click on the picture to see the full resolution)
We took plenty more pictures in the darkest of the night to show stars against the landscape.
We also had the fish-eye with us, but it only has limited application:
We were particularly taken by the village of Trigance.
Donkeys
We got up very early in the morning to take pictures in the morning mist
Autumn Colours
Andrew thinks that the water in the ravine has sculpted a reclining figure in the rock.
Kathleen's favorite part of the whole trip was relaxing on the sun-bleached banks of Lac de Ste Croix
We only managed a couple of frames of this wonderful bug before it dissappeared in the undergrowth.
We stumbled across the "Demoiselles Coifees", a stunning rock formation. It starts from a glacial moraine containing large rocks. Over time, the rain erodes the soil, but where there is a large rock, this shelters the soil underneath and the rock remains high. The pressure of the rock on the soil pillar causes a capillary effect in the soil, it sucks up moisture from the ground, which then deposits salts which in turn makes the soil under the rock much harder. The net result is huge pillars topped with impossibly large rocks.
A French person.
Old buildings.
On the way home, we stopped at Lac du Der Chantecoq, which seems to be the place that just about every Crane in Europe heads for at this time of year. Proof positive, if any more was needed that Andrew needs longer reaching glass.
Macro work.
Kathleen's pictures of Andrew. He drove off without explaining what he was up to, so Kathleen snapped the van just incase he never came back...
Landscape
In the early hours of the morning, we stumbled across a field that seemed to have it's own little family. A flock of sheep. A goat. Two donkeys and a pair of dogs looking over them and keeping a watchful eye on anything that might be a threat.
And other odds and ends...
