So after a really uneventful evening in Beaune, I got in the car and started to take side roads to the the first location. As I followed the lovely lady on the GPS as she dished out commands, I saw a great chateau on a hill, so I headed towards it. The sign said Chateauneuf so I got a little excited thinking it was the ‘Chateauneuf’, but it wasn’t. I later looked into it and it is more in the […]
I woke up early and left the hotel with the intent to drive into Switzerland to connect with my original route. It meant that I wouldn’t get Mont Blanc, or a great castle on Lake Geneva, but I was a little ‘castled out’ anyway. I drove past Geneva towards Lausanne, where I turned north to head back into France. My first stop was shortly after Lausanne, so I turned onto smaller roads early in the day. The first location I […]
I arrived in Annecy, checked into the hotel and started to walk around. The one thing I must say about Annecy is it is a beautiful town. I could probably have spent 5 days here taking pictures. It has a very medieval feel and is sort of a mini-Paris mixed with a little Geneva and a very little bit of Venice. It was pretty busy with tourists, and would have been great for street photography. Not really being good at […]
In the previous post, I wrote about the specific shot that this trip was based on. Afterwards, I continued on and quickly arrived at my second spot. My initial research showed it would be difficult to get a good place to stop, but I found a rest area that had a good overall view of the subject. I could tell as I set up my camera that it wouldn’t be anything spectacular, but it was at this point where I […]
So here it is! 11 years later with 1 month of planning, a whole bunch of miles & money, and a lot of new learning – all for this picture (more or less). I left Grenoble pretty early with my new camera all set up and ready to go. It was dark as I drove, and I could see the clouds turning red as I got closer. I was stuck behind a slower car on a curvy road that was […]
As I mentioned in the last post, I arrived in Grenoble and all was good. The day after was the day I would stop by the location that this whole trip was based on. All the money and time spent was soon to be morphed into a result. While I understood that I might get there and there would be no shot, it was still pretty exciting. I clear all the days images onto my laptop and re-formatted the memory […]
This was to be my easiest drive. A quick 3hrs to Grenoble, stopping by one location then taking a pretty cool road that hung over a cliff. I woke up without setting an alarm, had breakfast and left the city when I was ready. The GPS had been a little weird yesterday, so I just punched in the first location and went directly there without a pre-defined route. The new route took me close to Grenoble before heading west towards […]
I was pretty excited to start day two and woke up before sunrise. I brought my heavy bag down to the lobby to find it dark and empty. I totally didn’t think of this problem. I packed my bags into the car and went back to my room for about 30min – then waited in the lobby. I probably would have been better to drive around and look for some spots while I waited, but I didn’t think it would […]
I woke up Sunday morning exhausted since I was up until 5am at the wedding reception and thought we had to be out of the hotel at 10:00. This affected my willingness to take pictures throughout the day, but more about that later. Having a good 4hr drive to get to the first hotel, I left earlier (1pm) and took the main highway further than planned. While this skipped some of the locations I mapped out, It also allowed for […]
My big adventures in France started with a good friends wedding. I was hoping to have purchased a good flash by the time I arrived but that didn’t happen. I wasn’t really planning on taking any pictures at the wedding since not only was I in the wedding party and probably wouldn’t have time, I also suck at photos of people. While it is something I want to work on, it really isn’t in the direction I want to take […]