Looking at the Loire – A French Evening Stroll

This time last year we were in France, the Indre et Loire region. It is our current beautiful weather that has brought this to my mind.

On a few occasions I went for a walk along the  St Christophe road from Faye la Vineuse and on one occasion at least I took my cameras and sound kit. I have not been able to do anything with that material since then but looking at the photos again brought back memories of a great holiday.

Over the next couple of days I will be putting up a selection of these images. I have arranged the sequence of photos I want to use for a StillWalk video and now need to work through the sound recording for it. This should take me back there even more than the photos.

From Faye to St Christophe

Indre et Loire Countryside

From Faye to St Christophe

Indre et Loire Field

From Faye to St Christophe

Indre et Loire Woods

Sundown on the River Loughor

I may say this quite often, but it never ceases to amaze me how every time I visit a place, in this case the marshes, it is different.

The other evening when I went down there through the park, I was stunned by the sun setting over the river. Though we often see beautiful sunsets, they never seem to lack impact.

Sunset

Sunset on the River Loughor

Sundown on the River Loughor

Bull’s Eye

I wasn’t the only one out for a late evening stroll on the marshes last weekend.

You can click the images to enlarge but if you could zoom in on the originals, you would see just how grainy they are from the high ISO.

First shot – ISO3200, f4.5, 1/30. Second shot – ISO3200, f5, 1/30

Horns in the Night

Horns in the Night

Bull's Eye

Bull’s Eye

Going Home

Going Home

The Flags Are Out

A late evening walk down on the marshes (last weekend before the rain returned) revealed some colour through the dim light after sunset in the form of an Iris or Flag, whichever you like to call them.

The light really was fading a lot by the time I took these photos which required full manual mode on the camera as any automation tried to over-compensate for the lack of light.

A high ISO of 3200 was needed, f11 at 1/60 for the first shot and ISO3200, f7.1, 1/25 for the second. A good job my Canon EF70-300 lens has image stabilisation.

Flag

IMG_4630

Evening in the Park

By the time I took these photos on my iPhone on my way back home from Coedbach Park the Blackbirds had stopped singing to each other.

Unique circumstances – I am sorry I didn’t record them – there are so many of them in the park and the breeze was blowing the sound of motorway traffic out to sea so it could hardly be heard at all – like I always say, “the circumstances of what we see and here are always unique to the time and place!”

Coedbach Park

Coedbach Park