Tag Archives: photography

L I F E, photography

Provence #1

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This is the start of a few short posts from Provence. We start back up next week with 4 and a half weeks of tours so the postings will be sparse.

Provence is absolutely beautiful! I’ve said it, it does not need to be said again. It is a photographers paradise, everywhere is amazing color, ancient architecture, blooming botanics and plenty of people. I brought as big a kit as I would on vacation, with the D70, the Nikon 18-135 3.5-4.6, Nikon 80-200 2.8 ED, Sigma 10-20 3.5-5.6, SB-600 for lighting and the Manfrotto for all of those tripod shots. A whole lot of gear and I didn’t see any of it! I left the 18-135 on the front and the rest of the stuff in the bag. I’ve come to the realization that when your not very good at the taking the pictures part of photography, you don’t need a bunch of gear, it’s neat but it’s too overwhelming. Composition, exposure, ISO, lighting, F-Stop are what I want to perfect, so down with you Nikon and all your toys, I’ll buy you later.

We drove down to a camping club outside of Remoulins which is right close to Uzes (ooz -es) and took our time on the drive. It’s about 500km from Patinges to Provence so we stopped to visit and take some photos along the way.

Roadside Ruins on the winding climby road down to Provence.

Roadside Ruins almost Provence

We stopped for lunch in the town of Florac and had a nice little wander around this beautiful town.

Waterfall Photo Florac France June 2008

Thelma thought a drink of this water would be a good idea on a 33 degree day!

Thelma drinking from the source Florac France June 2008

That’s it for day 1.  I took quite a few photos of this leg and they’re on my gallery page if you care to see more of my photos.  Check back for more soon!!!

L I F E, photography

Photos from Patinges…Again…

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We’re coming of a super busy three weeks now with time to breath before another weeks tours before the first vacation to Provence this year. We’ve had an amazing bunch of clients so far this year at Le Vieux Moulin It’s a bummer how fast time flies when you’re having as much fun as we did. I haven’t had much inspiration with the camera lately, but still shooting at interesting things for fun.

Wednesday was a family trip to the market in Sancoins.  Fresh strawberries were in season along with the beginning of cherry season.  The Loup de Mer and Coquille St. Jauques were very fresh from the fish monger and made for some delicious suppers the following nights.  I went very simple with the Loup and pan seared it to medium rare and had it with some simple butter/cream potatoes with glazed carrots fresh from the market.  It’s amazing how good food is when it’s in it’s natural freshest state.  No photos of it though as I’m still working on lighting for food shots, not enough time in this world to learn everything we want.

Here are some photos from the week in my life…

Baby chickens from the live animal room at the market in Sancoins

Baby chicken photo Sancoins France 2008

Monster rooster across the isle from the babies, might have been Daddy.  Probably not but he did start posing when he noticed me taking his photo.

Monster Rooster photo Sancoins France 2008

Slugs and snails are a bountiful pest here in central France.  We caught this one in the garden the other day and decided photographing him before relocation to the forest down the road was a good idea.

Huge snail caught in the garden

Wandering around the island at home, waiting for the dragonflies to come back on a gray day.  These are the first lillies to come up after the flood last week.

Lillies on the L'Aubois river Patinges France June 2008

One of the first apples from the tree we planted in Tree’s memory.  The label said it would not produce fruit for 3-4 years and his tree has about 20 of these soon-to-be delicious specimens on it.  Pommier r Blanche du Canada is what the tree is called, with sweet/slightly sour fruits.

POMMIER r Blanche du canada Patinges France

I suppose that’s all for now.  I’ll be back in a couple weeks with more updates on Julien and photos from Provence.

Rhetoric

First Post…

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Welcome to the first post of Xvelo Design…

This is a site for my narcissistic side to feel published and like I’m a contributor to the waste and slaughter of trillions of zeros and ones per day.

I will post photos from my world along with my soapbox topics of the day, so in short we’ll talk about photography, see my gallery, I will update that way more than I work on this but it’s good to have hobbies, right?

Anyway enjoy, for nobody that’s watching, I’ll be going to France next week to join my family and for an excellent summer of cycling and eating.

 Have a nice day!

 Some Photos to get you through:

Seeing if it works

These photos are from a shoot we did at a clients of Rocky Mountain Remodeling Resources

Kitchen View 2