This perfect little European medieval street was in Lyon, if I am not mistaken. Sometimes I forget here in my old age. There’s a 10% chance it is in Paris. There’s a long path from click to final image and my memory fades betwixt.
When I was in Canada a few weeks ago, I took time to make a 360 video for you awesome Passport Sunday members. It was a beautiful spot up there to capture the city from above. In an upcoming video next Sunday, you get to see me process it!
Remember you can grab the video any time you want and look around…
What a great city! It was my first time to Montreal and I’ve always heard such wonderful things about it! My very first international trip was to France with my dad, and that made my sort of a francophile for life. I was surprised at how deeply ingrained the French culture is here in Montreal. I thought it would just be a “light dusting” of French, but I think I heard more French than English!
Edit: The HDR Workshop sold out in 11 minutes. Crazy! First, you guys crashed the server for 45 minutes!!! And then we went live at 12:46 AM. By 12:57, all the slots were gone.
We will have an HDR DVD of the Workshop. I think it’s gonna be really good. To stay on top of that and see when it is first avail, be sure to sign up for our free newsletter!
Did you guys see the New York Times article online about Stuck In Customs and HDR Photography? Cool! John Tierney wrote a great little piece and asked if publications like the New York Times should consider using HDR Photos. They have an open commenting system over there, so pop in and give them your two cents (the newspapers need it!).
This was a pretty tough shot to get! This was a little pedestrian bridge that crossed from the new part of Lyon, France, into the older part. It swayed and buckled in the breeze. Plus, it was night, so you kind of have to leave the shutter open for a long time. I hate to crank up the ISO, but I had to so everything would stay sharp.
That night I walked around for about five hours deep past midnight. It was just me and my Russian friend… walking around… solving the world’s problems… while he gave me all kinds of hard-ass Russian advice on how to solve my own!
Lyon is one of those wonderful European cities where things look romantic and timeless from either side of the river that inevitably flows down the center.
Here is a view from one side looking across and up the hill to where the Notre Dame de Lyon resides. I’m glad they take the trouble to light it up… it gives the city a lot of character at night I think!
Once the concert was over, I roamed around the streets of Lyon deep into the night. It helps that I don’t sleep much and I had a good rotation on the iPod.
I love how these foreign cities sometimes illuminate their trees with unexpected lights. If I were on a city council somewhere, I’d light up everything in the city strange colors at night. I don’t know what else the city council does… besides bickering about nonsense… I wish they would focus on making things prettier at night. Please let me know if you see anyone running on that platform and the blog will endorse them!
Here is a shot from a crisp cool night in Lyon, France, taken from the bridge, pointing towards the old part of the city.
There are not enough places like this in the world! I wish I could look out a window every day and see a remote castle sitting on a hilltop, taunting me with a panoply of possible adventures… but I don’t see that out my window, so I just have to look at these little things I collect over time to remind me…
(and I am working on the new HDR Tutorial and some slight blog changes today and this week… so keep an eye out!)
I love a scary cathedral. They can put you in such a melancholy and gloomy mood if you want them too. You can feel the overbearing saints from above judging your moves, and giving you a few bonus points in the big game if you light one of the votives. In a scientific study, it was proven than a votive makes a prayer 35% more likely to be granted.
The second photo below is of a vampire in a different cathedral in southern Italy.
Hiking to the top of this beast with my camera and tripod was a lot tougher than it looked!
I saw this area from the train as I came into Lyon, and I was bound and determined to get to the top before dark. As I began the switchbacks, the darkness was falling, so I had to switch my iPod over to some upbeat music to drive me to the top in time. As soon as I got up there, the ferris wheel lit up and the city came alive with light. Like a marine with his gun, I assembled the tripod, ran through my settings on the camera, and fired away.
Is there anything cooler than the old architecture throughout Europe? I say there is not.
In this upcoming article that I’m working on for Smashing Magazine, I mention a membrane between fantasy and reality, and, for whatever reason, seeing things like this help me drift back and forth between what is real and what is not real. I know critics typically get caught up in reality; I get caught up in fantasy. I can’t be in places like this without thinking of the Game of Thrones.
Isn’t this just the sort of thing you expect to see in a small streetside window in France? Well it’s exactly what I saw so I had to grab a shot… Yes – I know it’s busy… but that’s kinda the point 🙂
