Night scenes in Dinan : 5th January 2012

Despite it being two days before 6th January - traditional 12th night, when in the UK, we have to remove our decorations - indoors and out - for fear of dreadful bad luck - in France, we were told, quite often the decorations remain up for the whole year!  However, the street lights were turned off pretty soon after Christmas day.  Such a pity, as the displays would have been breathtaking!
Not to be daunted, we still traipsed into town at dusk, and took a few snaps of the shops and scenes - which still looked pretty!

Christmas en France : 5th January 2012

Arriving in France on 4th January, many decorations were still up.  Not as "glitzy" as in the UK - I have gleaned some ideas for next year!

No dripping icicles, and reindeers everywhere!
Much more 'chic'!

Discreet decoration around doors, windows and lights

White seemed to be their Christmas colour.
Just loved the white painted branches found
propped against doors, or tied to street architecture,
like parking signs and traffic lights!

Sometimes, these branches were decorated - usually with
ribbons.

Am definitely going to adopt some of these ideas next year at home!

St Marlo/Dinan : 4th January 2012

Right - here we go again!

Will try to "do" about half a dozen images each night - and keep you up to speed with what we did!

Remaining in St Marlo for a while - as I said in the previous blog, we enjoyed prowling around the backstreets.  Photographers are a strange lot!  No 'chocolate box-stuff for us!  Give us grot and grime any day!  

See what I mean?

I rest my case!

Dinan is the nearest town to where we were staying (if you don't count Plougbalay - which is a very small, typical French country village.)  More on Plougbalay later!

The views from the city walls down to the older port of Dinan were wonderful.  Another day, we explored the actual town itself.  More to follow.

The two means of crossing the river.  Ancient ...

... and modern!

And when it rained (which it didn't do THAT often, we dived into the local church.  No problem in country churches where tripods and cameras were concerned!

   

Dinan Parish Church

More tomorrow!

Distracted!

Last September, when a group of us went to Cornwall to indulge our photographic enjoyment, we bought a couple of powerful torches to practice "painting" with light.  Feeling a bit guilty at not having used them for a while - a couple of us went out last night to remedy this!  Very cold, very windy and very cloudy - but we were DETERMINED!

Two hours later, we'd managed to get two reasonable results!  Not perfect - but the best we could do, stumbling about in the dark, dodging gorse, rocks and pony ploppies!  We will try again - maybe with a clapper bridge, or a church yard, with mixed lighting!

Still a bit light.  ISO 100 @ f22.  About 10 seconds.
Torchlight not quite showing up properly.

An hour later.  Pitch dark!  ISO 200 f16.  Camera on 'B' while I stumbled about "painting"
everything! Light on the Engine House was about 3 minutes.
Overall exposure - something like 200 elephants!

In the meantime - we're thawing out and reviving ourselves!!

Will get back to processing more of the France photos from now on - PROMISE!!

France - Wednesday 4th January

As promised, some of the pix taken on the recent jaunt to France.

Started out in Brittany, staying in a lovely Gite (http://www.brittanyholidaycottage.com)  It is owned and run by my fellow traveller's son, Ian Haycox, and I can thoroughly recommend it for a holiday!

Two views of St Marlo city walls

The Ferry docked at St Marlo, an old walled city.  After a rather bumpy crossing, and little sleep, we still had enough energy and enthusiasm to explore the city and its backstreets, as well as the beach.  Showery weather - but breaks in the clouds gave some nice light.

Rainbow after a shower!

Digging for worms on the beach - just like they do in England!

Lady in red

People are just so obliging!  I spotted this lady in a red coat approaching with her friend and thought she was just what I needed for foreground interest!  My French is less than schoolgirl - and her English was non-existent!  However, her friend had a smattering of English - so between us, I got the message across, and they very sweetly "modelled" for me!

Pink umbrella

I waited some time by this lovely bit of graffiti in the backstreets of St Marlo, hoping someone would walk by (to add a bit of interest, you understand!)  Then I spied this young girl folding up her umbrella!  Just the job!  My luck held, as she was English, and quite happy to parade past the graffiti for me!!  She approved of the end result - so we were both happy!

That's it for this time; loads more to come!  Try and do some more tomorrow!