Scenes from Mont Saint-Michel, Jewel on a Rock

[…Beauvoir & Mont St. Michel, France – Taken on August 2, 2010…]

The long wait for the light! It seemed like forever for the light to change this day, it was almost torture - lying on the grass, looking at the clouds, every now and then getting up to jump around to keep warm. It was unbearably windy and chilly that night. The mountain did not light up until past nine, and I still had to wait for it to get a little darker to get a nice glow. Blue hour did not come until about half past 10. Shot at f/14 at 1/20 sec, ISO 100, with a soft 3-stop GND.

Oh, those flower shots that I simply hate! I really went out of my way for this one, almost lying on the grass to get really low. I tried different apertures on this shot to get what I wanted which was to draw emphasis on the flower, yet still show a little bit of the windmill in the background. This scene can be found in a nice little village called Beauvoir, right on the steps of the beautiful Mont Saint-Michel. (And yes, I did get dizzy after shooting this scene.) Shot at f/2.8 at 1/3200 sec, ISO 200.

The rounded diaphragm opening (9 blades) of the Nikon 24-70mm makes for a more natural-looking bokeh. This happens to be my favorite lens; I use it about 90% of the time.

This shot was taken just before noon with an ND110 (10-stops). It took me about a dozen tries to get my desired effect before they turned the spinners off. I experimented quite a bit on the shutter speed, and settled for a shorter one to still show the blade movement. I think this one turned out to be the best (actually the only one from the bunch that pleased me). It's hard to see it, but Le Mont Saint-Michel is on the lefthand side of this image. I also thought the woman made for a good scale comparison.This was shot at f/8 at 2 seconds, ISO 100.

Golden late afternoon light shining on a bale of hay and the windmill of Beauvoir.