Aiguille du Midi, Chamonix Mont-Blanc

This was a bonus (and last) shot of the Aiguille du Midi taken on the day of our departure from Chamonix Mont-Blanc. We were having a sleepy six am breakfast when Paulette pointed out the first rays of sun touching the mountain ridge. Grabbing my well-oiled and much-used Canon 7D I stepped outside and captured this all-too-fleeting scene.

Canon 7D, 15-85mm lens at 85 mm: 1/100 sec at f / 5.6, ISO 200

For a twenty photo series of the mountains of Chamonix Mont-Blanc go to this link.

Enjoy.

Lyon

Paulette and I are back from a month visiting France. We returned with many fond memories and 3000 photos of Lyon, Provence, Parc des Écrins and Chamonix Mont-Blanc. Lyon is a medieval city traversed by La Saône et Le Rhône and twenty-eight bridges.

I took this Passerelle du Palais de Justice with les Pentes de la Croix-Rousse in the background. I gave it a panoramic look by cropping the sky and the water for a 2.39:1 aspect ratio.

Of course everybody (except me) knows that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry , author of Le Petit Prince, is a native son of Lyon and commemorated in statues and place names (the airport abbreviation is LYS for Lyon-Saint-Exupéry). 


Shooting up from the ground against the bright sky produced a very contrasty, silhouetted image of Saint-Exupéry and his petit prince. Using Lightroom, I first increased the exposure as much as possible and secondly added a fill light to recover some detail in the figures. Taking the picture from the top of a twenty-foot ladder would have produced a better result; fortunately, I don't carry one when I travel.