30 August 2015

Asian Delicacies

I have tons of older photos I would like to share with you, but today I will seize the opportunity to express my (almost) life-long passion for Asian food!

Among different things I really enjoy eating, Asian cuisine has for long caught my utmost attention. Of course, you might first have experienced the unavoidable sushi restaurant, or the local Chinese buffet. Quite ordinary and not that appealing, I admit. But if you go deeper into the 13th arrondissement streets in Paris (for instance) you will come across lots and lots of attracting and kind of unsettling Asian restaurants of all sorts, from the big super classy one designed for Westerners tastes, to the small and (at first sight) slightly off-putting canteen, hidden between a phone company and a bigger restaurant. Usually, the first trick to dig up a good place to eat would be to pay attention to the smell that arises from them: strong-smelling ones=good ones, in my opinion. Well, maybe the second trick, as the number of people waiting in line to be served would certainly be just as efficient :-)

With such a wide range of taste experiences, I have still lots of meals to test and approve, but here is a sample of my (re)discoveries today...

Hope you'll enjoy the pictures, and maybe have a try someday :-)

Condiments
Condiments (long coriander, thai basil leaves...)

Pho dac biet
Pho Dac Biet ('special Pho', with beef and tripe)

Ba mau
Ba Mau drink with 3 colors (yellow, green and pink)

29 August 2015

A Photo Competition

As I explained in my first post, my desire to get involved more thoroughly into photography originates in a slightly foolish photo competition with a friend of mine (who happens to own the very same camera as mine, by the way). At that time, I had not bought my Sony camera yet, so I must say I entered the competition with some technical handicap :-)

Anyway, this crazy contest turned out to be a real fun: I went everywhere around seeking inspiration, and doing so I discovered a lot of beautiful places. Nothing is more thrilling than watching around you, eyes wide open, with flared nostrils and alert ears, waiting for a fish to bite your camera-hook!

First topics were: 'childhood', 'water', and 'waiting'. Then we concluded that this was a bit too restraining and thus decided to explore places instead: Montmartre, the 13th and 2nd arrondissements. 

Here are some photos about childhood, the very first theme we had chosen: I could not help but draw suns and houses on the concrete ground with colored chalks...

Yellow chalk
A yellow sun shining on a bridge parapet

Colored chalk
Having fun with colors

26 August 2015

St-Germain Island

I've recently been wandering near Issy-Les-Moulineaux: more precisely, on the island which is located between this city and Boulogne-Billancourt in the South-West suburbs of Paris, and called St-Germain Island.

It is quite a charming place in summer, with its vast and green park where you can come across thousands of white or brown butterflies (nothing comparable with the countryside ones, unfortunately). I could not catch one this time though, quick as they were! The weather was really hot and it was somehow painful to stay too long under the sun, so I did not have the courage to chase after them :-(

I love taking photos of insects, I will try to gather some more for a future article :-)

Firebug
A firebug climbing up the stem

Wasp
A busy wasp in a white-and-yellow flower

Bee on pink flower
A bee invading a pink flower

23 August 2015

Under the Pont Mirabeau

Among the many things I recently discovered in photography, long-exposure shooting seems to me one of the funniest and most impressive ones. For the moment I don't know all the possibilities of this method yet, but I have been quite thrilled with the results of my first try :-)

This would have been impossible without the help of my friend's tripod which allowed the camera to be perfectly stable. Long-exposure without a tripod is... well... pretty awful. Even if you place the camera on something fixed rather than holding it by hand, let's say the parapet of a bridge for instance, it's still very difficult to get a good image since 1) the 'horizontality' can't be controlled as easily, 2) the wind will still make it move a bit, and 3) I can't bear the idea of letting the camera fall into the water/ground so I can't get my hands off the camera anyway...

I have been given a small tripod (a horrible green object, yet terribly convenient) which helped me a lot when using my small Panasonic, but the weight of my Sony camera sort of exhausted the poor thing (it instantly bent towards the ground) and I haven't really used it after that anymore. The 'let's keep borrowing someone else's tripod' will have to stop, I know; buying one of my own is among my 'next things to do' list, I guarantee :-)

So, here are some of my first experiments with this parameter. There's obviously room for improvement, but at this stage I'm quite happy with them!

Pont Mirabeau
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

La Défense
La Défense Lights

20 August 2015

A New Challenge

Once upon a time, a compact-camera user who knew nothing about photography discovered the joys of using a slightly more sophisticated device...

For years I had been bringing my little Panasonic Lumix compact all around with me, enthousiastic enough with its capabilities and absolutely unaware of the DSLR world. However, some months ago, my idealistic vision of my handy, yet kind of poorly-equipped camera got seriously compromised :-(

The thing is, if you have a photography-fanatic friend who understands photography as a true art - rather than a digital generator of souvenirs - it somehow changes your way of considering your camera.
Besides, this very friend and I had started a sort of silly photo competition where we had to take a picture every weekend on a pre-defined subject. As he was equipped with a 'hybrid' camera (that mirrorless version of a DSLR camera) with lots of options and functionalities that mine had not, I was soon overwhelmed with jealousy and disappointment at my own un-funnyphoto-ness.

Without a moment's hesitation (well, it has actually taken some time) I decided to make the leap. And when I came to making the decision of which model I was to buy, I felt so helpless that I chose a very easy solution: buy the very same camera as the one my friend owned :-) Now, my sweet SONY α6000, a whole trial-and-error future is opening before us...

I still have lots of things to learn, but I hope you will enjoy my photos - don't hesitate to add a comment if you have any suggestions!

Pavement
...Paving the Way to Photography^^