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In France, the principle at law is that no one may be interred anywhere but in an “official” cemetery. Administrative permits to be buried anywhere else, and particularly within the confines of one’s own property, are very difficult to obtain. Famous French actor Alain Delon, who died recently...

Very atmospheric!

A mystery wrapped in an enigma. This octagonal structure is a mystery for archæologists and art historians. Located in the small town of Montmorillon in the central France, the Octagon (as it is officially called) is probably a Romanesque cemetery chapel from around Year 1000, as it has two...

Nice modern one!

The Mont Blanc is 4810 meters high The 18-karat gold nib of my Montblanc Meisterstück fountain pen. I bought it in the 1980s when I was a young lawyer. It was one of the trappings you were supposed to sport back then, and I always wrote with fountain pens anyway, since high school. Shortly...

This was another exercise in lighting, and like most, not very spectacular but extremely complex nonetheless: the idea was to create gradient lighting that would outline the contours of the bottles (without revealing the light sources, the camera or the photographer through reflection), while...

The abbey church of Jumièges in Normandy. Many call it “the most beautiful ruin in France”. It is certainly a gorgeous and memorable sight, however, whether it truly is “the most beautiful” is, in my opinion, open to debate, as I know a few other contenders... Nikon D850, Nikkor 85mm, ƒ/1.4 G...

Nikon D3, Nikkor 200-400mm, ƒ/4 G VR II lens, handheld. Nikon D700, Nikkor 200-400mm, ƒ/4 G VR II lens, handheld.

Today I did receive in the mail, as promised, two oval split rings, two black plastic covers, a special tool to install them and some anchors from Peak Design, all of that complimentary. Peak is a great company! :giggle:

A nice place to hang... This delicate colonnade from the 1500s is a detail of the façade of the Doges’ Palace in Venice. Look at the two red columns: that is were they used to hang people sentenced to be put to death in that manner. Many hung from there, and that was, it is said, a much less...

Saint-Pierre-les-Églises, a village in central/western France, features a cemetery that’s been there for ages: it used to be a Merovingian necropolis. In it stands the small Saint Peter church, screened by secular trees. This church is also mostly Merovingian, as it was built during the 600s or...

This 12th century Romanesque chapel, dedicated to Saint Magdalen, is very strange, very cute and features uniquely preserved alfresco paintings from the 1200s. Originally, it was a chapelle castrale, i.e. a castle chapel built within the walls of a fortress. The castle is all but gone, except...

Focus stacking is an important technique to master when photographing subjects that are close and you need deep depth of field. Stopping down the lens only brings limited improvements, except if you’re working with a very wide-angle lens, which isn’t often the case in closeup photography. It...

This is a photo I took in August 2018 for a Flickr theme-based group. The theme was Weights and Measures. In the foreground, the gold thingies are bronze measuring cups from Nepal. The rest you can certainly identify, except maybe the rulers I used as a backdrop on white card, and which are...

The Path of Régordane in southern France is a Mediæval trail that, for centuries, was (and still is, for Mediævalists!) as famous as, say, the Continental Divide Trail in the US. Parts of it still exist, so you can still put your feet in the footprints of the lords, pilgrims, merchants, clerics...

I know I’m susceptible to serious bouts of GAS, but honestly, I’ve been very good recently. I’ve stashed a nice little pile to buy a Hasselblad-equipped DJI Mavic Pro 3 drone which would be quite useful for the type of work I often do, but now I’m hesitating. I haven’t quite made up my mind...

People sea kayaking in the calanques near Marseilles: will anyone dare try and go through the eye of the needle? Nikon D3, Nikkor 70-200mm, ƒ/2.8 G VR II lens, handheld.

A masterpiece of Romanesque sculpture: “The Angel”, a sculpted capital in the abbey church of Mozac in Auvergne. Nikon D810, Nikkor 24mm, ƒ/1.4 G lens. Handheld, LED continuous lighting.

The same cemetery, this time in front of the church. The tallish structure on the right is a croix hosannière (“Hosanna Cross”, perhaps?) from the late Middle Ages (1400s). Those “crosses” were erected as funerary edicules, often over communal graves and ossuaries. They are few and far between...

Composite shot made up of 24 focus-stacked exposures, using the built-in function on the Nikon Z7. Stack processed with Helicon Focus. Micro-Nikkor 105mm ƒ/2.8 macro lens with FTZ adapter. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting.