Photography Holiday Weekend: French Riviera

Last month, we had the photography weekend in France. It turned out to be a very interesting photography holiday. Admittedly, there were only the two of us but we had the opportunity to do many things like ; night street shots at the market and the port of Antibes, then touristy shots and sports photography in Monaco, a stroll in Cannes old town doing outdoor portraits – an impromptu engagement session, a stroll on the Croisette and some architecture photography of the big hotels, beach side walk in Juan les Pins and Cap d’Antibes. Oh, and since the weather is very good and the temperatures only mild, we took sunrise photographs as well.

For experience, it was a first time for me to use the bus from the airport to Antibes where the hotel is. We also walked a lot.

And yay! I forgot how charming some old French ladies (on the bus) are and I am glad I do have a rejoinder to tell them when they get a tad nasty. Apart from that, everyone were very nice.

Below are some of my images from the trip…

Whenever the weather is clear I do try to get take a couple of photographs from the airplane window. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Lucky on this trip, I got excellent shots from the window.

Lac de Ste Croix

We got to the hotel late, checked in and went to have a stroll and take low light photos. Using 50mm f1.4 lenses, we managed without tripod.

The Antibes Rallye was still going and we got to to shoot the racing cars parked for the night.

We got up really early to capture the lovely sunrise and I got to take long exposure shots with the see and the old town of Antibes.

The port of Antibes is lined with private yachts of all sizes!

We arrived in Monaco and we immediately took pictures! With all the wonderfully arranged lights, I played with the manual focus of the Sigma 50mm f1.4 lens and mostly took “bokeh” shots

The Monaco Kart Cup was on as well so half the time in Monaco went to shooting the race.

We did go to the Monaco Oceanographic Museum which is located at the seafront on which is known as Le Rocher or the Rock where the Palais is located.

The aquariums are excellent, clear and full of active fish. It was well lit so we did not encounter any problem while photographing them.

We went to Cannes and got some curious looks from the people around us since we were mostly taking photographs of the scene. However, I whipped out my Olympus 35-100mm f2.0 telephoto lens which looked really intimidating. With that I receive a couple of scowls.

And up to the time we were waiting to board out plane back to London, we still took photographs (in the airport).

Conclusion:
Overall it was an excellent trip and yes, I will do it again. And it will be around the same time of the year when the hotel cost is more affordable. There were a lot of photo opportunities and without being hassled by the authorities. Also, I must say that the food was great.

If you are thinking of joining us next year, keep an eye on the blog for updates. One thing for sure we will have is a car to drive around. A vehicle will enable us to visit St Paul de Vence, Eze Village and Nice.

Tags: Antibes, French Riviera, Ghene Snowdon, Photographic Holiday, Photography

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 2:10 AM and is filed under Meetup Report, Weekender. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.