Having arrived at Honfleur yesterday afternoon, the sunny weather continued and today we wandered into town to the honeypot harbour. We’d actually been here many years ago with American friends but I’m darned if I can remember anything about that except, of course, the American friends. It would’ve been around New Year and the temperature now was much more amenable.
A while ago I bought a new camera body, an Olympus OM-D mk 2, and I was keen to try it’s built-in neutral density filters going up to ND64, equivalent to 6 stops of light reduction. It’s an in-camera simulation so not quite the same as using a real ND filter. Maybe the harbour would give me the opportunity to play.
While I was staring at my camera’s menu system trying to figure things out, some guy waved a phone camera and asked if I’d take their picture.
“Sorry, I’m busy trying to do something”.
Mr. Grumpy didn’t want to be disturbed from sorting out his technology. What is it with these people?
After a while I thought I’d figured out what I needed to do and then set about trying various line ups and shots with some of the harbour buildings, boats and water. Busy though this shot is, I think it’s about my favourite. I’m fairly sure a tripod-mounted ND Big Stopper would’ve done better but this was a whole lot easier being hand held with no tripod needed.
Naturally, all these colourful reflections were absolute manna for Francine and her multiple exposure bent. I think her hardest job was figuring out which way to point her camera; that and avoiding yet more boats intruding into the foreground. Whilst my Olympus is great for wildlife, it’s complete rubbish at multiple exposures so it’s not an area I feel comfortable playing in. I’m happy to leave it to the expert. Here’s a couple of Francine’s that I really like.
Honfleur apparently attracted artists because of its light and we’d both spent a happy hour or two doing what we could with it. It’s also a place for good seafood and we thought a lunch of Moule et frîtes would be appealing. We chose one of the many restaurants littering the harbour side – choice is the biggest problem – and settled down for a steaming bowl of mussels. We washed them down with a pichet of vin blanc.
After lunch, as we wandered back towards our campsite, I couldn’t help but be taken with a van bearing the slogan, “Franco Solutions”. Well, I just had to have a snap of that. The van was parked in the street making a big deal of Maisons de Satie, properties of the composer Erik Satie, the walkway outside being appropriately decorated.
Not just painting artists, then.
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