VERTEUIL SUMMIT

Vallée des Colons, Noumea

Back in 2016 when I didn’t have a camera of my own, my friend Roro lent me his gear. A Nikon D7000, though I didn’t know he had one, it was a camera I had hoped to use one day. And to go with that was the Nikkor 70-300 mm zoom lens, which I was quite impressed with. I’d never used a telephoto zoom lens before and to have only that as your gear, I quickly realised my wide angle landscape photos were no more. But it did open my eye to more detailed shots. Not only in landscapes but also portraits and even macro photography. I’ll explain how I came to photograph this scene in a bit.

Nikon D7000 + Nikkor AF-S 70-300 mm ƒ/4.5-5.6 IF-ED VR | 125 mm, 1/80th second @ ƒ/10, ISO 100

I had parked my car and was about to go for a walk when I saw this scene. What captured my eyes was the mountains in the background then all the houses and apartments in the foreground. The mountains are the Réserve Naturelle De La Vallée De La Thy and the Réserve Naturelle Intégrale De La Montagne Des Sources. They were so beautifully lit and even though sunset was still two and half hours away, they had an almost golden colour to them. The trees in the foreground is Ilôt Artificiel (Artificial Island). An oval, man-made island built to naturally circulate the sewage that exit between it and the front of those buildings. The area is commonly known as Sainte Marie because of the bay and another (natural) island of the same name, but this is Vallée Des Colons, one of the oldest suburbs of Noumea. The photo was taken from La Promenade Pierre Vernier towards N’Géa. A beautiful walkway and bike track along the shoreline of Noumea’s southern suburbs. Very popular with the young and old alike.

My instincts for this shot was to go wide but the widest I could go was 70 mm. But I didn’t like the framing at 70 mm so I thought, ok, let’s zoom in. Let’s get in tight and eliminate all the distractions without loosing what caught my eye in the first place. My focal point was obvious, the orange apartments that stood above all the other buildings. The framing came when I was judging the amount of clouds and water to include. And this, is what I ended up capturing. I did try vertical shots but it gave me too much sky and water and that wasn’t pleasing to me. The exposure was straight forward, ISO 100, ƒ/10 aperture and 1/80th shutter speed. Should’ve used a tripod at that speed but, I admit, I was lazy and took the shot hand-held. Thank goodness for the Vibration Reduction (VR) on the lens which helped me get a sharp image. For the focal length used (121 mm), I should have been at 1/125th shutter speed to avoid blur. Post-processing was also straight forward though I did accentuate the golden highlights. I did it by going into the Split-Tone module and using the Highlights eyedropper to select the colour of the clouds and used that to add to the highlights of the overall image. I didn’t touch the Shadows at all. Now the image was a lot closer to what my mind’s eye saw. I like this photo quite a lot.

NIKON D7000

16Mp Crop Sensor DSLR Camera (body only)

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Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70-300mm f:4.5-5.6G IF-ED VR

NIKKOR AF-S 70-300 MM ƒ/4.5-5.6 IF-ED VR

Nikon Telephoto Zoom Lens

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LA NUIT DES ILLUMINÉS DU BAGNE

THE NIGHT OF THE ILLUMINATED JAIL

Noumea, New Caledonia

This event was organised by Association Témoignage d'Un Passé, hosted by them and Site historique de l'île Nou, and held at the Centre de Rencontres et d’Échanges Internationaux du Pacifique (CREIPAC) in Nouville. An evening of music, lights, dance and comedy gave vibrance to this heritage site.

My objective for the evening was to capture the lights on these century old buildings. My mistake though was not arriving before blue hour. It would’ve bumped a couple of these photos a notch above average.

Historically, this place was a hard labour prison and is now a place where people from all over the world come to learn French. And I’m sure to discover the culture here and it’s people.

SHIBUYA

Tokyo, Japan

As this is our last evening and opportunity to do some shopping in Japan, we decided to spend it in Shibuya. Apart from the shopping, there are a couple of other reasons we wanted to come here. The world’s busiest crossing and the world’s most loyal dog.

And you find both at the exit of one of the busiest train stations in the world, Shibuya Station. A popular meeting place and a symbol of enduring loyalty and fidelity, the Hachiko Statue is of a Japanese Akita dog. It’s the story of the dog, Hachiko, that gives significance and importance to the somewhat unimpressive statue. Every day at Shibuya Station, Hachiko would be waiting for his master from his commute home. This continued until the Akita’s death, nine years after his master, Hidesaburo Ueno, died at work from a cerebral hemorrhage. An endearing story that has been turned into movies and books.

We got very lucky when a lady showed up with her Akita to pose in front of the statue. What a gorgeous dog. She was hoping that he would sit still long enough to snap a photo in front of the statue but he was too excited. You can’t blame him though. With hundreds of people in front of the statue, snapping photo after photo, there was no way he could be calm. So glad I got this shot though.

Shibuya’s Scramble Crossing is probably the world’s busiest pedestrian intersection. At peak hour on a Friday or Saturday evening, there can be up to 3000 people crossing this mind boggling intersection at once. It’s quite an experience being in the middle of it all too. The start of the crossing happens fairly quickly with people darting in all directions and you think to yourself “It’s not so bad, there’s plenty of room”. Nearing the centre though is a different story as the pace slows drastically, almost to a halt. People avoiding collision from every direction and now your thinking “There’s no way we make the other side before the cars get the green light”. After what seems like minutes have gone by and you haven’t moved much, the pace pick up and people disappear in different directions. And no joke, cars were already on their way across the intersection as we stepped onto the footpath. Never thought I’d get excited about crossing an intersection.

There are places all around the Shibuya Scramble Crossing to watch the chaos. The Shibuya Station footbridge, the Occitane Cafe, Starbucks, Mag’s Park, just to name a few. We got a coffee at Starbucks and settled on the second floor to capture some images and footage. Also got a quick time-lapse from the footbridge on the way back to the hotel.

Not only a commercial and business centre, Shibuya is also a huge shopping district, a major nightlife area and one of Japan’s fashion hubs for young people. It’s just one of those place you have to visit.

KOBE NUNOBIKI ROPEWAY

Kobe, Japan

We only had half a day in Kobe before moving on. We decided to visit the Nunobiki Herb Gardens in Fukiaicho, just outside Kobe City. So we checked out of our hotel and headed to Shin-Kobe Satation where we left our luggages in a storage place while we visited the gardens. It’s a 10 minute walk from the train station to the ropeway station. You can walk up to the gardens but I recommend you take the ropeway up and walk down. You can take the ropeway back down but the walk is easy, worth doing and most often in shade. The ropeway is a must as well with it’s stunning view of Kobe’s cityscape and the gardens below. There is a midpoint station you can get off at but we kept going to the Herb Gardens right at the top.

You’ll find stalls, boutiques and a restaurant once there. Flower and herb gardens amongst city views and beautiful architecture too. I didn’t take many photos up here, none worth sharing anyway, but I did film the area so keep a lookout for the video. The walk back down is quite pleasant too. All down hill so easy peasy. A few more gardens and waterfalls await your descent.

A beautiful place to visit, have a meal and even stay for a sunset photo. It’s open till 8:30 so plenty of time to get that perfect shot. Nunobiki Herb Gardens, I can highly recommend it.

28 mm, 1/100th second @ ƒ/11, ISO 100

SPIKY & THE TWINS

A little farther down Newquay Promenade (Melbourne, Australia), I saw these wonderful buildings. The unusual architecture of the spiky, teardrop shaped tower and the leaning twins behind made for a great photo. I didn’t search for a composition here. I saw, I took the shot.

Another day shot so I went for a black & white edit. I darkened the blues to give more contrast to the photo. The sun and the buildings did the rest.

Not much to talk about here. I don’t know the names of the buildings but you’ll see more of them in the next couple of posts.

1/800 sec @ ƒ/5.6, 55 mm, ISO 100

BLUE ARCHITECTURE

As I was waiting for my golden hour shot, I wanted to take a photo of these blue buildings before the end of blue hour. And I love those pillars so much I had to include them once more. They do make a great foreground. Love those purple windows too. At the end of the pier and the bottom of the buildings is the beginning of the Newquay Promenade which runs to the left of the photo. It’s a nice stroll along the pier and you can dine in wonderful restaurants and stay in beautiful residential apartments. And a great place for photos too.

As I mentioned before, the pillars make a great foreground, leading the eye to the buildings. I decided to compose my shot in between the pillars so as to show more of them and these were the only ones with crossbars. I was hoping for a more golden sky on the right side but I guess it just wasn’t time yet.

0.4 sec @ ƒ/8, 18 mm, ISO 100

BANKING ANOTHER SUNSET

So let’s stay on architectural photos and head over to Docklands (Melbourne, Australia). With it’s glass facade and splash of colours, the National Australia Bank (nab) building is a delight to photograph. I was walking through the Etihad Stadium heading back to the hotel when the sun decided to show itself. I hadn’t planned on photographing at sunset as it was very cloudy and it had rained. As I reached this area, the sun decided to show itself, just before dipping below the horizon. Beautiful light appeared and disappear just as quickly. I think it lasted five minutes. Maybe ten but not more than that. I took a couple of photos. Horizontally and vertically. This was the best one.

I knew this shot needed a long shutter but I didn’t have my tripod with me. So I placed the camera on the edge of the cemented fence/railing and used the lens cap and cloths from my bag to prop it up to the right angle. Set the two second timer after the setting the exposure and that’s it. I always made sure the focus was good overtime I changed from horizontal to vertical shot.

1.6 sec @ ƒ/8, 29 mm, ISO 100

AustraliaCHRIStophe Robert HERVOUËTOctober 4, 2018sunset, australia, street, photoshop cc, road, pines, eos 1300d, nab, bank, buildings, canon, architecture, ef-s 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6 is II, long exposure, docklands, melbourne, victoria, tram stop, vic

ANCHORED IN AIR

I was heading back to the hotel, one late afternoon, and spotted this anchor decoration in mid air. I was more interested in the Etihad Stadium (Melbourne, Australia), which was just behind me, but then I saw the street lights. They reminded me of black & white architectural photos that I had seen with street lamps. Since I wanted to take a photo of the anchor, adding the lights made the photo more interesting. Including the buildings on the bottom and left, it framed the anchor in mid air. I was going to remove the cables holding the anchor but I thought you would think this image was a composite. This is a street photo and what I want to come across.

1/400 sec @ ƒ/3.5, 18 mm, ISO 100

AustraliaCHRIStophe Robert HERVOUËTSeptember 13, 2018anchor, australia, b&w, black & white, buildings, canon, decorations, ef-s 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6 is II, eos 1300d, etihad stadium, lights, lit, looking up, melbourne, monochrome, photoshop cc, secured, street, tied, vic, victoria

JONES BAY WHARF

In this photo you can see in the background, the buildings from my last post. From a different angle though. This is Jones Bay Wharf in Pyrmont (Sydney, Australia). There are a few restaurants and cafes with other businesses located in those warehouses. The old warehouses is what grabbed my attention with the modern yachts around it. If you’ve read my last post, you might have guessed this photo was also taken from the top deck of the P&O Pacific Pearl cruise Ship.

I tried to get the shot centred but I missed it by that much. A simple, hand held exposure (except for the timing of the shot, apparently). The photo is nothing to brag about but I like the subject and it’s not every day you see things from this perspective.

Again, if you would like to see more photos of the cruise, just pop over to my Instagram @christopheroberthervouet or to www.christopheroberthervouet.com which will direct you there as well.

1/200 @ ƒ/8, 38 mm, ISO 200

E STACK

Wanting to continue on the Australian theme, I found this photo I took back in 2014. It’s taken from the P&O Pacific Pearl cruise ship as we were heading into White Bay (Sydney, Australia). Shot from the top deck, the perspective is very different than on ground level. I found these buildings quite interesting with the contrast between the foreground and background buildings, their architectures and the grid effect they have.

The photo was taken around 90 mm but I cropped further in to isolate this area and fill the frame a little more. Converting to black and white pronounced the grid effect of the buildings, which I like a lot. But here again, I added a cool split tone colour just to the shadows. I find it gives a cooler black and white image and renders it a little on the silver side. I love it.

The cruise was fantastic and if you’d like to see more photos from it, just head over to my Instagram profile @christopheroberthervouet or to www.christopheroberthervouet.com which will get you there just the same.

1/320 sec @ ƒ/8, 92 mm, ISO 200

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