Windmills beyond the golden field

With those modern "windmills", I was only missing Don Quichotte/Quixote...
Little walk along the fields in Fumal, Belgium.

ISO 800 - 31mm - f/4.5 - 1/4000s (I probably forgot to lower the ISO value...)

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Home or gift shop?

So, home or gift shop? Both...

Yep, that's right, carefully look at the hanging sign on the right, it says "öppet" (open). The (gift) shopkeepers are living right there and their little store is... right there too, definitively a cute shop selling souvenirs for tourists and nice handmade stuff. Living and working in the same place, how cool is this (?). And the house is, let's say, quite cute and beautiful. We are here in Sweden, on one of these little islands along the south west coast.

Sweden, not your typical house architecture

One of the things that you want to bring back home when you visit Sweden... their homes! We all agreed on that during that trip but unfortunately... the car trunk was too small, hehe. The Swedes seem to appreciate wood more than any other raw material, lovely.

Yet another (beautiful) Swedish landscape

I just can't get enough of them. Sweden has numerous beautiful places, I can't remember the name of that one but it surely is awesome. When you visit Sweden, all you want to do is stay there forever or bring back home everything with you, including dream house design and architecture. Green green green...

At the lake in Sweden

Little walk in a Swedish forest, once you reach the lake, you just sit there and stare (and take a picture of course...). A beautiful encounter with nature.

Cute little Sweden

Beautiful Swedish landscape and waterscape.

Panorama - "La Julienne", overflowing river

Saive, Belgium. Enjoy the panorama.

It's been heavily raining the whole day. After five amazingly warm sunny and summer days, we could only expect this, water, a lot of water... The far right house had its basement overflowed.

I've been living here in this place for about three years but for the first time I see the water stream like this. Usually, this is a quite small river. A dramatic yet beautiful country scene!

Fireworks - Pyrotechnic wonders

Fireworks, fascinating for adults, fascinating for children. They are the visual peak of the festivities, the amazing grand final, moments when wonder is written on human faces.

The photos were made at f/13 with a long exposure of 13 seconds at ISO200.

A moment of loneliness

Sometimes you just feel this loneliness in huge open spaces, it draws you into deep thoughts.

This has been shot on the viaduct of Cheratte in Belgium. The bridge overhangs one of the main highway (E40/A3) in Belgium, 37 meters (+/- 121 feet) above the artery.

Special thanks to my sister for having the patience to pose while I was setting up the camera :)
(Wait wait, almost ready! Oh wait, no, now I'm ready. Ok sorry, one more second...)


UPDATE: entering FroKnowsPhoto Week-end contest

Jared Polin is having a contest each week on his FroKnowsPhoto YouTube channel where you can submit your photo and win a BlackRapid strap for your camera. I didn't make it to the Top 5 with my photo above, unfortunately. However, it's been selected for the photo critique (among some 300+ photos) and I'm happy that the critique was very good. My glorious 20 seconds photo critique starts at ± 6:10min. Thanks Fro! =)

Enjoying the evening in Saive (Belgium).

The beautiful view from my terrace at the Old Castle of Saive (Belgium). It's been a dark rainy cloudy day; nothing that reminds you of the summer but rather of the beginning of autumn. At the end of the evening though, the sky is clear, the sun goes down and colours in the sky are magnificent. It's almost 9.00pm, here comes the Blue hour when the skies reveal this deep blue and you can appreciate this magenta colour gradation. The stress of the day makes room for the peace of mind, it's just so beautiful :-)

This panorama is made up of 6 consecutive photos taken in long exposure time (2 to 3 seconds), my camera was on tripod standing on my terrace. Yeah, I know, not bad for a view...

And by a miraculous sunny day...

Where's the summer here in Belgium? Wondering... A good D vitamin cure wouldn't be a luxury touch. There are certain days though when the sun shows the tip of his nose (not more, don't ask him too much) and that's when all the colours in the garden can express themselves. Colours and light are warm, intense, vibrant; the garden is breathing!

Smart, leopard camouflage!

Advanced technique of camouflage, the ladybug in leopard disguise!

"Blegny-mine Go Round"

I had a lot of fun doing my first panorama on the "parc de la Boverie" in Liège (Belgium) and I did it again on the Blegny-mine site in Blegny (still in Belgium). However, this time, no menacing sky, only a nice blue sky! A dozen photos were taken and assembled with software.
Anyone for an upside down walk?

"Liege Go Round"

Here I am at the very end of the 'Boverie Park' in Liege (Belgium), armed with my camera and tripod. The sky was threatening, filled with clear areas and heavy clouds. It started to heavily rain before I finished the panorama. For locals, the bridge of Fragnée (le pont de Fragnée) from Liege and the Saint-Vincent church (the upside down dome) can be recognized. This is my first attempt at making a panorama planet! There are a lot of tutorials on YouTube explaining how to get this result but to sum it up, this is a panorama made of a dozen pictures taken from the camera on tripod, (the tripod makes it easy for the software afterward to assemble and merge all the pictures together properly). A filter (rectangular to polar coordinates) will then be applied to the panorama to get the planet effect". Simply stunning...

"A bicyclettes"

Local landscape and waterscape, quays and lond walkways along the river in Visé, Belgium.

Visé, Belgium

Little walk along the river on walkways in Visé, Belgium.

Looks like a great day for kayaking...

Sweden, summer 2011.

Back to summer 2011 in Sweden, a dream of large open spaces. Sweden abounds of splendid panoramas and landscapes.

Summer bloom in Sweden

Mölnlycke (Göteborg), Sweden. Summer 2011.