(speaking in foreign language)
- So, I am in France.
I arrived in Paris a few days ago.
And, I'm gonna be shooting for the next two months.
And I'm gonna do a whole bunch of Vlog
to show you how I take my photos
and how I retouch it.
This is the first of this kind.
And today, I'm gonna go to the South of France,
to Valensole, close to Aix-en-Provence.
You know, very nice, beautiful area.
And we're gonna be shooting
the lavender field in the South of France.
It's something I've always wanted to do.
I've tried to do it many times,
but every time I came too early or too late.
I think this time I'm really right on it.
It's like some of the, my bucket list
that I've always wanted to do.
So, come with me in the South of France,
and let's take some photos of the lavender fields together.
(upbeat music)
(train engine rumbling)
All right, so we have arrived in Aix-en-Provence.
And now, let's get a car and let's get to
the lavender field.
(upbeat music)
All right, so here we are.
I was afraid there was no lavender,
but check this out.
(rock music)
So, to start with tonight,
I'm gonna start with the classic shot
that everybody's getting.
There's full of people here tonight.
It's a classic view with a lonely tree,
and with you know, the whole curve and, you know.
It's kind of like going to Paris
and not getting the Eiffel Tower.
Tomorrow morning at sunrise,
we try to get something more original.
But tonight we do the classic.
Okay, so tonight I'm gonna try for the first time,
my new camera, its a GFX 50R.
It's medium format camera, 50 million pixel.
And because it's medium format,
it's got a really big pixel.
But, I have a very wide angle lens on it.
Which is a 32-64mm,
which is the equivalent of, I would say,
24-50mm or something.
And then I got this, I got this.
This is my Sony a7R III with a 70-300mm.
So, I can really compress with that.
What is annoying is that, you see,
it's kind of nice here, but check this out.
Look how the clouds are really nice here.
But then if you shoot this way, you don't get the lines.
I wanna get the lines to the tree.
And there to the tree there's almost no clouds.
So, you know, that's the life of photography.
You have to, you know,
you have to find the right composition and the right light.
The beautiful light is here,
but the right composition is here, so we'll see.
(instrumental music)
(camera clicks)
So, I'm pretty are happy for the first time,
we didn't have great clouds,
but I'm gonna get some rest.
I'm gonna get up really early
and we're gonna take some more photos.
(cock crows)
Okay, so we got up at five in the morning
and we are gonna look for original composition.
We did a classic shot last night,
and now we could just go to take a really nice road
and see what we can we get.
(instrumental music)
(car door closes)
So look at this, we have a one tree,
the mountain, we have everything.
I'm literally running to this place.
Look at this, look at that sky, look at this lavender.
But, I'm going to try to position myself
right in a leading line of the tree here.
So that's my first framing here, right on the ax,
right on the tree.
Let's see what we got.
The sky is incredible.
(camera clicks)
(instrumental music)
Let's see if I can get the exposure correctly.
Check this out, that looks amazing.
So, I really got that shot.
Now, I'm going to try to maybe shoot this way.
Cause look at that cloud.
I always look for the cloud, it's incredible.
And I'm gonna try to get that cloud in the background.
Okay, I'm running because I wanna
get the view from the other side.
The sunrise is really nice this morning.
So, I came here but this view,
is less exciting for me because
there's a little lonely tree over there,
but it's very small and we can't really see it.
And, I was just attracted by the cloud.
I don't think this photo is gonna work.
So, to really make a photo we need three things.
We need a good foreground, which we have with the lavender.
But we need also some like middle thing,
like a house or a lonely tree.
And this one is too far.
And then, we need a background which we have with the sky.
So, I don't think this one is gonna work.
That's a perfect middle ground and a perfect sky,
but we need something in the foerground.
You know, I wish this lavender would have that tree,
you know, at the end.
But we'll do it.
So, we got some really nice things this morning.
I think we got a great sunrise.
I've been shooting with my Fuji and my Sony, both.
I use the Sony with my 70-300mm
so that I can really focus, you know,
zoom in a lot 70-300mm.
And I have like the equivalent of like a 28-50mm
on the Fuji.
It's not ideal to be honest,
but I love the Fuji colors.
They look amazing, huh.
You know, the middle format really gives
every chance to every pixel.
So, okay.
We're gonna move fast here because you know,
sun has not even really rised yet.
Right now we're just getting the sort of,
you know, the sunset colors.
But we didn't get the actual golden hour.
That's about to come up, so we're gonna do that.
All right, so now we are, it's still sunrise.
So we are gonna go and find another location,
completely randomly, just you know,
driving around and trying to find like a lonely tree,
a nice field, you know,
a beautiful house, you know,
some old stone, you know,
house and things like this.
So yeah, one of the biggest difficulty I have is
I wanna be at like at five places in the same time.
Like, I always hesitate between staying at one location,
getting the best possible photo or, you know,
once I'm kind of happy then just to move
and try to get another one.
That's what I'm doing this morning.
I hope it's gonna pay out.
Okay, I think we found something,
which I think could be interesting.
Whenever you see a lot of photographers,
usually it's interesting.
Look at this, we get the sunrise right on to
a couple of lonely trees.
This could be it.
So, this is my framing now for the sunrise,
we found this lavender field,
right with the sunrise,
which is kinda crazy to think about, you know.
Shooting with my 70-300mm, on my left hand.
And on my right hand,
I got a GFX 50 S, and let's see what we can do.
(instrumental music)
(camera clicks)
Okay, so I think we're done for this morning.
I mean, we're just gonna,
it's still like 6:47 in the morning.
So, I'm gonna...
Breakfast is at eight.
So, we'll be shooting till eight and see what happens.
One thing that is very important is,
to shoot at the right time.
Like right now, I just...
We came back to the same spot,
we took some new photos and they don't look as great.
Because, I mean,
it's still like seven o'clock in the morning.
It's still very early, but like, you know,
photography is all about catching that moment of light.
All right, so after this shoot in the morning,
I found this spot here that you can see in the back.
There is like a little, you know,
little house there and nice leading lines.
But, what I do is when I find a spot during the day,
I look on an app called Sun Seeker
and I can see where the sun is going to be
and, this actually is a bad spot for sunset,
but it's a great spot for sunrise
because the sun rises directly here.
So, that could be cool.
(instrumental music)
At this location and it's not good because
this is not nice here.
And so it's not gonna work.
You need to have like a foreground.
You need to have a middle ground and background.
So, background is gonna be the sky.
But the middle ground here is really not that nice.
Also, I love the idea of having some flowers
and having some lavender.
So, I stopped here too, because there was a,
I saw like a little house.
I thought that could be a cool middle ground,
but the problem is that that house
is not in the middle of the lavender field.
So it's not going to work.
All right, so this is another spot that we found,
but I don't like it because the sun is gonna sit
completely at the opposite side.
So, sometimes it can look great, but you know,
I love the leading lines that it is.
But, you don't really have a middle ground.
It's just, a very nice feel.
Like it's very well kept.
There's not too much other colors, and I love that.
But I don't think it's gonna qualify,
so let's keep on looking.
All right guys.
So, I decided to come back to the same location
we were yesterday.
Because, honestly it's the best location
and you wanna get the best possible photos.
It's like going to Paris
and you don't have the Eiffel Tower.
And, it's important to have the Eiffel tower.
I mean, look at this place.
It's beautiful.
The way the lavender goes and the way it's rounded,
you know, the lonely tree that's behind me,
it's just a perfect shot.
So, come and join me for this final day.
And let's get a great photo of this Valensole plateau here.
(camera clicks)
(instrumental music)
(camera clicks)
Okay, here we are.
We are a little late.
But, this is what we scouted yesterday.
This little house there is where we're going.
(instrumental music)
(camera clicks)
I love that for me it was a house and a mountain,
but that's it.
No, clouds this morning.
The sun is gonna be rising over there.
And you know, I hope it's gonna give it a nice light,
but we don't know, we'll see.
Okay, so here we are.
The sun has risen.
So, you get a nice light on the lavender field,
but it's not crazy good, you know.
It's not amazing.
If you let me zoom in little bit here,
it's just, I love the mountain.
It's just I wish it would be a few clouds, but you know,
we'll see how it's comes out in retouching.
So, that's the last shoot that we did and viola.
This is the end of this Vlog.
In next episode, I'm gonna show you all the retouching
that I did to get all these photos.
I hope you enjoyed this little journey with me.
I love the lavender field.
I mean, it's, you know.
We didn't get the best clouds,
but what a place, it's beautiful.
If you get a chance to come to Provence,
you gotta come here.
It's incredible.
(instrumental music)
(rock music)