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Home » Shooting Days » List of events » septembre 2006, France

This was the first event where we rent a house in France, at the Cap Blanc-Nez, at walking distance from the sea. Each day, we went for a photoshoot on the beach. Actually there is no beach at all when the tide is high, and a very large beach when the tide is low. The difference between high and low tide is more than 6 meters, and that's caused by the funnel of the Strait of Calais. In the North Sea behind the strait, the tide is limited to some 4 meters.


4 septembre

First shooting nearby Wissant. The name of the village comes from "White Sands" or "Wit Zand", it was an english outpost during the english-french wars, once french, the week later english again, and sometimes dutch. It's the last village with "white sands", the cliffs begin to appear in Sangatte, the next village. You can see exactly the same cliffs in England nearby Dover.

It's september and the harvest is ready. Some haystacks are used as backdrop. Then we went to Audresselles, in the streets of the small village and on the rocks on the beach. The region is completely different of what we are used in Belgium: no white sand, but different sorts of rocks.

There is quite a lot of sun and it's sometimes difficult to make good pictures. The models (and a german photographer) are not ready for sunrise and we loose some occasions to make real good pictures.

We went to Ambleteuse in the afternoon, at the mouth of the Slack. Again too much sun and not so much places to hide from the sun. The pictures we take look like plain holiday pictures. We were on the wrong side of the river and no way to go to the correct side (it rained a lot in the past weeks and the river was flooded). But it's a nice place that will be used in the next years.


5 septembre

At that time the Cap Blanc-Nez was just a normal place, not some sort of park where it is forbidden to leave the marked paths. There were still a lot of bunkers that could be used as backdrop for the photo sessions. Nowadays, most of the bunkers are out-of-limits or destroyed (there are still some bunkers, but they are on the wrong side of the dunes). It is an awfull place for tourists, when you compare the place to what it was in 2006.

The Cran d'Escalles is the part at sea level, the Mont d'Hubert is the hill at the Cap Blanc-Nez. The name of the village nearby is Escalles. A "Cran" is a small river that has eroded the coastline (cliffs). It's quite a small river, but the soft limestones are completely eroded.




6 septembre

A photoshoot with soccer gear was planned in the morning, but again the sun was much too high when the models were ready. Most professional photographers prefer to work when there is no sun, and add some extra light using a remote flash.

First wetstyle photo session at the Cran d'Escalles, it's just a 5 minutes walk to the beach. Wetstyle was fashion at that time, and each model needed to have some wetstyle photos in their portfolio. The craze went over quite rapidly...

It was the beginning of the white belts craze (still going on...). White clothing can only be used when there is no sun of at sunset (using a remote flash to compensate for the excess of red light). White clothing provides too much contrast and the digital cameras of that time could not cope with a range of more than 8EV. It's less of a problem with film, whitch has a logaritmic sensitivity scale, while digital sensors have a lineair scale. Pictures from digital cameras lack details in the highlights when there is too much sun. Even at sunset it is quite a challenge to balance natural lightning and flash light.


7 septembre

Rest time, with only one single session in the afternoon. It's time to look at the pictures and evaluate the poses.

The afternoon we go to the pointe de la crèche, one of my favorite locations. There is always a lot of wind on top of the hill: just take one or two pictures for the landscape and move on to the sea level. This spot is really easy to find: just drive on the Départementale 940 (D940) and park your car nearby the roundabout. The nearby village is Terlincthun. For me, it's one of the most beautiful places of the whole Côte d'Opale. The Côte d'Opale is the name of the littoral region of the North of France (both the départements of Nord and Pas-de-Calais).

It's quite challenging to take pictures of a group of models: there will always be one who has his eyes closed, who looks on the wrong side, who is in the shadow, and so on. Each model should have it's fair share of exposure, and afterwards you can determine easily who will become a real model: he uses more than his share of space and put the other persons present into oblivion.


8 septembre

One new model came over to make a portfolio. He got pictures from three different photographers. And it's time to pack our stuff. I drive to Zavemtem so the german models can pick up their flight.

The next years, we'll go to the same location, but we'll rent a larger house.

Septembre 2006, France

Its quite funny to read the french texts that were written nearly 10 years ago. During this period of time, i will work with 4 digital cameras: Sony DSC-F828, Canon 20D, Canon 50D and Canon 5D Mk III
4 septembre 2006

The beach at Audresselles
5 septembre 2006

Boysband style in a bunker at the Mont d'Hubert (cap Blanc-Nez). The bunker is not present anymore.
6 septembre 2006

Audresselles
7 septembre 2006

Boulogne sur Mer: Benny and Maarten


Boulogne sur Mer


8 septembre 2006


Soccer field at Escalles

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