Morning on the River Soane

by Sally
(St Jean de Losne France)

I am an absolute beginner with a passion. I am taking photos for our web site and to have framed on our boat. We are lucky enough to live on a barge on the French Canal system.

I walk a lot and kept coming across the most beautiful scenery and decided I must try and capture some of this. So I picked up my husbands camera - FinePix s7000 and carry it with me when walking. I just love it, taking photos and coming back to see what they look like.

The scenery round here is breathtaking. My aim for this photo was just to capture early morning on the river, fabulous light on the rushes turning them that orange and the mist on the river.

I am about to buy a new camera; see the mark on photo - my lens is cracked! So am buying a Nikon D60 with a 18 - 70 mm zoom.

Now I must read all of your site to get to grips with the technical side of photo sizing and pixels at the moment it is a different language. Will read your site avidly. Many thanks for your time.

Sally G.

(for convenience links below open in new windows)

There's something about spicy food. Something great, and yet at the same time something really annoying.

Take for instance a really hot curry – a vindaloo perhaps or for those who are feeling really brave, a phal. When it goes into your mouth your taste buds are hit by an explosion – of flavour at first and then it feels like someone has poured some molten lava in.

Reaching for water to extinguish the inferno you succeed in nothing more than spreading the fire around your entire mouth. Finally the flames recede and some feeling begins to return to your tongue.

And the crazy thing is that then you want another bite. There is something telling your brain that this is good, while at the same time something else is telling you to avoid it. This is how I feel about France.

There is something that I find quite annoying about France (although I can't quite put my finger on it), and equally, I can't stay away! It's a great country to visit and the sort of scenery that Sally has captured illustrates that so perfectly.

The light in Sally's picture is excellent, and she has made good use of the golden hour.

She has also stuck to another great photography rule – carry a camera! No camera – no photos.

And you just know that if you see something that you like, and you have left your camera at home, by the time you return with your camera things will have changed.

So is there anything that could be improved about this shot? Not a lot, but one thing I feel is missing is some foreground interest.

There is a lot of empty space on the right of the photo, especially at the bottom. I can see why – it was the only way to capture that magnificent reflection.

But just imagine if there was something on the right side. I'm thinking of a small rowing boat . . . I don't know what was around at the time and maybe there wasn't anything of interest to use.

All in all I like the photo. And that reminds me, I really must book a trip to France . . .

Darrell.
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