Spaingas Baby! (not Vegas, Spaingas; geddit?) Part I

So, with another plan change of Joyce-esque proportions, I am no longer in Dubai. It is too long and complicated to get into (jobs, promises, shrug) but suffice to say that I am now based in the sunny Costa Calida; at least for the summer.

So if anyone is in Murcia and needs a photographer...

But I jest - this post is actually not about life here in Spain (more of that later, when I have actually lived it a bit...) but rather the journey. We road-tripped down from just north of London in a shade over 46 hours including stops. I am a huge fan of B-Road travelling (and Bob Dylan - see below) and would have adored to spend a fortnight doing it - taking every side road in south-west France, meandering over the Pyrenees and stopping at every vineyard from Bordeaux to Rioja to stock up! However, in the words of The Bandit himself "we got a long way to go and a short time to git there" so motorways and motels it was...

The M25 was about as enjoyable and photogenic as a doctors' waiting room but at least it is acceptably quiet at 5am. Although I do worry about all the people heading into town on it by 5:45 - is that really good for the blood pressure 5 days a week? Anyway; what with the M25, the time of day (hideously antisocial unless it is the end of a great party or the view over the mountains with a camera in your hand...) and then the ferry full of school children and harassed clipboard-bearers, plus the traffic jams and stresses of northern France (sat-nav obsession with going to Paris even in the face of all action to the contrary) I didn't really start enjoying myself until we were south of Orléans. As usual on this kind of flying trip, I kept seeing places to add to my list of photo trips and I think mediaeval Orléans is on that list now - not that I am qualified to comment since the view from the Autoroute is non-existent. However, stories of chivalry and the drama of French history are all connected to Orléans and the delightful French habit of advertising their towns/regions with elegant roadside signage worked its magic (knight, armour, castle) so I would like to go...

South of Orléans the countryside became gradually more impressive as we left behind the vast plains beloved of Tour de France helicopter cameramen and climbed steadily into the Massif Centrale (incidentally - great name...) range of hills.

I had trouble deciding what was more impressive from this point on - the heavy peaks and steep gorges clung with stone villages, forests and vineyards or the sensational engineering achievement of the Clermont-Ferrand to Montpelier road. This winds and sweeps through the Massif Centrale and Languedoc region all the way to the Mediterranean. Bridges, viaducts (note to self - what's the difference? Must Google it...) and a perfect motorway clinging to the mountainsides.

I think the crowning glory of both, however (not that I've seen much of the rest of the region - happy to be corrected re Massif) is the Tarn river gorge and the glorious dramatic elegance that is the Millau Bridge. I think it rare at all; and hen's teeth with modern architecture, to find that collaboration of engineering and beauty; sheer style; that is seen at Millau.
We arrived in the warmth of evening light and stopped at the viewpoint for photos before crossing but I wanted 48 hours, a fisheye lens, a panoramic medium format camera, superzoom and a helicopter!! Plus of course there is the gorge itself - huge, steep and thickly forested save a strata of limestone cliff all the way around that seemed to enhance the scale and drama of the place. The gloss black sliver of the Tarn and jumbled church-dominated town of Millau in the valley far below were just icing on the cake.

So, here are the results - a couple of shots from the viewpoint (probably should have clambered down a wee bit to get a better angle but in all honesty I was so stiff from being on the road all day then climbing the hill to the viewpoint!). This first one I purposely shot at 50mm on my 28-70mm zoom. A 50mm lens on a 35mm film SLR or a full frame DSLR like my Nikon D3 is the closest representation of how the human eye sees - so the scale and shape of the bridge as you see it is true - no stretching, distortion or expansion. I also stopped the aperture right down to f22 to maintain sharpness all the way through the image. So, in the warm evening light the exposure was f22 1/40 sec at 400 ISO. If anyone is interested...

The next one I shot at 70mm to compress the perspective just a wee bit - this time I exposed at  f7.1 to get a shutter speed of 1/250 sec  ( I hate to confess it but I was once again tripod-less due to my itinerant lifestyle just now, and the wind had got up so I wanted to be sure of no camera shake - more certain at 1/250th than 1/40th ).





And finally, something a bit different... I had a go at some rapid shooting as we crossed the bridge (after the day we had had and the fact that crossing the bridge costs €7.40 we were only doing it once!). The D3 offers two speeds of continuous shooting at full frame - Low (CL) for up to 9 frames per sec, and High (CH) for fixed 9fps - and while I could have got 11 fps if I had switched to DX crop, I wanted to take advantage of the full width of my 20-35mm lens so I stuck to full frame, put it in CH mode and just kept shooting! I am pretty pleased with the results overall; and I think this is the pick of the crop. I've given it a bit of a pop with my new toy - a plugin for Aperture called Topaz Adjust that I am just getting to grips with. So far so great lots of different looks and a great line in just that bit extra for pictures much quicker than I can do it individually; I can't wait to do some of my arty wedding pictures with it. Its also available as Photoshop or Lightroom plugins if anyone wants to check it out. On the other hand I may have gone a bit over the top. Comments welcome as always...






So after Millau we were seriously flagging and decided to stop for the night (Roadchef take note - real food, clean place, human beings to serve you. It IS possible in a motorway service station... Just ask the French) so there I shall leave us. Spaingas roadtrip part II next time, folks!!