Saturday 20 February 2016

Staff announcement

Picasa : exit
Recently I received some rather disturbing information: the Picasa software, in which I have produced tens if not hundreds of photo albums, will most likely ceased to exist in the near future, and will be replaced by Google Photos.
Because it is not entirely clear what is going to happen exactly, I have occupied myself for a while reorganising (which was no bad thing anyway) and renaming my old Picasa albums into Google Photos, and consequently changing all links to albums on my maps with Romanesque churches as well as the links in this blog.
A hell of a job, and it is not unlikely that I have missed some links, which obviously will not work anymore. Any constructive comments on this matter will be appreciated.

The links can be found on the following blogs:
Blog NL Romaanse bouwkunst in Bourgogne
Blog GB : Romanesque Architecture in Burgundy

Google Photos : enter
More links can be found on the following maps with Romanesque churches:

Bourgogne:
Département Côte-d'Or (21)
Département Nièvre (58)
Département Saône-et-Loire (71)
Département Yonne (89)

Bordering Bourgogne (an arbitrary choice):
Département Ain (01
Département Allier (3)
Département Aube (10)
Département Cher (18)
Départementen Jura & Haute-Saône (39 & 70)
Département Loire (42)
Département Loiret (45)
Département Haute-Marne (52)
Département Rhône (69)
Département Seine-et-Marne (77)

Other maps:
Romaanse kerken in Europe (an arbitrary choice):
Site Clunisiens in Europe
Byzantine churches in Europe and the Middle East (an arbitrary choice):

Friday 19 February 2016

Picturealbums (for map of Europe) per French department

01R Ain (absent)
02R Aisne
03R Allier
04R Alpes-de-Haute-Provence
05R Hautes-Alpes
06R Alpes-Maritimes (absent)
07R Ardèche
08R Ardennes
09R Ariège
10R Aube

11R Aude
12R Aveyron
13R Bouches-du-Rhône
14R Calvados
15R Cantal
16R Charentes
17R Charente-Maritime
18R Cher
19R Corrèze
20R Corse

21R Côte-d'Or
22R Côtes-d'Armor
23R Creuse
24R Dordogne
25R Doubs (absent)
26R Drôme
27R Eure
28R Eure-et-Loir
29R Finistère
30R Gard

31R Haute-Garonne
32R Gers
33R Gironde
34R Hérault
35R Ille-et-Vilaine
36R Indre
37R Indre-et-Loire
38R Isère
39R Jura (absent)
40R Landes

41R Loir-et-Cher
42R Loire
43R Haute-Loire
44R Loire-Atlantique
45R Loiret
46R Lot
47R Lot-et-Garonne
48R Lozère
49R Maine-et-Loire
50R Manche

51R Marne
52R Haute-Marne
53R Mayenne
54R Meurthe-et-Moselle (absent)
55R Meuse
56R Morbihan
57R Moselle
58R Nièvre
59R Nord
60R Oise

61R Orne
62R Pas-de-Calais
63R Puy-de-Dôme
64R Pyrenées-Atlantiques
65R Hautes-Pyrénées
66R Pyrénées-Orientales
67R Bas-Rhin
68R Haut-Rhin
69R Rhône
70R Haute-Saône

71R Saône-et-Loire (absent)
72R Sarthe
73R Savoie
74R Haute-Savoye (absent)
75R Paris (absent)
76R Seine-Maritime
77R Seine-et-Marne
78R Yvelines
79R Deux-Sèvres
80R Somme (absent)

81R Tarn
82R Tarn-et-Garonne
83R Var (absent)
84R Vaucluse
85R Vendée
86R Vienne
87R Haute-Vienne
88R Vosges
89R Yonne
90R Belfort (absent)

91R Essone
92R Hauts-de-Seine
93R Seine-Saint-Denis (absent)
94R Val-de-Marne (absent)
95R Val d'Oise

Monday 8 February 2016

The Golden Hour

Years ago, in February 2007 to be precise, we made a picture of the Romanesque church of Ameugny, using a small Olympus point-and-shoot camera. The colours of this picture were quite superb; it seemed like the church was bathing in a golden glow.

The church of Ameugny, 15 February 2007 17h20
However, the quality of the picture was quite low (72 dpi, good enough for internet use, but too poor to make prints), and since we got a request of an acquaintance to deliver some pictures of Cormatin and surroundings to be blown up and framed, I decided to dig in my archives in search of higher quality pictures. That turned out to be not too difficult; most of the more recent pictures were taken with a Nikon D50 or D90, they were sufficiently big and had a 300 dpi value.

The church of Ameugny, 2 December 2012 15h54
Only, the golden glow was missing. Since my better half has been heavily involved in photography last year, the term "The Golden Hour" has been discussed quite frequently. Not that I really believed in the rather euphoric description of pictures taken during that magic hour, but one never knows. The picture taken in February 2007 was indeed from around 17h00, an hour the sun is really low in the sky.

The church of Ameugny, 21 January 2016 15h10
According to her the sun is very low in January anyway, hence she saw no reason why it would not be possible to reproduce that picture around 15h00. That was just as easily said as it was done. However, even though the colours were marginally less dull than those of the older pictures taken with the D50 and D90 (most of them taken in the summer, during the day), I was not really impressed with the result.

The church of Ameugny, 21 January 2016 16h44
So, on one of the few sunny days in January around 17h00 we went back to Ameugny, and took again some pictures. After comparing the photographs, it looked like the golden hour certainly exists: the picture from early February 2007 and from late January 2016 were, in terms of colour, almost identical.
For those who are like a doubting Thomas: look, compare and be convinced!