I have just this weekend got back from Nice in the South of France. It was a much needed break surrounded by stunning coastlines and gorgeous architecture. You don’t have to take my word for it, just have a look through some of these photos…

This amazing panorama, was the view from our balcony in the apartment we were staying in Menton. It was quite amazing. The drive up the apartment was equally hair raising but not for the same reasons.

Naturally I wasn’t alone on this holiday, I was with my partner in crime, Amy! As well as her Dad and sister. We were to be visiting Nice, Italy, Monte Carlo and Eze. That meant a lot of driving, something I was pretty happy with! It would also mean plenty of opportunity to photograph all kinds of scenery. It also meant taking photos for fun again. It was a lot of fun.

Who knew that the 135L would make such a good landscape lens!? Well it does. What also helps is the sun setting behind the mountains causing some crazy lighting through the clouds!

It was nice to exercise the wide-angle lens that we have too. It is not typically a lens that I use often (Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5) as I prefer the compression from longer focal lengths as well as the shallow depth of field.

It was however a nice change shooting at f/8 and getting everything into the frame. These gardens really needed to be shown in their full glory! (More on these later)

I was really interested in the use of symmetry as well as bold geometric lines to brake up the organic nature of the plants and trees. It was a nice duality.

Nice, Nice was so much nicer than I was expecting, I quickly fell in love with the place! The architecture, the people, the food…just everything!

The weather also helped. It was in the high 20’s not insanely hot but just right, especially when mixed with the sea breeze.

We went to Nice about 2 or 3 times, I forget so I have a load more pictures on this place! I grew up by the sea so it really nice to be back by the coast!

But for me the most exciting reason for holidaying in this area was obvious…MONACO. Possibly the most iconic race track in the F1 calendar! And the next race is a matter of weeks away. They had already started setting up the track, Armco was being installed, the pits were being set up, grandstands erected! It was all very exciting to me!

In fact I spent so much of the time running around and squealing with excitement. Probably why I don’t have thousands of photos from this place. I’ll do a post on this place later on for sure! You would not believe the cars there!

So from the very modern F1 circuit to the medieval town of Eze…a settlement literally on top of a mountain (or large hill). Awesome views from up there! As well as an awesome set of roads to get to it.

Oh and this was a 1 second exposure inside a church…steady hands or what? Nah actually it was rested on a reading stand that I borrowed.

So there you have it, a little teaser on what I got up. I will be doing a few more blog posts in the near future to show in more detail some of the areas that I visited. For now, I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

SHOOTINGDAVE