A Beautiful Finish in Vaudreille

June 8, 2014 Filed inFrance,Landscape,Out And About,Photography,Photoshop,Workshops

blog_09_jun_2014Today was the last day of our Lovely Languedoc workshop here in France. We all hopped in our go-go mobile and headed to Ricaud to check out a French Flea Market.  Quite a number of us came home with fabulous finds…. one of our students nabbed a beautiful antique copper water fountain (at a bargain price) and others found trinkets such as antique cow bells, farm journals from the early 1900’s and french school sampler books.

On the way back to Durfort we stopped at an ancient church ruin and photographed a wonderful cemetery as well as the wheat fields that were growing nearby.
We then popped out of the car and sat next to one of the early tributaries of the Canal Du Midi for a picnic lunch in Vaudreille.

A super way to finish off a stellar week.!!!!!

Our students have painted up a STORM!, toured and photographed like crazy and all in all it has been a beautiful week……. eaten lots of fabulous food, drunk a fair bit of local wine and indeed been very merry together!!!!!

^5’s Miz Karen Burns!!!  ….  my stellar partner in crime!!!  The first of many adventures I suspect.

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joanne thieme huffman - sounds perfect

Gail Rinard - what a beautiful trip.. thanks for taking us along and sharing your photos.. enjoyed every one… thanks again..

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Montolieu, The Book Village

June 7, 2014 Filed inArchitecture,Digital,France,Photography,Photoshop,Travel

otero_fb_7juinYesterday Karen and I took our jolly band along to the village of Montolieu, otherwise known as the Book Village (http://www.montolieu-livre.fr). It’s a superb spot, lots of ancient buildings, wonderful views and of course books, books and more books! A little house here would not go amiss!!!

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Alison - Sounds just up your ally. OXOX M

joanne thieme huffman - The books sound wonderful. Your pictures are making me think I should buy Corel.

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A Little Southern France

June 6, 2014 Filed inDigital Painting,France,Photography,Photoshop,Workshops

blog_06a_jun_2014Karen Burns and I are having such fun exploring the south of France with a great bunch of students.  We are photographing and painting up a storm…..

We have been to Soreze, explored about Durfort and today headed off to Carcassonne to check out the castle and environs… on the way we spied this fabulous little chapel which harkens back to the 1700′s.

Upon closer inspection and peeeking through one of the windows, you could see the magnificent painting on the wall (below).  Sadly the chapel was all locked up and I daresay seldom used, but  the artwork at least, was enjoyable courtesy of modern day camera capabilities.

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Alison - I’m so pleased all is going well with the group and you are finding some interesting places. Love the painted photo and the picture in the little chapel. OXOX M

Joanne Thieme Huffman - Love the painterly look of the house. The chapel looks intriguing; how nice you were able to peek inside.

chris - such a beautiful painting. Thanks for sharing that! A gorgeous chapel, too.

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Soreze Style

June 3, 2014 Filed inFrance,Photography,Photoshop,Workshops

blog_04_jun_2014We took our happy band of travelers to the town of Soreze today where we meandered around small quaint streets and visited the old Abbey and a beautiful Church amongst other things and then returned to spend the afternoon in the Studio whooping up a storm in Corel Painter.

Having some inkling of what I might find here today I took my trusty Fisheye with me and have significantly messed around with one of the images in post processing.

There will probably be a lot more images posted NEXT week when I’ve time to contemplate and sort through pictures shot over the last few days.  For now, the focus is on helping others shoot and post process and it’s keeping me pretty busy!

Stay tuned though as for sure there will be some tasty tid bits each day…..

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joanne thieme huffman - Stunning.

Chris - This is stunning. I love this so much!

Honestly, I don’t know how you go through all your pictures and edit them and then make them into art like you do. If I take four pictures in a row and then go back to post them my arm falls asleep and I have to have a beer. And the cat won’t get off my arm and then she has to have a beer. Then the dog has to have the cat.
Photography is exhausting.

My lunch is over, so I have to go play at working.

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Lovely Languedoc ….

June 1, 2014 Filed inDigital,France,Photography,Photoshop,Travel,Workshops

What a wonderful but exhausting day…

Karen and I started off the morning by stepping out of our front door to be greeting by the Durfort Town Flea Market all in full swing.
We both managed to garner a few treasures for fairly paltry sums of money and had a good time chatting with the locals…. I now have it on good authority that ROSE garlic from Lautrec is the best in the world… even better than garlic from Provence…. who knew??

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From Durfort we journeyed to Saissac and checked out some of the wonderful views of the old castles, monasteries and view of the distant plains.

Next onto Montolieu where we caught a bite and browsed through the streets and shops of the “Book Village”…

From there a pleasant meander through the countryside to the City of Carcassonne where we navigated the streets and byways, checking out the views of the spectacular castle and figuring out just where to bring our students to catch the best shots…  this is my fave castle shot of the day….

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So, I guess we will be bringing them here….. to grab this one..

GPS in the the Avis rentals has yet to add Photo Op’s to the list of Nav options…. so it was a bit of a nose navigation job to get to where we wanted to be, but Yay we made it!!!
Tomorrow a bit more exploring before we greet our students…. we are excited….

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Joanne Thieme Huffman - Looks and sounds wonderful!

whomever - Well, enough joking around. This photo, castle, class opportunity, is stunning. I love this. The thought of driving through the countryside scoping out focal points made my eyes water. That must have been so lovely and wonderful. A singular experience.

Once I, too, stepped out of the front door to find fleas. But we had just adopted a stray cat, so I blame society.

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