Chateau de Villandry, Villandry (Indre-et-Loire)

Some verrrrrry serious gardening going on here! And your perspective is wonderful, as usual. This looks like it's probably several shots stitched together, yes? Very well done, however you did it.

Very good panoramic, the central pathway works well with the clouds lines and the church. On my bright monitor it looks a bit dim. ok, it was overcast but a slight reverse grad ND for the garden area would improve the shot IMO

Dennis, the photo brings back my memories from 2004, when we were crossing France and stopped at this place. I did not manage to get a good shot (it was raining and I did not find the scene suitable for Velvia without the use of an ND grad filter). Nice work.

Has to be seen large Dennis, but even so it needs more light to enjoy the garden forms which looks like great gardening.

Nice panoramic form, I like the diagonal light brown path that bring the viewer in.

 

Nice series of Pans.

 

( btw, I wait for the pyrenees timetable if you have it already....;-))

Beautifully captured scene. The path leading to the town with the two people walking on it adds an interesting touch to this composition. The details in the garden are appealing and the atmosphere inviting.

... I feel among old friends here :)

 

David, very serious gardening, you are right. There are flower gardens, kitchen gardens, water gardens, gardens of love (below in the foreground), and every kind of garden you can imagine in this wonderful setting on the Loire river. This is a two-shot panorama, done with the tilt shift. The great thing about the TS lens for panoramas is that they fit together almost to the vertical pixel line, very little overlap. So two shots really squeeze out a 7000 pixel wide image Glad you liked it.

 

Carsten, thanks for the comments. I believe that you are completely right in the darkness, but there was plenty in the original RAW images. The problem is that I just got a new computer setup at home including a wonderful 24" Cinema Display from Mac, and I can see EVERYTHING. It is glorious. Except ... everything that I produce for web use looks dark to the rest of the world. I've started to re-calibrate and will probably change out this shot with a different version.

 

Peter, it was raining on and off on the day that we were there, which made for wonderfully dramatic skies, but at least I was lucky enough that it was clear for an hour or so. I've shot here perhaps ten times, and half of them there was threatening weather, but have been lucky enough to get shots each time. Spectacular place.

 

Pnina, you are right. I'm going to repost soon, have been very busy working and have not paid the proper attention to my work here on PN. How selfish can I be? Thanks for the comments on all the latest shots, with my new computer I've been going through the archives and putting together some shots that have been ignored. It's been fun! As for the schedule, maybe later today!

 

Adan, thanks. I had a different version of this shot, taken a few moments later, and the people were split at the middle of the frame :) This version was much easier to process. This is another place that I know you'd love to see, especially on one of those rare days when few people are there. Now, if they could only stop the Rafale jets from the French Air Force from zooming over at tree-top level, it would be perfect :)

Reposted photo to adjust tones. This is a two-shot panorama using Canon 24TS-L

lens.

That looks really cool, my kids would have a field day running around this place!

Excellent!

This garden is wonderful and you as always you have represented them much good. If the path had been to the center of the perspective it would have been a bomb

Beautiful panoramic shot that allows us to fully appreciate les jardins a la francaise du Chateau de Vallandry. Wonderful, Dennis.

Larger is a must for this beauty! An amazing garden; and one that I could spend hours looking at and wandering about in. Excellent pano, Dennis. All in all, given the wide angle of the presentation here, I'd say you handled the dynamic range pretty well. I wonder if hand-holding a 1-stop or 2-stop ND grad in front of the lens on the right-hand exposure may have helped the sky. I find myself using the ND grads at different times of day and not just at sunrise/sunset. Well done, Amigo! When is your next trip back to the Continent? Cheers! Chris

... Tim, your kids would go crazy here. Imagine, a beautiful castle, a moat loaded with giant carp, donkeys in the high gardens, and every kind of flower and vegetable that can grow there ... and then the mazes of the Gardens of Love.

 

... Thanks, Joseph, glad you like the shot.

 

.... Paolo, I understand the idea with the path down the center, but when I did that in the pano, it overemphasized the seam, so I chose this slightly off-center version. It probably doesn't really matter about the seam, but it bothered me. Thanks for your kind words.

 

Laurent, one of the great jardins. I wish it had more of a longitudinal vista like the great gardens of Le Notre, because the trompe l'oeil effects don't quite work here, like they do at Vaux and so many others. But this one is a delight.

 

Chris, you know I probably could have used an ND grad here but I was travelling with my "church kit" and wasn't carrying one! Sometimes I over-organize the camera case, and this was one of those times ... how much space could it take, right? Glad you liked the shot. PJ and I are preparing for the next trip, we leave on September 12. We just redesigned the entire trip because there are five Norman churches we have to shoot. We cut out Paris completely in order to make it work. Oh well, but we finish for three days in Vezelay, which is like heaven itself. Hope you are well. I've really missed being on PN.

I agree with Chris that larger is better. The little tiny version gives no clue about how all the wonderful details embedded within. I like how crisply this is shot. My eye gets to wander in and out of the mazes, and because of that, this isn't a photo that can be instantly metabolized, I love it.