My journey in France...
The sights
The Mont-St-Michel, May 28th 2000. One of the France's most frequently visited site by tyhe North-Americans, together with the Eiffel tower and the Normandie's beaches.
Mont St-Michel's flags in video (~500K for 5 sec.)
The Mont-St-Michel is located North-West from Rennes, at about 60 km.
When we arrive in sight with the Mont-St-Michel, we get the same feeling as when we arrive in sight with Southern Manhattan by the New Jersey: it gives the impression that those monuments grow indefinitely as we approach to them.
The Mont-St-Michel (formerly Mont Tombe) is a natural granit-made protuberance, located half way in a bay, on which were built an abbey on its top, few homes at mid-height, and some fortifications at its base.
It's Aubert, bishop of Avranches, who first built a sanctuary and gave the new name to the mount, in 708. The abbey was built in 966 under the dukle of Normandie's orders. It had to be rebuilt in parts during the last centuries, due to damages caused by conquests and by the natural elements. Since the beginning of this century, the Mont-St-Michel became an heritage resource and is preciously maintained.
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It would need thousands of words to make you feel the atmosphere that reigns at the Mont-St-Michel. So, here are some images instead! |
The fortress' netting door give access to the stairs that lead to the abbey. |
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While climbing the stairs, you can take your time to contemplate the ultimate goal of the visit (and especially to get your breath back...) |
At mid-height, you can look upward to the abbey's tower, and admire the golden St-Michel archangel that peaks at its summit. |
You can also have a diving look at the Southern facade's walls. |
A wall painting representing ? adorns the abbey's entrance. |
The abbey church's inside, taken from behind, towards the choir. One quarter of the church was demolished owing to a fire started by a lightning. |
At the abbey's center is an open-air sanctuary garden. |
The abbey's wheel. It was used to haul goods that were coming from the land. The wheel was spun by men (mostly prisoners) that were walking inside it. |
A view at the tower located on the West side. |
A granit islet, similar to the geological formation that modelled the Mont-St-Michel's island. They are the only formations that survived erosion caused by tides. |
This following picture was taken on the road, crossing the bay, that leads to the Mont-St-Michel. For sure, it shall make a nice background on your workstation.
The next images are panning shots juxtaposed together. I made them using an image editing software.
Close-up on the choir. |
This one is a vertical pan composed of 2 pictures. Due to the change in view angle, it is not possible to match both perfectly. So are flaws visible on the sides of the image. However, looking at its middle, defects are less obvious. |
Pan over the Mont-St-Michel's North side. |
This one is a 4-picture horizontal pan. When stiching the images with the software, the user must optimize the vertical alignment between the pictures in order to keep a common straight horizon. On this kind of montage, the landscape looks uniform, but the closer objects do not respect the original perspective. |
Pan over the Mont-St-Michel's South side. |
This one is a 5-picture horizontal pan. In this monatge, certain objects in the scene were moving while I was taking the shots. It results in blurred blend-zones, where some objects are duplicated. |
Not having a lot of experience in the photography domain, neither in image editing, the quality of some images may have been somewhat affected.
Nevertheless, it took me 2 hours to learn about how to use the software and to produce 3 pans for the first time of my life!
The
pictures contained in the following web pages were realized by, and
are the property of: Martin Lemieux (a.k.a. Maître Bart).
Any copy, in whole or in part, for commercial or lucrative usage must be
previously approved by the author.
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