Brittany Archives - Zolachrome

16 Nov 2021

Breton grey

The title of this post might sound like an expensive new shade of paint from Farrow & Ball. What it’s actually about is finding beauty in even the apparently dullest light. It’s hardly a surprise to be met with overcast skies in Brittany in November. But there is a richness in that light, too. Ignore those people who tell you that landscape photography is all about shooting during ‘Golden Hour’. Flat, grey light has a stillness that can be, at […]

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15 Nov 2021

Autumn colours

Autumn isn’t just about brown leaves. I think the yellow in this shot is blackthorn. The rest is heather, bracken, ivy and more. This was taken on the Côte d’Armor in Brittany, not far from Paimpol. And slightly further along the coast was this cliff. There’s a lot of green in there, for Autumn. By the way, this post marks a new direction for the blog – using it more like a notebook or sketchbook. So expect to find images […]

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23 Nov 2019

Capturing the mood

This island is a strange place. It hugs the base of cliffs on the Crozon peninsula in Finistère, Brittany. This particular part of the Crozon is a narrow finger of land pointing to nearby Brest. And the proximity of that port town is significant. Brest has been strategically important to France for centuries. And this explains why the Crozon peninsula, which overlooks the approaches to the port, is heavily militarised. It is littered with fortifications, most dating from the 19th […]

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Behind the Image / Photography 0

15 Feb 2019

New book: Finistère Insolite

At last, my new book is here. Finistère Insolite (Exceptional Finistère) is a collection of 133 images across 100 pages exploring the wildness, vastness and serenity of, for me, Brittany’s most spectacular department. The photographs were shot over the course of the past few years, with all of the visits having been made during Autumn – a time when Brittany is relatively empty of people and even more ruggedly beautiful. Publishing this book was an educational experience. Having spent my whole […]

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Projects 0

20 Dec 2017

Behind the image: waiting for the right moment

Sometimes you have an idea for an image in your head. But when your subject matter is the landscape, nature doesn’t always cooperate.

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Behind the Image 0

11 Jul 2017

Behind the image: Brume, Landévennec, Finistère

This is a continuation of yesterday’s post because this image was shot on the same foggy morning. Having shot a number of photographs of a very bare and simply landscape, I turned my attention to the trees lining one of the several rivers that feed into this estuary. One of my reasons for this is that this is a scene not entirely devoid of mankind’s presence. If you squint very hard you’ll see some boats moored at the river’s opening. […]

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Behind the Image / Exhibitions / L'Esprit Insolite / Photography 0

10 Jul 2017

Behind the image: L’aube, Landévennec, Finistère

Sometimes you look out of the window, see the weather and think, ‘there has to be a picture waiting for me’. That’s what happened here.

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Behind the Image / Exhibitions / L'Esprit Insolite / Photography 0

09 Jul 2017

Behind the image: Nuit tombante, Pentrez, Finistère

We stopped here just to give the dog a run. We’d been out exploring the Finistère coast all day and, with the light fading, had decided to head back to the gîte. But our old dog Zola needed to stretch his legs. We threw the ball for him a few hundred times (so it seemed), and just as we were all feeling tired and eager to get back in the car, nature decided to put on a show. Now I […]

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Behind the Image / L'Esprit Insolite / Photography 0

05 Jul 2017

Behind the image: Îlot St-Michel

This is an example of why you should always carry a camera. We were on holiday in Brittany. In the late autumn we like to get to the coast for a week. Most often we head for Finistère, but this time we decided to stay closer to home. Our dog Zola was old and wouldn’t have liked the long haul to the west coast. But that was okay because the Côtes d’Armor is another of our favourite areas of Brittany. […]

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Behind the Image / L'Esprit Insolite 0

02 Jul 2017

Behind the image: Pointe de la Torche

Sometimes, when you’re looking for one thing you find another. This was quite a magical day. We were at La Pointe de la Torche, a small headland poking out into the sea at the southern end of the Plage de Tronoan in Finistère, Brittany.

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Behind the Image / Exhibitions / L'Esprit Insolite 0

19 Feb 2017

Spring light

It’s only February, but as so often happens in this part of the world, we’ve been treated to a taste of what’s to come – spring. We still have the vicissitudes of March to survive. Yet pretty much every year, February treats us to a couple of weeks of mild, dry and – above all – bright weather. The birds are always fooled: they’re tweeting away like demented presidents. It inspires a sense of optimism and wellbeing. And you know […]

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Landscape / Photography 0

21 Nov 2016

Behind the image: One place, many moods

Returning to a place that has previously impressed or moved you can be disappointing. What is held in your memory as a marvellous discovery can seem, on a second look, mundane. But that wasn’t the case with La Plage de Tronoan. We discovered this beach on a previous trip to Finistère. This November we returned, in part to revisit places we knew to be beautiful, but also as a way of saying a final farewell to our old dog Zola. […]

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Behind the Image / Dust & Shadow / Layered Land / Photography / Projects 0

10 Feb 2016

Pointe de la Torche

The Plage de Tronoan, in the Bay of Audierne, Finistère, is one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen. It runs unbroken for something like 26km. It’s wide and gently shelving, but with waves big enough to attract surfers. On the day we were there, in November, the low light caught the wet sand and turned it into a gigantic mirror. At the southern end of the beach is the Pointe de la Torche, a small, rocky headland that […]

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Dust & Shadow / Layered Land / Photography / Projects 0

Tag : Brittany