Trip to Peru

Machu Pichu

In a nutshell:

Beautiful trip, but tiring (more than the brochure led to believe). 18 days including travel days.

Our favorites: visit the Uros on Lake Titicaca, the condors, the breathtaking landscapes, the Machu Pichu, the Nazca lines.

The disappointments: the lodge in Amazonia (Tours Chanteclerc changed the original lodge, and the one chosen was of a lower category). Parrots that we did not see. Missing theThe Ballestas Islands due to rough seas.

Sur l’île de Taquile

Very good guide from Arequipa to Cusco. The local guides were, generally good.

We were a group of twelve people.  The rest of the group took American Airlines and had a lot of problems (the flights to and from Lima were canceled!). We decided to take Air Canada which forced us to stay an extra, very pleasant, day in Lima at the end. The flights were Montreal – Toronto – Lima / Lima – Toronto – Montreal.

We absolutely wanted to see Machu Pichu, Lake Titicaca, Nazca lines, and the Ballestas Islands.

Ligne de Nasca

Alpaga

Condor

Au Marché

The tour in Peru was: Lima – Arequipa – Chivay –Puno – Cusco – Puerto Maldonado – Lima – Paracas – Lima. See the map. We spent more than a week above 3,800 meters and crossed a pass at 4,900 meters!

As far as I am concerned, photography was one of the main goals of the trip. I thought a lot about the gear to take. Finally I decided to take 2 cameras, a zoom, a flash and a portable tripod, I did not use the flash.  Here is the equipment I took: Nikon D750 Camera with Nikon 24-85 mm lens  and a 200-500 f5.6 Nikon Zoom, Sony RX100 Camera, Nikon SB 600 flash, Trident TaI456 tripod.

Pélican

Flamand Rose

Tissage

I wanted 2 camera bodies, not to have to change lenses when the zoom was mounted on the D750. I chose the Sony camera because it takes photos in RAW at 21 Megapixels and I do not need a powerful zoom with it. I was very pleasantly surprised by the photos it took. The tripod allowed me to take (for the first time) photos of stars

More details are in my daily log (to come later).

The slide shows

Montreal Murals 2016

This year I decided to photograph some of the Murals of Montreal. We have a community of talented artists who give free rein to their imagination to decorate walls that would otherwise be ugly.   This is by no means a complete a complete selection and some of the works presented here were created as part of the famous Montreal Mural Festival, featuring artists from around the world.

It was an excuse for me to wander the streets of Montreal with my camera.
Some of the Murals that you will see in the following presentation no longer exist, they were replaced by others in 2016 (you will see the date 2015).

So here is my project of 2016. I hope you will have as much pleasure to see the works I had to photograph them!

Montreal Murals 2016

Super Moon 2016

Photos taken on November 13 & 14 2016  Mount-Royal.  The Moon is at its closest point to Earth.

Used a Nikon D750 camera with a  200-500 zoom , taken at  500mm.

First Prize at TRAM Salon d’Art 2016 in the photography gatgeory

My photo of the staircase at the Art Gallery of Ontario won First Prize at TRAM’s Salon d’Art 2016.

First Prize at the Mount Royal Cemetery Photo Competition

Once again I participated this year to the Mount Royal Cemetery Photo Competition.  This year Theme was SERENITY.  There were 16 exhibitors and a choice of really beautiful photos.  My photo entitled «Serenity» won First Prize!

Premier Prix