Little Man being Erased

Mt. Saint-Michel, Saint - Malo and Back

Picking up from Friday, May 5th (The D-Day excursion), we headed to Mt. Saint-Michel on Saturday in the morning. Mt. Saint-Michel is a town with a massive cathedral built on top of it. The best part is that it rests on its own island. It is one of the highest points, I assume, in France.  To be at the very top of it was yet another breath taking experience. A quick, extremely brief history about it, is that in around the 8th century, St. Aubert, bishop of Avranches said that St. Michael the Archangel appeared to him and instructed him to build a church on the rocky islet. Evidently he repeatedly ignored the angel’s instruction, until St. Michael the Archangel himself, burned a hole in the bishop’s skull with his finger. So they ended up building a massive church. (It is a legend, but take what you will from it.) To me, it seems harsh of the Archangel to do such a thing. Haha.

But regardless, it was such a beautiful view at the top. You could see so much of France. People were tiny specs off in the distance. It is one of the highest places I have been (besides a plane).

We stayed there for a majority of the day. I shot around 6 gigabytes of photos there. I am sure all of you know by now what that means. It means all the photos I have been promising will be pushed back. Total as of now, I have shot around 40 gigabytes of photos, and I have done a final edit of maybe 1 gigabyte. Lots of work ahead. Hell I havent even edited a any from my New York trip I took with the family back during Spring Break. I have my work cut out for me.

After our excursion at Mt. Saint-Michel, we headed to Saint-Malo, a quaint little seaside town. It is completely fortified and there is a wall surrounding it. When we got there, the weather was horrible, gloomy, rainy, windy, and cold. We were all disappointed because there were so many photos to be taken, and the rain put a massive stop on that. After dinner as we were walking back along the shoreline, Sarah, Marleigh, and I saw the end of the front that had been raining on us. We purchased a bottle of wine and headed down to the shore. The tide had receded back about 40 feet and it gave us lots of space to run, collect shells, take photos, converse with the other photo students, and enjoy one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. It seemed to good to be true. Yes, there will be a photo of it. :)

St. Malo was overrall a beautiful small city. The next day after checking out of our hotel, and a short downpour, the skies cleared and we were able to take the photos we wanted. We walked a good distance around the city on its fortified wall, and had an awesome view of the surrounding beach. The clouds look so much more amazing with no interference from anything else. Looking at the big picture, I got the feeling of how amazing the Earth and everything on it is, and how everything connects to something else and is a determinant for other things. The cycle of weather, vaporization from the sea to form rain clouds, the way the clouds bring the water to land, giving growth to vegetation and bringing life so that other things can strive from it. And it repeats.

So amazing. After taking photos in St. Malo for about an hour, the next shift of clouds rolled in and brought yet another downpour. Our professor decided it was in our best interest and our equipments best interest that we head home back to Angers, 3 hours away. I was bummed. I would have loved to stay there and keep photographing the city. People were very nice there.

It was overall a perfect weekend, one of the best I have had. I know I have said a lot of things are the best for me, but really, I have never seen anything like what I have seen during these first three weeks over in Europe. Everything is astonishing. Everything is picture perfect, and almost, surreal in a way.

I am very glad to be over here studying.
Thank you Mom, Dad for helping me get over here. Couldn’t have done it without you, love you guys.Wish you guys could see everything over here.

I’ll do my best to get those photos up of Mt. Saint-Michel and St. Malo.

Check back periodically for them. Hope you enjoy the second pano of Omaha Beach.

Wrapping up, from the beaches of Normandy, to Mt. Saint-Michel, and St. Malo, this weekend has been nothing short of perfect. I would not have had it any other way.

Thanks for reading, also check www.devoephoto.com

-Christian

Normandy

Today started at 6:45 a.m, where we met outside our residence to get on the bus and head to Normandy. Our first stop was Omaha Beach at around 11. There was a lot of activity with tourists, veterans, and school groups. Sarah, Marleigh, and I walked down to the shore of Omaha Beach. It was breathtaking. There definitely was some strange feeling we could all sense while on the beach looking up at the large hills. There was so much history right where we were standing. I picked up a few shells to bring back home, and Sarah found an empty gun shell, but I doubt it was from D-Day. It was a shotgun shell, and I assume shotguns were not used in a battle such as Omaha. It was strange, 35% of the casualties came from Omaha Beach, and while looking out on the horizon and down at the sand, and up at the cliffs, you could feel the struggle. It was very intense and emotional. It was a beautiful day however, and it made for great pictures. Unfortunately we only had one hour to spend on Omaha, and we had to move to our next location, Point-de-Hoc.

At Point-de-Hoc, German bunkers were positioned along the cliffs, used as crossfire for the oncoming soldiers on the beach and also for anti-aircraft. Our planes dropped bombs all over this area, and our troops scaled the mountain to flank the Germans. The took over this area the same day. Walking on the Point-de-Hoc, the ground was tattered with bomb blasts. Craters were everywhere surrounding us. It was difficult to walk in certain areas because of the amount of craters. We were able to go in the German bunkers, Barb wire was still spread across some of them, and the cement infrastructure lay broken all around it from bombs. This area was relatively left in tact after the war. Most of the bunkers we saw had bullet holes in tem as well as, displaced cement blocks. The wire infrastructure inside the cement was mangled and stuck out in all directions. There were a lot of veterans in this location as well. I have never been overwhelmed by so much history in one day. To be in the place where the American soldiers charged and fought and died, was truly a new feeling for me. It is hard to put into words. If you are ever in France, please go visit Normandy. It is worth every second.

From Point-de-Hoc, we ate lunch and headed to a D-Day museum, where much more history was to be looked at. Luckily I took 615 photos of the day, and I will do my absolute best to get some of them on here. Some of the things in the museum were so profound, ex. both original copies of Mein Kempf, or the clothes from someone in the concentration camps. Another thing I found hard to grasp was seeing everything in color. I mean, of course life has always been in color, but it is difficult to grasp it because all the photographs from that period are black and white. It is hard for the viewer to understand that at that time, everything was modern, everything was how it is for us now. Black and white photographs have made it much more vintage, I think, than it was. I love black and white photography as you can tell, I just think it is interesting how it plays on the viewers mind dealing with history.

After the museum, we headed to our hotel, where we were served a delicious 3 course dinner with wine, and coffee at the end. The salad was delicious, bacon, potato, crutons, tomato, hard boiled egg, and a spicy dressing. The main course was a large tray of of rice with a grilled turkey breast on top, covered in a cream sauce, and the desert was apple pie. I barely had room for the desert. So delicious. The hotel staff was very kind.

For the rest of the night, all the photo students hung around, chatted, and drank wine. Went to bed around 12. It was a long, but very very fulfilling day. Amazing.

Tomorrow, we are heading to another beach, not affialiated with WWII. It is more of a vacation day. Should be a lot of fun as well.

I will update afterwards. Hopefully I can get a few images in here.

Thanks for reading

Christian

Combining the past two days in Angers

Things in Angers are getting busier and busier by the hour.

Wednesday - 6.03.09
French Oral class was yesterday. I am concidering moving down to the other class. Not that the professor is bad, it is just way to hard to learn the French having only one semester behind me and being in the same class with people who have had 4 years of experience. It is stressful and difficult to keep up. The professor wants to push people as much as possible, but I think taking time to really understand the basics is what I could use. I am going to discuss it with the director of the program and get his opinion before I do anything.

Went to the outdoor market afterwards to pick up edibles and drinks. Picked up my jus de pomme and bought an amazing chocolate crepe. Sarah bought a egg/cheese crepe. Both were so good, but I think the egg/cheese took the cake.

Our photography class was  cancelled yesterday due to the amount of work needed to be done. The professor urged us to go take photos, which is never hard. Though, I am in charge of constructing a Presentation of all the student’s photography for our exhibition next week. I just finished it (Wednesday). If I can find a way to stream it on the internet, I will post the link. The presentation consists of photographs taken while over in France. The exhibit goes on display next Friday I believe. It will be good exposure.

After I finished a good amount of work and shooting a good amount of images, Sarah, Marleigh, and I checked out a nearby pub called “James Joyce Pub”. Delicious drinks. It was a good way to relax at the end of a busy day.

Captured a few interesting photos and as always I will do my best to update frequently.
I DID update my personal website, and yes, it does contain images from France. I urge everyone to check it out, because soon, there will be more images to see there, than on this blog. The URL address is:  www.devoephoto.com

After the pub, I was tired as hell and decided to call it a night because I had French Writing Comp. in the morning at 9.

Today, Thursday 6.04.09

Starting at 9 a.m and getting out of class at 12:15, I could tell this day was going to be long, just by what my photo professor was telling me. He, too, is in my French class, which is neat, but he also is a bit advanced, therefore, really hard for me to keep up with. French is totally different while over here, than how I learned. I guess that is to be expected, but damn, most of the time, I stand in awe and try to make an inference as to what they are saying. Majority of the times, I end up saying “Je parle un peu francais” and when I do, they slow down their speech, and use more common terms. The people here are very accomodating and kind. Overall a pleasant place. Would love to live here.

Hung out with a French student today named Mikel. He is from Africa, and probably one of the nicest people I know. He is so interested in learning English, so Sarah and I were helping him learn common, ordinary phrases. In return, he helped us with French. I shot a picture of him, and will most likely have it up sometime.

After lunch, the day became instantly busy.

We were to meet at 2 for our photo class, but instead we went to a two hour lecture on D-Day in Normandy, because tomorrow, we are traveling to Normandy for the D-Day Memorial. The lecture was intense and was packed with information. Hard to comprehend everything. From there we went to another meeting regarding the itinerary for the trip, which was followed by another meeting about our agenda for the next few weeks in photo. This left us with only about an hour to work on photography related things. Everybody is stressing out, and Sarah, Marleigh, and I ended up staying an hour after class to finish things up.

Tommorrow we have to leave our residence at 6:45 a.m. which means I will be ending this entry very shortly because it means I have to wake up at 6.

For the rest of the night, I spent my time reading, editing, and completing the presentation for next week. I received my Final Cut Pro 6 training book today, and underestimated how dense the program is. It will be a long next two Tuesdays learning it. Much needed though.

This is where I wrap this post up.

I may or may not have internet connection in Normandy but if not, expect a very long entry on Sunday.

Thanks for taking the time to read everybody.

Dad,the fries are better here. Sorry to inform you. :)

-Christian

From Paris to Angers

I am exhausted. Will write tomorrow as soon as I get a chance.

EDIT:
Today, Monday, was Sarah and I’s last day in Paris but we will soon be returning for another three nights because our study abroad program is visiting to wrap up our summer semester.
Our day started earlier yet again, I think I am going to have to get used to waking up early.

We checked out of our hotel at 8 am. It was such an easy process, both checkin in our hotel and out of it. Within 5 minutes we left to catch the Metro to the Gar (train station). Jumped on our high speed train to Angers. This is where things got crazy. In the process of going to Angers, Sarah and I had a confusion about which stop was first. On the billboard stating all the trains, it said our train was due for Nantes, which is about 35 miles away from Angers. What we did not know is that Angers, was the first stop. We assumed that Nantes was the first stop because of the schedule. As we arrived at our first stop, we looked out our window to see if we saw a familiar sight. We did not, so we decided to just hang tight and wait till the next stop. What we did not know is that it WAS our stop. We just did not recognize the scene because our train stoped so far back from the actual station. To our dismay, we ended up in Nantes at 11:15 and still had to make it back to our photogrpahy class at 2:00. Luckily the people were very nice at the Nantes train station, and informed us, since we did have a Eurorail Pass, the train was free to ride back to Angers. To our luck, the train departed at 11:44, which put us in Angers at 12:25. After a hectic hour, we got off in Angers, and had to hurry back to our residence to change, and get ready for class. The walk from the station to our residence was about 20 minutes, which gave us only 20 min to unpack and get our things ready for class. We left our place at 1:20, and the walk to school took about 30 minutes. We made it in class at 1:50. Perfect timing, yet very stressful. Unfortunately we did have any downtime and had to be in class until 5:00. A very stressful day, hence why I did not have the energy to update this blog until the day after.

Paris as a whole- amazing, looking forward to going back. Expensive but worth every penny. Our last night before Sarah and I went to the Eiffel Tower, we had the best meal I have had in a while. I ordered a shreded steak hamburger (comes with no buns) with a fried egg on top with a salad and delicious french fries. So filling. Topped it off with chocolate mousse. Sarah ordered fettucini pasta with a cream sauce mixed with grilled salmon. I tried some, and it was also delicious. Perfect dinner to wrap the trip up.

Tuesday- (June 2,2009)

It can only be described as intensely long.
Today was the first day of our Apple Final Cut Pro training session. It is one day a week, starting at 9:00 am and lasting till 5 am. I like Final Cut Pro, and the professor is great, but it is so damn hard to stare at a computer non stop for seven hours. It is dry too. We are learning program shortcuts, how to clip, edit, and move video, importing, preferences and as well as terminology. The exam at the end of our third session is 86 questions long and covers the whole course. A total of 21 hours spent training. Today we covered about 280 pages in the Final Cut Pro book. I am drained. Looking forward to getting in bed earlier. Though I still have a lot of images to edit. After class, I went to Daniel’s Bar with some friends and Sarah, had a pint, and headed home. Felt good to relax for a bit.

Tomorrow, I might be going to the country side of Angers to photograph it.
French tomorrow, early in the morning.
I have a lot of images to edit, and I will update as soon as I can. It is difficult to keep up.
I have already shot between 15-20 gigabytes of photos.

Everything else besides business, is going well.
This weekend we are taking an excursion to beaches of Normady, where evidently Obama is giving a speech. Should be interesting if nonetheless. Good photo op.
We are staying two nights there, one in hotel, and one night in a hotel on the beach.

Until tomorrow -

Christian

Wrapping up Paris

Today was yet another busy day.
First of all thank you for the comments, and those who are checking in daily. It is good to hear from everybody.

Our day started by hoping on the Metro and traveling to Jim Morrison’s grave. It was surprinsingly small and ungaudy. There were many others there looking as well, snapping photos and what not. Someone left a beer can on his grave…I understand that Morrison was an alcoholic, but come on. At least make it a flask or something, instead of an empty modern beer can.

After we jumped back on the Metro and headed to the gardens surrounding the Louvre. They are called “Jardin des Tuileries”. Every square inch of the garden is beautiful. The Musee de Louvre is huge. I mean huge. Never have I seen something so detailed and large before. I was in awe. I shot many photogrpahs of it, and when I get around to updating my website, you can see photos there (www.devoephoto.com)

We spent a good few hours in the famous gardens, along with the many other people. We lounged around, ate lunch at a cafe, and shot a ton a photographs. There were a lot of people just laying out tanning, reading books, and letting there children play. I would die to have this as a source of entertainmet. It is so pretty.

We walked to the entrance of the Louvre and were once again standing in awe. The pyramid structure in front is breathtaking, and the amount of people circulating in and out of the Louvre is intimidating. Street vendors were coming up left and right like flies trying to sell me Eiffel Tower relics…3 for 1 euro. It is frustrating sometimes when you are trying to enjoy the sights and have to constantly say no to them. But you got to do it.

After the Lourve we decided to head the Notre Dame. This was another beautiful sight, and the architecture was also so unique and grandiose. Once again, this site was populated with people. At some points, too close for comfort. Every five minutes I would check to see if my bag was still zipped and what not. The line for entering Notre Dame was bigger than lines at amusement parks. I also shot many photos here too, that I will update.

We then took the Metro back the our hotel to relax a little before our big dinner/Eiffel Tower night. Both Sarah and I’s feet were killing us and so the nap helped us soothe the pain and gain some energy. We ate dinner at this lovely cafe. The food was delicious. I ordered a steak burger with a fried egg on top with fries and a salade on the side. Chocolate Mousse for desert set it off really well.

We then headed to our final destination for the day/night. The Eiffel Tower.
This place was also polluted with street “Eiffel Tower relic” vendors. After shaking them all off, Sarah and I found a nice spot on the grass. We opened up a bottle of wine we purchased beforehand and watched the Eiffel Tower for a long time. To our surprise, the whole tower started to sparkle like crazy at 11:00 p.m. The sparking lasted for about 5 min, but it was a beautiful site while it did last.

Early train tomorrow taking us back to Angers, France. We have a photo class at 2:00 tomorrow, so we have to wake at 7:00 a.m. Rough.

I will end it here. Until tomorrow

I posted a picture below of our view of the Eiffel Tower. :)

Hope you enjoy!

Christian

Everything Paris

Sarah and I saw so many things today and are exhausted.
Currently: drinking wine and watching a movie to relax.

It started off walking to Les Champs-Elysees. It was beautiful and populated with people. There were people laying on the grass, kids playing sports, and tourists doing tourist things. A lovely combination.
Afterwards, we went to the Musee de l’Orangerie. Here, we saw Monet’s famous Water-Lily paintings. These paintings were enormous. I will have panorams of them up soon, it was just too hard to capture the whole painting in one photograph. I am guessing they were between 20-30 feet long by about 3-4 feet tall. Truly amazing. Afterwards we headed across the river and went to the Grande Palais. There were a ton of modern art installations. By far the most interesting modern art I have ever seen. We spent many hours at both of these museums. The Musee de l’Orangerie contained lots of Picasso pieces as well as Henri Rousseau and Henri Matisse. Breathtaking, every single piece of art.

I will have pictures from the modern art installations inside the Grande Palais soon.

What I plan on doing is hosting a website with images exclusively from my trip to Europe. It wont be so much focused on Fine Art, but more so, just the whole experience. A photo essay of my trip.

To end the day today, Sarah and I met up with our friend Barrett, who is studying in Paris for the semester as well. We ended the day catching a nice view of the Eiffel Tower. Tomorrow Sarah and I are going to return and have a dinner under the Eiffel Tower to wrap up our Paris excursion!

Tomorrow, Sarah and I have another busy day ahead of us.
We are going to visit Jim Morrison’s grave, Notre Dame, Jardin des Tulleries, Montmarte, Sacre Coeur, the Arc de Triomphe, and as stated before, Eiffel Tower to finish the night/trip.

Should be another amazing day in Paris.
The weather is beautiful.

So much to do in Paris, so little time.

Thanks to everyone who is keeping up with my travels.

I posted a photograph of one of Monet’s paintings. Not very artsy, but it gives you an idea of the beauty of these things.

Until tomorrow,

Christian