Nancy

After leaving St Mihiel we continued on to our next overnight stop, Nancy. Admittedly by this point we were tired and hungry, having covered over 120 miles on country roads since the morning. Although we wanted to take a look around the city our main priority was getting food. Despite this we still took a bit of a good wander around the main part of the city, Place Stanislas, somewhere made of the sort of buildings you’d probably associate with the French aristocracy.

1/3200sec, f/4, ISO 400, 24mm

Clearly I was distracted by tiredness or hunger because I didn’t actually take any wide angle shots of the square to show what it was like. With the bits of sun we’d had that afternoon – amongst the first we’d seen on the holiday – I was keen to capture the sky which was looking lovely. Queue a few bracketed exposures and some HDR processing software.

f/4, ISO 400, 24mm (HDR)

f/4, ISO 100, 32mm (HDR)

I also shot some of the buildings – but was content on using my standard wide zoom.

1/200sec, f/4, ISO 100, 24mm

The best shot of the whole square I have is this self-portrait in one of the metal hemispheres near the central statue.

1/320sec, f/4, ISO 100, 28mm

By ‘central statue’ I mean this guy. Wikipedia tells me he is Stanislas Leszczynski, a Polish king after whom the square is named.

1/400sec, f/4, ISO 100, 55mm

It being a cold, windy evening, the square was pretty quiet, allowing me to get shots like this with few people making the place look untidy.

1/250sec, f/4, ISO 100, 24mm

In the corners of the square were golden gates; these ones led to a park and zoo.

1/40sec, f/4, ISO 100, 24mm

In the park was a great tree-lined path that allowed me to get one of my favourite sorts of perspective shots.

1/8sec, f/9, ISO 640, 24mm

Not long after we entered the park, the skies darkened and it started to rain, which seemed like as good a point as any to find somewhere to eat dinner.

We made sure we got a good sleep that night, because the following day, a couple of days into the holiday, we would be leaving France entirely.

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