L'Ile-aux-Marins view

[Manfred M]

L'Ile-aux-Marins (Sailor's Island) is a small island in the Atlantic Ocean just off of the French Island of St Pierre.

The island was first settled in 1604 and abandoned in 1965 when the remaining residents moved to St Pierre. The fishermen's houses, the church, the two-room schoolhouse, etc. became a ghost town.

I took this shot out of the school house window wondering of the children who studied here, in a moment of inattention, would have enjoyed the view out over the North Atlantic.

[Shadowman]

Nicely framed.

[pnodrog]

Very nice but I cannot comprehend the notion that a student would be focused on the teacher anything less than 100%...

[Manfred M]

Very nice but I cannot comprehend the notion that a student would be focused on the teacher anything less than 100%...

Hmm. You haven't done French grammar then.

[pnodrog]

Hmm. You haven't done French grammar then.

Hang on, now I remember and can understand but it was German grammar.

[Davejl]

Nice framing, exposure and colour.
I spent a very large part of my schooldays looking out of the window (or else standing on the bridge of the Iron Duke at Jutland). As for whether the children here admired the view, possibly some like you or I did. On the other hand, I seem to be one of the few people on a train journey who appears to be aware of the world beyond the window. I think one thing is certain: if it were still a school, the kids would be spending their time looking at some electonic device (and now I'll put my iPad down!)

[John 2]

L'Ile-aux-Marins (Sailor's Island) is a small island in the Atlantic Ocean just off of the French Island of St Pierre.

The island was first settled in 1604 and abandoned in 1965 when the remaining residents moved to St Pierre. The fishermen's houses, the church, the two-room schoolhouse, etc. became a ghost town.

I took this shot out of the school house window wondering of the children who studied here, in a moment of inattention, would have enjoyed the view out over the North Atlantic.

I was more of a day dreamer than a viewer brought on by an aversion to Latin grammar. But there again, I didn't have a view like that. Presumably a flying visit without time to explore light and landscape Manfred?

[NorthernFocus]

Nicely seen and captured, Manfred. If it looked like that outside the school I attended I'd never have come back after recess.

[Manfred M]

I was more of a day dreamer than a viewer brought on by an aversion to Latin grammar. But there again, I didn't have a view like that. Presumably a flying visit without time to explore light and landscape Manfred?

Unfortunately yes, we were only able to spend a few hours on the island. I later found out there is the bow section of a shipwreck, at the north end of the island, but missed getting there. That's always the problems with tours (the only affordable way to get to the island), one is tied to the tour itinerary.

[Manfred M]

Nice framing, exposure and colour.
I spent a very large part of my schooldays looking out of the window (or else standing on the bridge of the Iron Duke at Jutland). As for whether the children here admired the view, possibly some like you or me did. On the other hand, I seem to be one of the few people on a train journey who appears to be aware of the world beyond the window. I think one think is certain: if it were still a school, the kids would be spending their time looking at some electonic device (and now I'll put my iPad down!)

It's not a great shot, but a view of the restored schoolroom made it fairly clear to me why the boys going to the school would end up as fishermen and the girls as housewives...

[Sam W]

Beautiful shot Manfred. You might consider cropping our the left side out to the vertical grill.

[Manfred M]

Beautiful shot Manfred. You might consider cropping our the left side out to the vertical grill.

Thanks for the comment, Sam. I did try that and the image is not nearly as effective with it missing, so I left the framing the way I posted it. That little bit of asymmetry seems to help.

[madcrow]

How did you get everything in focus. A thoughtful image, the first one and the second, a story teller.

[Donald]

Enjoying the contributions ot this thread. What a super image started it all off. The whole concept has been so well thought through and executed.

[Manfred M]

How did you get everything in focus. A thoughtful image, the first one and the second, a story teller.

I still shoot the way I did with my manual cameras and use DoF / hyperfocal distance to pick a spot to focus on (in this case the grass near the front). Physics does the rest (although frankly I should have been a bit more conservative in selecting the aperture (I shot at f/6.3 and was probably 8 feet / 2.5m) away from the window.

[Manfred M]

Enjoying the contributions ot this thread. What a super image started it all off. The whole concept has been so well thought through and executed.

Thanks Donald. This is really the old landscape photographer's thought process coming through where I wanted to cover the foreground, middle ground and background. The foreground was unfortunately rather uninteresting all by itself, so I thought the window frame would make an interesting foreground. The light hitting the window was "good enough" to give me details without too much distraction and I was able to position myself so I avoided getting any reflections in the glass.

Note: I just had a closer look and there is just a touch of reflection along the right side of the vertical pieces on the left-most part of the frame. There is just a touch of the white paint reflected from the window glass.

Sometimes the actual image comes out quite close to what was previsualized.

[madcrow]

Manfred, thanks for your explanation, very much appreciated.
Maurice.

[Manfred M]

Manfred, thanks for your explanation, very much appreciated.
Maurice.

No problem, Maurice - The way I shot this image was quite common with fixed focal length lenses on manual focus SLR cameras that had DoF markings on the distance scale. Unfortunately this feature has disappeared from many short focus throw, modern lenses, so most people are not even aware of the technique.

One had to be fairly good at estimating distances and the "rule of thumb" was to shoot at one aperture larger than what the scale reading suggested. This means if the DoF / hyperfocal focus point suggested f/5.6, the shot should be taken at f/8 just to be safe.