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Sunday, April 16, 2017
So, after having so-so sunsets and sunrises when we were set up and having a lousy forecast for this morning, the decision was made to sleep in and skip an early shoot. When I opened the drapes at 6:40, the whole sky was a gorgeous orange....
Breakfast was at the hotel, then I finished packing up and we headed on down the road.
It took most of the morning to get to Bruges, Belgium, where we'll stay for the next two nights. Our hotel rooms weren't ready, but they had an area where we could leave our bags, so we all grabbed our cameras and headed out for a couple of hours of wandering.
What an interesting town!
These three photos were taken in my first walk around town. The photo on the left shows a typical street. The center photo shows a horse drawn wagon patiently waiting for its tourists. The photo on the right is the side of one of the many churches in town.
The four photos above were also taken during this initial wander. The photo on the left is the courtyard of a hotel (not ours). The second photo shows the front of the Church of Our Lady from a distance - the two matching towers flank the main entrance. The third photo shows a horse drawn carriage passing the Church of Our Lady. Those carriages moved at a fast trot! The fourth photo is another view of the entrance towers for the Church of Our Lady.
The photo on the left shows an amusing sign in a book store window. The center photo shows a row of second story windows with windowboxes. The photo on the right shows a bicycle parked in front of a building with colorful windowboxes.
The photo on the left shows the twin towers of the Church of Our Lady looming over some houses. The center photo shows one of the many houses I saw that had wisteria growing up the side of it. This one has it trained over a garage. The photo on the right shows the passageway from the street into a courtyard by Old St. Jan, near the St. Jan Hospital.
The photo on the left shows a cherry tree in the courtyard of the Archeology Museum (just off of the Courtyard of Old St. Jan). The center photo shows some intersecting arches and windows in the Courtyard of Old St. Jan. The photo on the right shows a colorful restaurant down the street from our hotel.
In my wanderings, I found an ice cream shop, but couldn't remember where I was at the time, so I couldn't direct anyone else to it...
We checked into the room about 2:30 and spent a little time getting settled. This is the first hotel that tries to limit our wi-fi access. More than a small data amount is charged at ten euros per day....
We met back in the lobby at 3:00 for a bus tour of the city for the history and a bit of an overview.
These three photos were taken on the bus tour. The photo on the left is the Provincial House which dominates one side of the Markt, the central square of the town. The center photo shows a statue of Jan van Eyck, a famous Renaissance painter who lived and worked in Bruges. The photo on the right shows an unusual tower jutting up from a rooftop.
Then back to the hotel a short rest and dinner before grabbing our gear again for some evening shooting around town.
The photo on the left shows the view out of my hotel window, looking up the street towards the Markt square.
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Dinner for me was Flemish beef stew with a really good dark local beer. It was so smooth that it didn't taste like beer. Wonder if they export it... (Later - no, they don't. Not even to other European countries.)
I relearned something during the evening shoot that I had forgotten – underexpose the sunset shots. They turn out better...
We sort of camped at a particular viewpoint and just hung out here for quite a while. It was only about two blocks from our hotel. These three photos show some of the sights were were shooting before sunset really started. Of course, sunset fizzled, but the twilight shooting was also fun.
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This little restaurant was part way down the canal and some of the tourists in that courtyard were goofing off. We thought one of the young women was going to fall over the railing into the canal! She kept teetering on the edge.
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As twilight deepened, the exterior lighting came on, completely changing the scene.
After a while, some of us moved back to the bridge area and shot scenes further up the canal. The photo on the left shows some of the buildings along one side of this section of canal. The center photo includes the large tower of the Church of Our Lady in the background and some tourist boats in the foreground. The photo on the right shows some tourist boats and the surrounding buildings.
The photo on the left shows the tower of the Church of Our Lady towering over the surrounding buildings. This was a long enough exposure to blur the approaching car's headlights.
The photo on the left was taken after almost all the blue was gone from the sky and shows the buildings and lights reflected in the canal.
It was fun until it started sprinkling and we lost the twilight blue glow.
So, it was back to room where I konked out.