Pretty Brittany

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 70-200mm f2.8 – f/2.8 ISO 200 – This is the beach just down from our residence. Plenty of space, great views on the old Saint Malo, a pure blue sky and kilometres of sands and her cousin Noemie was there when we arrived – a dream for Chiara.

We just couldn’t let summer slip away, so when we saw the high-pressure system lingering over France, we made a last-minute decision to head to Brittany. We spent five wonderful days around Saint-Malo, soaking in the great weather, enjoying delicious food, and snapping plenty of photos. Even with all the driving, the kids had a blast!

The journey was long—2 hours by car from London, a 3-hour “fast” ferry crossing, and another 3-hour drive from Cherbourg to Saint-Malo—but it was absolutely worth it!

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 70-200mm f2.8 – f/3.5 ISO 200 – One for the wallet. With the oysters fields of Cancale in the background, after a great seafood lunch, I managed to get all smiles for a split second. Our new 200mm is really heavy to carry around but it’s all forgotten when it creates such magic …

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 24-70mm f2.8 – f/5 ISO 200 – View from Fort-La-Latte (from the top of the castle), close to the Cap Frehel. This picture was also quite heavily retouched to limit the impact of the sun coming right at the camera.

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 24-70mm f2.8 – f/6.3 ISO 200 – Probably the only disappointment of the trip was our initial top attraction – the Mont Saint Michel. Overcrowded, overpriced and not child friendly (like climbing on the top of the abbey with the pram on the shoulder) it was nice but definitely not the highlight of the trip. The countryside around is way more charming.

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90mins in Kew

As if our weekend wasn’t hectic enough, we braved the traffic to spend last Saturday afternoon at Kew Gardens. Of course, we arrived fashionably late—leaving us just an hour and a half before the gardens closed. The weather, though, was absolutely stunning, and despite two-thirds of our photos being less than stellar, we managed to salvage a few gems worthy of sharing.

Speaking of photos, our unsorted picture backlog is starting to spiral out of control—1,500 from Rwanda still waiting to be reviewed, over 500 from Christophe and Emilie’s wedding, and a few hundred more from various adventures in London. It’s… a situation.

But for now, let’s start with the freshest memories—straight from Kew Gardens!

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 24-70mm f2.8 – f/11, HDR created from 3 exposures – Summer sun going down in Kew Gardens. Perfect patterns in the sky re-enforced with some slight tweaking in Lightroom.

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 24-70mm f2.8 – f/13 ISO 200 – Glasshouse, sun and plane. One of the first sigh when entering the gardens. Again a very pleasant sky for photography.

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 24-70mm f2.8 – f/3.2 and 6.3 ISO 200 – Giant waterlilies, another must visit in Kew with Olivier on the left enjoying the scenery – or maybe more likely smiling at someone.

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 24-70mm f2.8 – f/5 ISO 200 – This is what you get when you ask a 2,5 years and a 7 months old children to smile and pose for a picture. Not extremely convincing, so obviously trickery and planning (and luck) is the only way to get a decent smile.

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 24-70mm f2.8 – f/2.8 ISO 200 – Chiara playing hiding games behind trees, one of the latest tricks we found to get natural pictures of her without her moving too much.

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 24-70mm f2.8 – f/3.2 ISO 200 – Olivier all smiles in the grass. He loves sitting down and looking at people talking. He does not fall backward any more, starts to move forward to grab stuff – but not much conversation yet …

London Olympics

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 70-200mm f2.8 – f/3.2, ISO 200 – View of Olympic stadium at the end of the day. Cloudy with some blue sky – as most of the day.

Almost three weeks ago, we had our two-day Olympic adventure—kid-free, which meant we could finally soak up the excitement of London’s second Olympic week. Despite the long trek from Fulham to the Olympic Park, the festive mood made it all worthwhile.

On day one, we headed to Club France to catch France’s handball quarter-final. Though most of our time was spent queuing outside, we made it just in time for the thrilling last five minutes—and it was totally worth it! After a quick beer, we joined Guilhem and Céline to watch another quarter-final live: Sweden vs. Denmark. What an experience!

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 70-200mm f2.8 – f/2.8, ISO 2000 – Live TV and Radio – but tense croud in the Club France for the last few minutes of men’s quarter final of handball. I was cheering too on final whistle so could not take pictures …

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 70-200mm f2.8 – f/2.8, ISO 200 – Arrival at the Olympic park – huge, but also many many people. This is only the start of the journey, the walk to the arena will take us more than 20minutes.

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 70-200mm f2.8 – f/3.2, ISO 200 – View of the handball arena …. unfortunately the handball match was playing at the basketball arena, another 10mins walk more. This was a just a picture stop on our journey.

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 70-200mm f2.8 – f/3.2, ISO 1600/3200 – During the game, stoppage time for team tactics (left)

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 70-200mm f2.8 – f/3.2, ISO 1600/3200 – A true well-spirited supporter (right). He was probably American, wearing a Swiss winter Olympics jersey and supporting Denmark … go figure. The 5D Mk III and our new 70-200 f2.8 performed brilliantly in this dark place, but we were sitting quite far from the action.

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 70-200mm f2.8 – f/3.2, ISO 200 – Proud of their country and their team, the supporters are posing in front of the stadium with a flag borrowed from compatriots.

On day two, we hopped on the tube bright and early to catch the morning athletics session. The lineup was packed: women’s high jump qualifiers, men’s 4x400m heats, and decathlon events like pole vault and discus throw. Our seats were fantastic (read: pricey), perfectly positioned near the jumps and close to the track.

It was a brilliant day—clear skies and surprisingly warm. So warm, in fact, that we had to call it quits by 2 PM, heading home with a few sunburns as souvenirs. The atmosphere was electric, with fans cheering for Team GB in a way that French TV broadcasts could never fully capture!

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 17-40mm f4 – f/4, ISO 200 – Wide angle HDR picture taken form our seats, giving a good sense of proportion of this huge stadium. The picture is probably a bit more colourful than it was in reality – but it’s close

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 70-200mm f2.8 – f/2.8, ISO 200 – Women high-jump and pole vault. The front of the two jumping set was for the “weakest group”, so they were around 4m only (still pretty impressive).

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Canon EOS 5D Mk III – EF 70-200mm f2.8 – f/2.8, ISO 200 – Making good use of British toolkit …