Paris, another few sets of photos I have taken. As low a commentary as possible, since most people know about Paris anyway. So, enjoy the pictures.
Norman
Well, hope you liked some of these unretouched photos.....appreciate the Arc D' Triumph please, I think I waited for a long time to get the twilight shots, compared to the earlier ones which I uploaded, these taken in 2001 with a small Olumpus semi pro with a tripod are actually quite good.
The van had 8 tourists, was parked quite a distance a way, and the suspense builds as I was walking pass the shops and finally, the majestic piece of architecture looms in the distance! Being a photo bug, I got my spanking new EOS then and snapped away. Got 2 batts fully charged just to make sure. However, the fog was a great dampener of my spirits. No matter, shoot away!
Once out of the woods and hedge grows, the view opens up. I was aggaged, being a Chateau and Schloss freak......I snapped this shot with the two mounties who weren't happy that some ching chong took a shot of them, waved me over and warned me with a stern tone of whatever it was....don't give a hoot....Been to France 16 times, still don't give a hoot about their forsaken lingua. 
Then I gave the innocent shrug, which works most of the time, gestured for them to take a picture back for revenge.....this was how this photo was taken, by the mountie! Not a bad composition, I must say. The photo was grossly under exposed as the chap did not understand compensation exposures, so, I have to do a lot of touching up. Plus, with all the excitement, I left my tunic folded and my white shirt below was showing.....so, after some touching up....wallah....here it looked the final pic.
The whole tour went into the castle by the right hand side, while the photo bug went left 200m outfield to have this shot taken. I then ran back to try to catch up with the tour and ticket into the chateau. Then the whole lot of explanation by the guide, who was himself quite a chateau and schloss lover himself, was most informative. He pours out volumes of history of the castle and the few designers, the years, the activities, what happened in WW1 and 2 where it was used as a storage and look out, where the Nazis preserved it for the love of its sheer beauty.
While running to try to catch up with the tour group, which you can see from the right corner of this picture, I stopped for 5 seconds for this shot, then ran like a mad goose again, panting as I go in the cold!
Then, I cannot resist, I took another shot a I got closer to the castle. This one showed that the windows and the whole structure was designed mainly for elegance and can never hold up to any attacks at all givens its large and easily assessible windows and wooden doors. Despite its non performance as a protection hole, its still easily one of the most loved. At least by me.
At the western gate, I took the shot of this corner tower. The main building has 4 large corner towers, about 15m diameter rooms inside. The two sides are long and large rows of administrative buildings.
This view shows the little protection provided by a deep Fjord surrounding the whole structure. However, bearing in mind, when this was built, firearms were already the order of the day, won't make a difference anyway compared with Medieval designs.
Once inside the side walls which contained the administration rooms, there we can find the rear of the main block with a large courtyard. There are two spiral staircases designed by Leonardo Da Vinci here. I was told that the guy going up the stair well and the chap coming down will never meet so as to facilitate fast movement of troops during insurgency periods. I tried it out, marked it with a plastic bag tied to one of the railings....its true, on my way down, I do not see it! Uncannily clever!
This is the rear view of the front facade block. It has the round about gravel layout for carriages to move and alight their party attending passengers.
Climbing up to the top of this block, there was an alleyway on the top floor before the steeples started, here was the balcony, I can imagine, where the king plus his yes men would have stood to behold the actions below.
Here is how it looked like close up on whose coming to the party from the alley way on top.
The rear of the front facade block also had an alleyway balcony where the king can see who is alighting in the courtyard round about below.
The front Balcony of the front facade block where there are 4 semi circular blocks of rooms holding up huge dinning and dance halls.
One of the corner room blocks that did not blend it nor seemed connected to the rest of the castle. Looked more like a chapel or something. It was off limits, so the tour did not visit it. I can imagine, this incest committing royal family of genetically degenerated people, having the last thing on their mind was the fear of God.
This was one of the two stair wells that Da Vinci designed, which I tried. The view in between the spiral is this skylight that light up part of the whole stairwell so that soldiers have a clear view of where they are heading. Seen here on the ground floor, in this photo below which I took a shot of it upwards.
This Chateau also has a high number of fireplaces, which I think if I did not remember wrongly, something like 14 places for the King and some others for the rest of the crew. The castle is normally bear and used 8 days of the year only for hunting. The entourage will bring along everything, including furniture! The rest of the time, the castle is empty! Here is one of those fireplaces used by the king.
Another fireplace and room used by the king.
This is the Armoury Room where armour and weapons are brought here and stored during the week long hunting trip and emptied out when the King returns to Amboise.
This is the King's chambers, during the hunt, which is normally near winter, they people will heat up hot pans in the fireplace and put such plates below the bed to heat it up so that the deformed kid can sleep. However, can you imagine that when the hunt ends, all this carpet, upholstery the bed and frames are packed and shipped back to the palace at Amboise about 100km west of this place. No wonder the farmers wanted to chop of his head!
The Queen gets a piece of the action too. They bring the mirror the consoles, the beds etc, but she does not get to have a nice carpet from Persia though.
Guest room where the deers are served after the hunt as venison, the anters are hung in the trophy room and the meat are salted in barrels as jerkies to be brought back to Amboise.
Here we see the golden Mickey sovenir statues...everything here is about golden Mickey. Even at 50 years, Mickey is anything but old. The people arrive here by the tens of thousands everyday for this event!
Arriving here in fun wonderland makes a 40 year old feels 4 again. Small touches like this Pinochio sign goes a long way to stir imaginations even if it was the door of a toilet! It still looked great!
Disneyland cannot sustain its high overheads without other sources of income other than sovenirs and tickets. They created Downtown Disney and rented out the premises to many vendors and F&B outlets. See here is the Build A Bear Factory. There are others. Lego etc, which I will upload in a separate time. They also have a second theme park, two here in Anaheim, 3 in Tokyo, to keep people coming back. For those who think that they are overgrown ups, they can head sideways to the park next door called Disney Californian Adventure.
Arriving here is an affair of choice, there are many that took to drive and walk for miles to get there, there are others from Korea and Japan that took to arriving in style from limousine services to luxury coaches to stay in the nice hotel that they have been checked into to spend a night or two to savour the adventure, the fun and the shopping/dining experience.
The hotel is tip top. This is one view to take home to for to remember for a lifetime, the check in counter looks medievel!
Lighting is by a skylight and lots of overhanging candelabra and chanderliers. Reminscent of times past where butlers light the candles with 20 foot poles.
There are ample sitting areas while we wait to check in at a huge reading and resting area and a giant fireplace. Here you can see me, David and Paul. Enroute to Safariland of Armor Holdings to demonstrate some technology.
There are also some interesting dioramas on display like this one, which sits on about 10 square meters of table top space!
Here we see theme shops with their nice sculptures to promote the various themes that marked the main merchandise of the outlet. Here we see the Simba and Tarzan theme shop.
Donald and the general 50s to 70s themes.
Kerbie, the revival of an old flame, a new movie then in 2005. Here I am with Kirby, carrying expensive 50th anniversay T shirts of the kids back home. Well, I was 10kg lighter then!
Here we see another theme, the fantasyland of Arabian Nights and Cinderella, Snow White, Peter Pan and Pinochio.
They even have Captain hook sticking out his infamous body part replacement with a trapped Tinkerbell in a candle holder, or this wicked and crooked hand of the Queen Mother with the famed toxin loaded apple for Snow White.
Then, there are also plenty of Golden Mickeys everywhere, this rendition is a 7 footer with Minnie in metallic finish.
This is the Disney's walk of fame. People pay and donate money to keep the park alive. There were some tiles that dated back to the 50s from here. I took some pictures of them and here is one of them.
Disneyland never cease to fascinate me. I first went to EuroDisney with Eunice, my wife back in 1993, then 3 times to Tokyo Disney, two more times to Paris Disney Park, once with my son Dominique to HongKong Disneyland, the smallest, and here, my second trip to the original Disneyland Anaheim. Still I am gonna come back for more!
Leaving the Grande Arc, I took this one last shot sitting on the road! 50 secs exposure. Glad that it worked out. Had glare on these photos as I was lazy to bring the lens hood, so, end up 4 hours of photoshop retouching! Phew....here they are.
Talking about walking into the sunset, isn't this scene beautiful? I am really happy that I made this trip. Was thinking of sleeping out the night because of the rain the in the afternoon and the cold. well, it is results like this that made the trip well worth it.
Near the Arc, there are a lot of exits from the Metro at Etoile. There is no telling even though its my 4th time here. Anyway, found this nice mansion, so might as well take a few shots.
Arc at the bend, here at this round about, its suicide. In the photo session that I was here, I had a funny feeling, with 5 rows of chaos, some accident was gonna happen and it did! 1 lady driving like a maniac in a Renault Clio Rear ended a Avantime! Rip off her own mirror and remodeled the rear right fender of the luxury sedan! Then there was a Skoda taxi that whacked another Renault Laguna! Average, I do not forsee anything less than 30 accidents on this spot, its lawless, everytime I drive here, I let people horn the hell out of themselves but never allow myself to be pressured to take risks. Normally takes 2 minutes to get to the right turning, then you are safe, especially if you can follow a truck or bus!
Arch top details at close up, 75mm. The battle scenes up there is like the battle scene next to me as 4 bus loads of Ano Nehs off loaded and jostled for camera positions. All trying to flash their way to oblivion but none with a tripod, so, I must have the best photos amongst the mayhem!
Slipped across Champs Elysee, grabbed 6 shots at different temperatures and times and chose this one.
Crossed over another 2 streets to take this shot of a out going corning to try to capture the car lights filtering into the mayhem. I was almost at prone position in order to grab this shot, sat on the floor on my Hugo Boss Pants! My wife will kill me if she found out! Doing it twice in a night on dusty ground after the rain and complete black must be mindless. But all photographers will risk their skins for a good shot. That is why its called a photo bug!
The finer details from that angle, now standing up and allowing to capture the Eiffel at the background. Too bad, the lighthouse isn't on the Eiffel that night. I hear that the Olympic chaos gonna happen the next morning and there was a huge Tibetan flag hanging on the tower that night! Good thing not there, otherwise, they would have mistaken me for a US funded dissident.
Finally, just to prove that I was there and the chap taking the photos.The Arc De La Defense is one of those monuments that are frequently not photographed when people visit Paris, which is a pity. It is a nice building however, the most pretty sights of it are best taken at about 9pm at night when the skies turned blue.
The only set back about this place, where we know, Paris lags behind in tourism planning, is the view of it from the top at night. However, the arc is closed at night, don't know who came up with such rules, he ought to be shot. Well, as we are all familiar with, Europeans are predominantly preoccuppied with themselves and the human rights issue. Having domestic problems which are a direct result of the lack of the rule of law due to social disintegration caused by irresponsible few individuals in the name of human dignity....sigh...
No matter, this the reason why I braved howling winds, and 6 deg C temperature and the big grave yard in the back ground to take some of the best night photos I have taken of Paris in the last decade. They are user friendly to download for royalty free use provided not being used for commercial exploitations. However, if highres versions are needed, do drop me a line.
The counters are opened, but no attendants are there. When I approached the guard, he says come back next day, they close at 1900hrs. Then he carried on reading his newspapers. You know, some of the most nasty people I have met on the planet are in Paris, particularly the north African immigrants. They behaved like the whole world owes them a living....it can be a result of tribe culture or their flight has forged such rough attitudes. Its most appalling. I have seen them and young east europeans squeeze through me in the train stations exploiting my paying the ticket so that they can enter free and squeeze the paying customer ou without the sense of human decency. Urinating in public against the walls in train stations and sleeping on chairs meant for commuters. If you can live with these, then you can probably look forward to navigating through the streets of dog pooh like mine fields, pigeon droppings everytime you go under a tree, or people turning left from the 4th lane on the right causing traffic jams. After 15 trips here in the past 20 years, I can observe Paris' rate od rapid deterioration, its sad, the city of love is now no more than a city of run down slump at most quarters due to lack of public funds and over taxed social schemes running the once mighty nation to the brink of bankruptcy if it has not already happened.
This is a picture of the grand arc that is a war monument remembering the people who died in the Nazi occupation.
The expensive Renaissance Hotel, this part of town is the financial nerve centre of the country, money slosh through here by the billions each day. You find the Societe Generale, KPMG, Ernst and Young all here.
The back of the Society Generale building fronted by the extension of the hotel that looked like the Grande Arc itself. The housing in the background has a nice three tone French Airforce camouflage painted on it.
France is a rugby nation, the only non commonwealth country that has a passion for this rough "gentleman" game. On the left of this photo, we see the dark portion, which is a road under construction, on the right, is the grave yard which the Arc is supposed to overlook. While the people play rugby after work.
The reverse angle, we look back at the arc from the platform some 30 ft suspended wooden planks and seeing the financial city on the left. It may look calm here, but the wind was howling and there are people with no regards for your photography, running across and shaking the planks. Most shots in this collection is a result of more than 100 shots, mostly taken repeatedly due to such inconsiderations causing the photos to blur out. As the light conditions were low, mostly were shot out of ISO400 at F22 over long exposures of 30 secs and above.
The Renaissance Hotel and its Grand Arc looking wing. The back portion is curved making this a very beautiful architecture looking like a bow from the air.
The Grande Arc at the end of the floating platform. Its really cold here. This shot is the 5th and the most successful one as there was a jogger and two couples and a police patrol that shook the floating platform on the previous shots, given its 400m distance from the arc and a wide 17mm angle shot, it blurred the small details of the buildings. One look at the photo closely you can tell what is amiss, the graffiti, people who are no longer social become animals. I am glad that I live in Singapore where this is not so wide spread, however, with some smaller racial groups, they are responsible for many of such crimes to society, same here, Paris is not France, its just another city of a population gone awry by preoccupation with self.
The apartment building with the camouflage paint scheme I mentioned about above.
This is the KPMG building. The sculpture in front shows a man with his head hollowed out and some square paper clip looking things on his right cheek and throat, maybe it meant, decent man, gagged by office politics and backmailed by administration and brains sucked dry by the system!
Just to prove that I am the one who took the pictures, here is me in fat gear subdermal and optidermally! Haha! Got one, a pull over, a singlet, a T shirt and a woolie! Still cold due to wind chill factor. See the two smoochers, they are one of the 4 people who destroyed 4 of my shots from this angle. The one that I mentioned above.