Adventures in Nice, with the Fuji X-E1
Looking out over the city and the sea
I posted some of my images from the recent trip that I took to Nice, in the south of France last week. As I wrote, most of the time I just used my iPhone to take photos, mainly because we were there to relax and take it easy. I did have my little fuji with me too though, and I did get to take some shots with that too.
At first I was having a little difficulty shooting with the X-E1. The reason was that the sun was really bright, and I was finding it hard to see both the viewfinder and the screen. Images on the viewfinder were really dark, and because I'm a glasses wearer too, my eyes don't go right up against the eye socket, so sometimes the glare can make it even harder to see, but I'm not really sure what was going on. It's possible that the evf in my camera is dying, as it was quite dim. Anyway, I eventually got used to it and interpreting what I was seeing with how it would turn out, but at first it certainly wasn't helping the relaxing! I was longing for an optical viewfinder, and I really appreciated the old pentaprism view of the film camera I had with me. It's not generally an issue in the normally dim Irish sunshine!
Anyway, forgetting about such geeky things as evf performance, Nice really is a beautiful city. From the beautiful blue of the Mediterranean sea, to the wonderful orange rooftops and old buildings of the old town, to the sweeping hills surrounding the city. One of the cool things about the city is the fact that you can walk from the airport. The runway is built on reclaimed land in the sea at one end of the city's long beach. Coming out of the terminal, you're on the Promenade des Anglais, which is the long road and walkway that runs the length of the beach from the airport at one end to the headland and castle at the other. On this end, there is the ruins of an old castle on top of the head, which overlooks the city. From here you can get some great views of both the promenade and the beach, and also the port on the other side.
We also spent quite a bit of time in the Old Town. As the name implies it's the older part of the city and contains some of the oldest buildings. It's full of winding streets and it's like a maze in parts. Exploring it is great fun, and there's lots of texture and colour which I love to photograph.
The Airport in the Distance, and a Plane taking off
It was a lovely relaxing trip, and while I didn't take as many photos as I normally would, it fulfilled its purpose of being a time to unwind. I do have some more images that I captured on my film camera, which was more of an experiment than anything. It actually turned into a bit of a challenge because my old film camera developed an issue while I was there, but more on that in another post. I'm waiting for them to be developed, so if there's no issues I'll hopefully have them towards the end of the week. For now you can see the full set of my Nice images here on Flickr or on my SmugMug portfolio, and don't forget to check out the previous post on shooting Nice on the iPhone.
