Day 143 - The Purls of St. Roch Des Aulnaies

An old mill, a lovely restaurant and a tumbling stream offer endless opportunities for photographs. We found them all in a small town along the St. Lawrence, which I believe is called St. Roch Des Aulnaies. We visited so many small French towns on our trip (all of them beautiful, all of them offering wonderful scenes and fabulous baked goods) that I lose track of the names.

At the old mill in St. Roch Des Aulnaies, the tumbling water offered something special: a wonderful green colour and the most delicate designs in the water itself. I played with the Olympus' settings until I got it right and I'm so glad I did. This photograph, taken with as fast a shutter speed as the available light would allow (I think it was about 1/640th of a second) and the aperture as wide as it would go (around f3.4), captures the purls and sparkles of the water as well as the deep colour of the stream.

I think this photograph is probably as artistic as I've gotten on this blog and I'm very proud of it. I love its texture and its composition and I'm particularly pleased with the way the photograph captures wonderful designs in the falling water and the delicate green leaves on the branch at the very top. I have included the smaller shot, which is itself quite pretty, to show you the stream from a greater distance, so that you can place the first photograph in its context.