Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Ce matin donc, je me suis levé aux aurores dans l’espoir d’avoir une belle lumière et des routes sans trafic routier – je n’ai pas été déçu du voyage, 2 heures de photo dans un décor de rêve, à prendre toutes ces couleurs en pleine face.

Aussi, et comme aujourd’hui c’est la Saint Nicolas (c’est le 6 décembre, je sais, mais c’est aujourd’hui que la fête du St Nicolas fait son défilé dans les villes de l’Est de la France), je dédis cette bouffée de couleur, de soleil et de chaleur à mon petit frère Nicolas. En espérant que cela te plaise et te redonne l’envie de venir nous voir à Maurice Avec toutes ces couleurs naturelles, j’ai également une pensée pour ma grand-mère, mamie Mauricette, qui a fêté ses 82 ans la semaine dernière.

Jul

1. Port-Louis la Citadelle

La Citadelle of Port-Louis offers nice settings to shoot portraits. First, the views on the capital are amazing from there. The walls of the building itself are in old stones / bricks, displaying interesting perspectives. Finally, it’s easy to find bird’s eye views on your model, or in opposite some low-angle views. In summary, that’s a very interesting place for portraiture.

I know this is not a human portrait … but to me, it’s like a portrait of the sun (and it was taken from La Citadelle )

2. Cap Malheureux

Cap Malheureux is certainly one the most famous touristic spot in Mauritius, thanks to it’s charming little church with red roof close to the lagoon, with views on the North islands. This makes of this place THE romantic place of Mauritius, where a lot of couples want to get married. For us photographers, this is also a great place to shoot portraits (and not just landscapes), by including the church, the islands … in the composition of our images.

3. Pamplemousses Gardens

Pamplemousses gardens also are a touristic must-see in Mauritius. This is such a luxurious garden and there are so many wonderful places to take portraits … It also shows Mauritius from another point of view: the insides of the island which are luxurious green. Among my fave places in the garden are a beautiful alley with royal palmtrees, the pond with giant waterlilies, the castle of Pierre Poivre …

4. Labourdonnais Castle

Recently opened after a few years of restoration, Labourdonnais Castle  is now a very interesting museum, where you can also have a great lunch and stroll in their wonderful fruit tree garden. Labourdonnais is also very famous for its rhum and its fruit pastes. Labourdonnais castle is a typical colonial house, one of the few still standing in Mauritius, where we can make wonderful images.

5. Le Morne

Le Morne is a mountain on a peninsula in the south-western part of Mauritius. It is well known as it got its UNESCO patrimony status some years ago, as a symbol for the fight against slavery. It offers wonderful beaches with great views on the mountain, amazing panoramas of the island from its top and a great spot for kite-surfers. All in all, a fantastic place for portraiture !

6. The peer of Hilton Hotel in Wolmar

This will be the only hotel listed here, and, although it is not my favorite hotel to take wedding images, the Hilton Hotel in Wolmar has got without a doubt the most beautiful peer of Mauritius. Built in wood, with no boats to it, it is located in the western coast where sunsets are the greatest. It also offers splendid views on Le Morne and the whole West coast. A pure moment of romanticism.

7. La Roche qui Pleure

A quite unusual place to take portraits, La Roche qui Pleure is located in the Southern coast of Mauritius, where there are no coral reefs and thus no lagoon. The ocean there is very strong and crashes its huge waves against grey/black cliffs. This place is also very windy, which can help for portraiture (hairs, dress …) and for dramatic effects.

8. The beach at Pointe d’Esny

Without any doubts the most beautiful beach of Mauritius ! Not well-known, even by Mauritians themselves, as it is not an easy-to-access beach; but what a beach !! An incredibly blue and wide lagoon not far from Blue Bay, a long white sand beach, very few tourists, some small islands, wonderful mountains with evocative names in the backgrounds (Lion Mountain …): this is the best place for a shooting at the beach.

9. Ruins of Balaclava

For those who likes old stones in a luxurious natural garden, the ruins of Balaclava will be the perfect setting. There are some stairs, some “windows”, a water wheel … helping for nice compositions. Just above the ruins, the Chateau Mon Plaisir offers a nice colonial complement to the ruins. I like taking portraits there.

10. The rocky coast of Calodyne

In the North-East of Mauritius, close to Grand-Gaube, there are several beaches with dark rocks and vegetation growing up in the lagoon itself. The views on the North islands are wonderful from there (Gunner’s Coin, Snake island, Rond island …). Inserting a silhouette in this beautiful landscape makes great images; using the contrast of the dark rocks with the colorful or white dresses of your model is also very catchy.

11. The shady alley to Alexandra Falls

In Mauritius, I found quite a lot of great alleys for my portraiture. The one leading to Alexandra Falls is one of my preferred one. It looks like a tunnel of light, quite shady up to the end where you see the light arising. The perspectives are fantastic, the shady light very soft for your model, the colors very natural for the skin of your model (light green and brown from the trees). I really recommend this place.

12. The sugar cane fields (almost everywhere in Mauritius)

Most preferably when they are in flower, the sugar cane fields make wonderful foreground or background sceneries for portraiture. There are nice alleys in the fields, that disclose some interesting mountain profiles. The fields also appear like a wall of vegetation compared to the model – you can use that in your compositions. You can also ask your models to play a hiding game in the canes themselves … Depending on the light, you can get amazing effects when the flowers look like snow in contra-light. You can achieve lots of nice portraits in a sugar cane field !

I hope you appreciate that list and you will have some nice ideas for your portraits

Cheers !

All images are subject to copyrights and cannot be used without the written consent of their respective author, Julien Venner or Khatleen Minerve.

Just to remind you, Winner’s is the proximity supermarket leader in Mauritius, and the favorite supermarket chain of Mauritians. A few weeks ago, I have worked for Winner’s on a few projects, among which was the launching of their website, a key success factor in their communication strategy. I have already posted a note with some sample images here on my blog some time ago, but today, I am very proud to be part of this website, which I find very beautiful, well built and very practical.

The first portrait of the month:

But the key feature of this website certainly is the complete 360° virtual tour of a Winner’s supermarket. When I met Mr. Venpin, General Manager of Winner’s, back in June, I proposed him this product which is not well developed in Mauritius and which is very rare for a supermarket (even worldwide). He was immediately enthusiastic about this idea as this is, I believe, a great interactive tool for a website. Moreover, the product I proposed him is interesting as the viewer can visit several rooms or places from a unique screen thanks to links in the virtual tour itself. For the Winner’s virtual tour, you can switch from the main entrance, to the fresh fruits and vegetables corner, to the butcher stand, to the bakery (a view from the private inside of Winner’s) and then to the drinks alley for instance … all that with just a click from one tour to another.

I am quite proud of the final result, which, I am sure, will help Winner’s in their communication strategy and visibility on the Internet.

Very soon I will make an announcement for the launching of my 360° virtual tour product. If you have an hotel, bungalows, a flat to sell, a supermarket or a shop, if you are an interior designer, an architect, or work for a real estate agency … this type of virtual tour is a great opportunity for you to make visitors discover your property, your product, your services. If you are interested, don’t hesitate to contact me

Now that we are living in Mauritius, we met for real and we became friends. When he proposed me to take some images of one of his luxurious bungalows complex, I accepted immediately

Paradise Beach Resort  is located at Pointe d’Esny, on one of the most beautiful beach of the whole Indian Ocean. There is a nice swimming pool in the complex, but honestly, you just don’t want to dive in there as the beach and the sea are simple pure heaven. The 8 apartments and the 2 penthouses are very spacious (150 sqm & 300 sqm respectively) and equipped with top quality devices. There are 3 rooms in the apartments, 4 in the penthouses, all of which have individual bathrooms. The views on the gardens and on the beach are wonderful at any time of the day and of the night. The neighborhood is calm and it looks like you are always alone or almost on the beach ! I was truly impressed when I first visited the complex to make the images.

This first impression was more than confirmed when I stayed myself at Paradise Beach with my family for a long week-end at the end of July. My parents, who come from North-East of France, were there too … useless to precise that they were feeling like in heaven ! The weather was perfect, although we were in the middle of winter – we even had a full day without any wind, almost like in summer. The lagoon was so blue, the water so good to swim ! The kids loved to play in the sand and to swim in the not-deep-at-all lagoon; they also went to look for starfishes. My mum and mum-in-law cocked some times in the spacious kitchen – we had breakfast and dinner on the terrace, admiring the stunning views for hours. We also went to Mahebourg once to have lunch and walk on the nice waterfront. Finally we had a short boat trip to Ile aux Aigrettes where we enjoyed an aperitif in the lagoon. What a wonderful time we all had !

I really recommend Paradise Beach to everyone who wants to spend unforgettable and relaxing moments close to the beach. For us, it was also a pure moment of family happiness. Here are also other guests reviews – Tripadvisor. Let me share some images with you, so that you can appreciate that my superlative description is well deserved :

I am very happy and proud to announce the opening of Pixel in the Box studio, which is based in Coromandel. Although I still need to find a few accessories, I can already propose  lots of services – personal portfolios and fashion images, corporate portraits and images, family and kids portraiture, commercial images, products images … I have loads of ideas I’d like to realize in my studio and share with you !

Also, since I have a lot of space there, I will be able to propose some photography courses soon. More news about this to come in a few weeks.

Those services are only available on appointment. Thus, please don’t hesitate to contact me for a quote and to book your photo session !

Yesterday, while setting up all my equipment, I have shot a few trial images with my wife, Diane (who is not a model and who doesn’t like to pose hahaha ), to check if everything is working fine. Here are those very basic first images taken in my studio:

Here are a few images among the thousand I took during the day :

We had 3 different sessions in 2 supermarkets (Winner’s has some 17 supermarkets across the island), the third one being for the launch of my new photography product: 360° virtual tours (more to come on this topic soon). Here are a few of the numerous images I took during this collaboration:

I have to admit that I almost forgot how physical and tough it was to take images of a full day wedding, from 8am to midnight … I finished the day completely exhausted but very happy with my images. Out of the 1,100 images I took during the day (way too much, but this is the result from 16 hours of shooting ), here are a few of my selection :