Photography Thread

briantrumpet

A sadly beautiful view this morning. Fire definitely not under control.

Pross

I actually quite like that bottom one, the mud there is a lot better than it is on the River Usk when it exposes all the shopping trollies and other deritis that has been dumped.

pblakeney

Quite revealing that all the comments on my two shots above are about the one shot in the “golden hour”.
Just proves that mid day photography is for record shots only.

briantrumpet

After two summers when the pandemic was a worry, it's nice to have a normal relaxing break in France. Just that I'm in someone else's house tonight, just in case...

masjer

That looks bad. Let's hope the wind changes direction.
Take care.

pblakeney

🤞🤞🤞

rjsterry

Yes, hope you and your house get through this unscathed.

briantrumpet

Thanks all.

Weather not playing ball (gusty dry afternoon notherlies, very hot days, and no sign of rain for at least a week), so it's rather in the lap of the gods. I think the house should be OK, as it's some way away from the main woods, and should be defendable by firefighters, I'd hope. We'll see. I'll ride back over in the morning, and hopefully realise that I've over-reacted.

But if you do do FB, and follow the 30-minutes-worth of sequence in this post (reasonably happy with them as 'reportage'), you might see why I lost my nerve.

https://www.facebook.com/unanglaisendiois/posts/pfbid0v52dbiqZZUk1oz8gQ4yRnPongxGMugWStAWisApH8dePLSkCMZCSChHR4LRmu2Ll

Pross

Worrying times for you. We usually have a lot of fires on the hills around here (generally arson as they are so easily accessible from some dodgy areas) but fortunately I haven't seen any this year so far which is a surprise and they don't generally endanger houses or people. They can get into the peat on some of the hills though and then become very hard to put out. Had some bad ones in 2018 that took nearly a week to put out using a helicopter.

briantrumpet

Pross said:

Worrying times for you. We usually have a lot of fires on the hills around here (generally arson as they are so easily accessible from some dodgy areas) but fortunately I haven't seen any this year so far which is a surprise and they don't generally endanger houses or people. They can get into the peat on some of the hills though and then become very hard to put out. Had some bad ones in 2018 that took nearly a week to put out using a helicopter.

This one was almost certainly a lightning strike. One of the challenges the firefighters are having is the site's inaccessibility: steep, rocky, dense woodland, with no paths at all... on a good day it would be an hour or two's thrash up there. I suspect no arsonist would have had the skill or could be bothered to get anywhere near where it started.

bm5

Frightening time for you, hope that the fire retreats.

pblakeney

Some more from my drip feed just as they are so pretty.
Wouldn't win any photography prizes, but pretty.





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masjer

pblakeney said:

Some more from my drip feed just as they are so pretty.
Wouldn't win any photography prizes, but pretty.

http://

With scenery like that, you can get away with shooting away from the golden hour window. Nice clouds again.

briantrumpet

Just to update, looking worse this morning, so I made the right call to evacuate to some friends' house yesterday afternoon. Popped back to pick up one or two things, and it looks like a scene from Dante's inferno, as the fire gets nearer the village, and the smoke can be seen from 40 miles away. It's in the lap of the gods and the pompiers now.

Sorry it's of no great photographic value, but the gendarmes were just coming my way to tell me the road is now closed to everyone except pompiers and gendarmes. Macron, obvs.

Pross

How far away is it from your village?

briantrumpet

Pross said:

How far away is it from your village?

The fire's about 100/200m away from my house now (my hamlet is just off to the right of the photo). I thought it would get close today, having observed its progress yesterday. Nothing I can do, other than to hope the pompiers focus on the habitations through the day. Que sera sera.

rjsterry

Fingers crossed, Brian.

laurentian

Sounds concerning to say the least - hope everything ends up OK

briantrumpet

Thanks all. Feels weird, having been the on-site photo reporter, now having no idea, or when I'll be able to see it, or how much devastation there will be, and now relying on other reportage. Might have to go for a bike ride tomorrow morning to clear my head a bit.

briantrumpet

While I try to get any updates, here's a photo taken just now of where I'm slumming it for a night or two or lots.

jimmyjams

briantrumpet said:

While I try to get any updates,...

You might know this already, but this report from 16:30 french time states that the firemen have good hopes to control the fire in the vicinity of Romeyer and the hamlet of Planeaux (yours?), if less so on the inaccessible east and north sides of the fire. And that for the moment they don't feel the need to evacuate people.

https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/drome/incendie-dans-le-diois-185-hectares-brules-et-3-pompiers-blesses-2593996.html

briantrumpet

jimmyjams said:

briantrumpet said:

While I try to get any updates,...

You might know this already, but this report from 16:30 french time states that the firemen have good hopes to control the fire in the vicinity of Romeyer and the hamlet of Planeaux (yours?), if less so on the inaccessible east and north sides of the fire. And that for the moment they don't feel the need to evacuate people.

https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/drome/incendie-dans-le-diois-185-hectares-brules-et-3-pompiers-blesses-2593996.html

Thanks - just getting some of that through from one or two people in Die, but that sounds promising, coming from better sources. Might still have a home to go to tomorrow.

In the meantime, a photo of one of the Canadairs yesterday that I quite like.

briantrumpet

Yup, that sounds promising ... "for the time being, there is no question of evacuating anyone", even though I think a lot of people, like me, who can lodge elsewhere, have chosen to avoid the smoke and fear.

I'll probably see if I am allowed up to inspect tomorrow morning.

masjer

That dramatic image really depicts the scale of the task in hand.
Hopefully the firefighters will keep on top of things in your hamlet (and surrounding area) and all this can come to an end.
I was going to say at least you have a roof over your head, but it looks like you have several.
Let’s hope things look a bit brighter tomorrow.

Pross

Not recent but came up on my Facebook memories from 5 years ago. Domme in the Dordogne, we stayed at a campsite below and missed out on the Tour that had gone through the previous week with this being a 4th cat climb (the road where the photo was taken had a few names painted on it).

briantrumpet

Came back to my house this morning, all trepidation, and the fire's moved on. The pompiers were apparently all at hand, but they spent the night burning firebreaks and using bulldozers for the same and to create access tracks.

If you look closely at the first photo, you might just see how close the fire got to the village before it gave up. My house is in the bottom right, and frazzled trees in the middle of the photo. It does seem that only certain trees frazzle properly, but when they do, it's scary (bottom photo).

briantrumpet

Anyway, hopefully I can do just boring tourist tat again now.

masjer

It's a bit dry and featureless out and about, so I grabbed some shade in the woods.

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masjer

briantrumpet said:

Anyway, hopefully I can do just boring tourist tat again now.

Phew, that's bloody great news!

rjsterry

Wot masjer said. Glad this ended well.