Light and Sound spectacle in Gravelines, France...

[StanyB]

Every year, in the beginning of August there is an open air spectacle with light and sound. The show runs for 5 days. Hundreds of volunteers train for weeks with some professional actors to make a nice sound and lightshow...(Son et Lumière)
It tells the story of my hometown Gravelines, from back to the time of the Vikings until the beginning of the 20th century.
The show is every year a little different, with different highlights...
This year the mediaeval joust tournaments were the most spectacular, a really great performance...
In relation to photography, this spectacle is very difficult to ajust WB because of the premanent switching artificial and low lighting... I tried the best I could.
I did not correct the sometimes disturbing background because of my limited time to PP this 48 images.
All shots were done with D700 and mostly my 70-200 AF-S VR.
Iso settings went from iso800 upto iso approx 10000 (iso 6400 & -0.7EV) Even in this lowlight D700 is doing a wonderful job.
Some images have some motion blur because of slow shutter speed despite iso 6400... I preferred the motion blur above iso 25600.







The Vikings are coming...








A jump by the middle ages with more tears and blood than fun or food...




And more fights... Human's basic quality...




Is he really dead?...






And while normal people were dying of hunger and diseases like the plague...


...the aristocrats have deep philosophic discussions about who to conquer next...




And then, the highlight of the evening...
Let the games begin!...










The spectacle was played very "realistic", in this shot you can see one of the knights break his lance on the shield of his opponent...


Fight and dinner...








Underwhile the normal people get more civilised: The story o a Frenshman becoming friend with an Englishman...






The French revolution, more bloodshed...


A French spectacle without Napoleon Bonaparte would not be complete...


And again a jump in the history to the 19th and early 20th century...





















A fire-spitter @ used to be very popular @ local events...




Bye-bye, thanks and see you next year...




Thanks for looking.

[BNikolai]

Hi Stany,
Some of your pictures are very well, I mean so well, that it could be made in early times with no disturbing backgrounds. Nikon D700 with the high ISO's is a very nice advantage. Motion in your pictures , I like it.
Greetings, Betty

[DirkVermeirre]

Hi Stany,

Impressive and yes I also like the high Iso capacities of the D700, used it twice (one from a friend) to test the high iso's and I found them better then those from my Canon 5D's. Maybe one day I will go back to Nikon (still have many Nikon lenses (and also the D2x (but dislike the high iso's from that camera, even the 400 Iso).
Dirk

[StanyB]

Hi Stany,
Some of your pictures are very well, I mean so well, that it could be made in early times with no disturbing backgrounds. Nikon D700 with the high ISO's is a very nice advantage. Motion in your pictures , I like it.
Greetings, Betty

Hi Stany,Impressive and yes I also like the high Iso capacities of the D700, used it twice (one from a friend) to test the high iso's and I found them better then those from my Canon 5D's. Maybe one day I will go back to Nikon (still have many Nikon lenses (and also the D2x (but dislike the high iso's from that camera, even the 400 Iso).
Dirk

Hi Betty and Dirk.
Thanks for your reaction.