Posts by regis

I went sailing in Svalbard last month for a week. It was the second time, I visited the small archipelago in the arctic zone. Last time I went camping and kayaking and while it was fun it did not allow me to travel long distances. This time, I chose a sailboat, first because it allowed us to travel quite a lot, secondly it was a lot more confortable, thirdly it was small enough we could get really close to any glacier. Where is the Svalbard? Svalbard (which means “cold coast” in Norwegian) is between 78 and 81 degrees north. The main town is Longyearbyen and is about 650 miles from the North Pole. That’s the northernmost inhabited place in the world. It’s not a big town, about 2000 people lives there year long. There is an hospital, roads, stores,...

Recently I rented a Fuji GFX 50s for one week. During that week, I had scheduled a photoshoot with one model and spent a couple days camping near the Golden Gate Bridge. My goal was to evaluate if the Fuji was a possible replacement for my Canon 5D MK IV. I have heard great things about the Sony Alpha 7 R II but when I used it, I did not like the view finder and the ergonomics. In contrast, Fuji came with a lot of expectations about the natural ergonomics and ease of use. Plus a 50 megapixels camera was very interesting to me.  It is true, I was able to use the Fuji within a couple minutes without even opening the manual. Everything is right where you expect it,  it’s like putting on an old favorite jacket (including finding loose change at the...

This post should have been posted a long time ago, but life made it hard. In early April 2016, I booked a photographic helicopter tour over San Francisco. I was waiting for the right condition to go fly, and when I could not book the time I wanted on a short notice (the helicopter was already booked), I made a bet and booked September 26th. My thinking was that September is the warmest month in the area, if I can hit a nice day it would be awesome. That was a lucky bet, because September 26th was one of the warmest day and evening of the entire year. We were twice lucky when the small helicopter I had booked was not available, I got upgraded to the bigger one (Robinson 66), which made possible for my wife to tag along for a small price increase.  It was so...

A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go and photograph the old train station (on 16th street) in Oakland,CA. This train station was abandoned in 1994, when the newer train station was built. For over 50 years, this station was the main train station for the city of Oakland, CA. It connected the Pacific Railways to the local elevated electric tram. Think of this: in 1912, Oakland already had an elevated electric tram. There is almost no furniture left but the main hall is beautiful and so photogenic. The building is a private property, you can’t trespass but there is a couple of meet-ups that regularly organize private days there. It’s really cheap and you get a good 90 minutes to explore the building (almost by yourself). Here some of my...

This weekend, we went glamping (short for glamour camping). I have been fascinated by the Airstream trailer forever. The aluminum-clad trailer with its mid-century modern look is incredibly beautiful, timeless and really expensive. A couple months ago, AutoCamp opened in the Russian River area. The concept is fairly simple, a luxurious campground where you can rent your own airstream on a per night basis. When I said luxurious, the shower is a no-step shower and has a rain shower head. The Airstreams are connected to all the utilities and arranged in a campground style. You don’t have to own the Airstream, you don’t have to tow it and you don’t have to park it, everything has been done for you. You just have to show up.  Once there, you...