In the summer of 2004, I visited Normandy and Brittany, the most distinctive among France's historic provinces, for the first time. Our cruise ship called at Le Havre, France's second largest port. From there we were able to experience a moving visit to the World War II D-Day Invasion beaches along the Normandy Coast. We sailed on to St. Malo, the City of Corsairs, and birthplace of explorer Jacques Cartier. From there, I visited Mont St. Michel, an ancient fortified abbey rising 500 feet out of the sea. Over a thousand years of history unfolded before my cameras in these treasured places. Here are my photographic interpretations of what I discovered there.

This is second of three articles embracing our 2004 cruise to European ports. In the first article we visited English and Irish ports. Youll find it at:http://www.worldisround.com/articles/75599/index.html

The third article features our visits to Bilbao and Santiago de Compostella in Spain, as well as Guimaraes, Braga, and Lisbon in Portugal. It is at: http://www.worldisround.com/articles/75601/index.html

If you've viewed the previous articles I've posted on this site, you'll note that my photographic intentions are focused on interpretation, rather than description. I've continued to do this in these articles on my European adventures. I want my pictures to express how I feel about what I see, rather than just recording what I've seen or where I've been. Aside from sharing my pictures with you on this website, I also use some of them to teach the principles of expressive travel photography through my galleries on pbase (www.pbase.com/pnd1) as well as in my Sedona workshops for corporate photojournalists, and in my tutorial workshops in Phoenix for newcomers to digital photography.

These European images were gleaned from the more than 2,000 digital pictures I shot during our entire trip. I used two digital cameras, a Leica Digilux 2 and a Canon G5 -- both five megapixel fixed lens cameras. Most of the Canon photographs were taken with a Canon .7x wideangle converter placed over my zoom lens, which provided me with the equivalent of a 24mm wideangle lens, a focal length that I feel is essential for effective travel photography. Others were made with a Canon 1.75x telephoto converter, which is the equivalent of a 245mm telephoto lens. (Only a few of these photographs were made using just the G5's 35mm-140mm zoom lens.)

The Lieca Digilux 2 offers an incredibly sharp 28mm-90mm zoom lens, and an oversized sensor, which creates images with extra fine detail. It also functions without noticeable shutter lag, allowing me to stop action as desired.

I've edited all of these images with Photoshop to correct and refine the hue, color, contrast and sharpness levels, hopefully making my pictures more vibrant and meaningful. Although all of these photographs were digitally enhanced to some degree, none of the content has been significantly manipulated. The facts are all here, as I captured them.

I hope you will enjoy my photographic impressions. Please post any comments at the end of the article, or ask me any questions you might have via email.

Phil Douglis Director, The Douglis Visual Workshops, Phoenix, Arizona, pnd1@cox.net