Jul 16, 2011

Covering the base (part 1)

Back with some more images from the Val-Duchesse castle shoot. We’ll start our indoors discovery tour at the ground floor.

The first room to explore is the Golden Room, a Louis XVI style salon, loaded with fine moldings, and featuring an impressive mirror over the marble fireplace. Above the glass doors, you find the monograms of Charles-Henri Dietrich (a Brussels banker and businessman who acquired the castle in 1903) and of Edmond de Vigne (the architect overseeing the restoration work in 1904-07).

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Next comes the Dutch Room, decorated with typical blue rosette and chocolate-brown speckled tiles in Delft porcelain. The five stained glass windows flooding this room with daylight illustrate adages by Jacob Cats, a 16th century Dutch poet, humorist, jurist and politician. Also remarkable is the black marble fireplace with white marble geometric motives.

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All the above overview images are the result of my (by now) proven exposure blending technique, combining 5 to 9 shots in post processing for a still natural looking HDR rendering.

More beautiful places to discover in follow-up posts!

Gear notes: D700, 17-35/2.8, 24-70/2.8

Click on the image(s) to see a larger version

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