The village of Conques

Today, for this new article in the category  "history of photography  I've chosen a photo in Conques, Aveyron in August 2018.

Perhaps you've already heard of it? Conques is one of the most beautiful villages in Aveyron, if not France. As you can see from the photo on the front page above, Conques is a small historic village tucked away in the hills.

I can imagine the village being very peaceful when it's not under siege during the tourist season.. Indeed, my wife and I arrived in Conques quite late in the day, all the Parking spaces were taken and the accesses were starting to close. 😱 It's the drama ! We were still able to make a quick tour of the village on foot. Cars are not allowed (except for residents) in high season, I suppose. If there's one thing you shouldn't miss in Conques, is Sainte-Foy Abbey. I invite you to visit the Conques website on the subject.

So we decided (that we absolutely had to come back 🤓 obviously) but to take the opportunity to walk around the surrounding hills like any self-respecting landscape photographer.

This is to capture a global view at sunset. It still took us an hour and a half to drive down into the valley, then up onto the hilltops opposite, then back down on a winding road (which I'd spotted) to finish at the bottom of Conques.

It was on one of the bends in the road at around 9pm that I found my spot. ! At last! The spot is visible from far away, but it's a long way to get there! So I've got to warn you, when you get to the bottom of this road, in Conques, you'll land on an old Roman bridge, to cross the Dourdou. A very, very, very close call (per cm). Thanks to the inhabitants of the villages above who warned us!

In the end, I was able to take a series of images from different spots on this route, and it's this front-page image that I've chosen. The golden hour, 9pm in the heat, it was just under 40° in the evening, though ! I like this image for the gold effect of course but above all for the few rays of sunshine that fell right on the Abbeye.

Technically, I used my Canon 5D mark IV with a Canon 24-105mm f/4 lens. I took different exposures, and this one was taken at 1/25s with an aperture of f/16, Iso100. Simple post-production, then a bit of cleaning up of the sky in Photoshop and some retouching of the highlights with the TK8 multitask by Tony Kuyper in using luminance masks.

So much for the little adventure of this image of Conques. To find out more about Aveyron, visit the gallery here.

To see how I develop and retouch my images you can follow me on my YouTube channel.

Have you visited Conques? the Aveyron? What did you think of it? Don't hesitate to leave your impressions in the comments below. See you on my next visit 😁 !

See you soon,

David