Autumn Light in Brittany – Reflections, Dew and Coastal Landscapes
Autumn Light in Brittany – Reflections, Dew and Coastal Landscapes
Reflections, dew and backlight along the Breton coast. This photographic journey through the Côtes d’Armor reveals the poetic light of the region, between beaches, lighthouses, and mineral textures.
During a stay with friends in the Côtes d’Armor region of Brittany, we were fortunate to enjoy clear skies and exceptional autumn light. The low sun on the horizon created soft golden contrasts—ideal for landscape photography.
Highlights of this visual journey included: the harbor of Gwin Zegal, Pointe de Bilfot, and the Sillon de Talbert, three emblematic locations along this coastal region.
In Plouha, the harbor of Gwin Zegal is a unique mooring site: around forty oak piles driven into the sand where boats are tied. At low tide, the barnacle-covered trunks emerge like the remnants of a sunken forest. Until now, I had only seen this place at high tide, when the posts appear suspended in a sea smoothed by a long exposure. You can discover that minimalist rendering in this article: Brittany Landscapes in Long Exposure.
This time, the stagnant puddles on the beach, to the left of the harbor, reflected the sky and clouds, adding a poetic dimension to low-angle compositions. The Nikon Z5, with its tilting screen, allowed me to compose close to the water without lying down in the brisk 15°C air.
The next morning, I used the same approach to photograph dew on the lawn in the garden. I initially used a Viltrox EF-Z adapter to mount a Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 non-stabilized lens on the Nikon Z5. Since then, I’ve replaced that adapter with a much more reliable Fringer EF-NZ II, which I now use with a Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L tilt-shift lens. I particularly appreciated Fringer’s responsiveness—following the Nikon Z8’s firmware 3.0 update, they released a fix for this adapter in under 48 hours. The result here: shallow depth of field and a beautiful backlit bokeh, revealing thousands of luminous droplets.
This Nikon/Canon combo also accompanied me to the Sillon de Talbert, where I captured wild grasses and mineral rocks in backlight. One of them, in its raw form, evoked sculpted stones from the American desert. The Sillon de Talbert is a 3 km coastal spit formed by sand and pebbles, shaped by the opposing currents of the Trieux and Jaudy rivers—a unique and fragile landscape.
Finally, during a hike along the GR34 trail between Porz Donan (Plouézec) and Pointe de Bilfot, a ray of sunlight pierced through the clouds to illuminate a cliff and the Ost Pic lighthouse. A fleeting, almost theatrical scene that I tried to capture in its luminous simplicity.
Purchase a fine art print of the dew drop photograph, limited to 30 copies,
from the fine art photography gallery Une image pour rêver.
Author: Sebastien Desnoulez is a professional photographer specializing in landscape photography. He captures natural light and evolving atmospheres with a sensitive and technical approach. Learn more.
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