For my narrative picture essay I have decided to document our anniversary weekend break to Ghent in Belgium. Ghent is a beautiful city with much to see. Canals, Cathedrals and a very attractive medieval quarter provide for the cultural side of the visit whilst the many bars and restaurants provide entertainment.
Ghent is a university town and is becoming a very popular tourist attraction. We travelled there by car using the Channel Tunnel.
Before we went I made the made a note of shots which I took with me. They were as follows:
- Setting of in the morning - show the car and either bags, the time or the sat nav with Ghent as the destination
- The channel tunnel - to show the way we are crossing the channel.
- driving through France to Belgium - maybe a shot of the border?
- Arrival in Ghent - a landmark to show we have arrived.
- The hotel.
- Things we do in Ghent.
- A flavour of the holiday atmosphere in the town centre.
I managed to capture most of the images I needed but did fail to get one or two important ones, such as a shot to specify that we were in Ghent.
Anyway, we set off with a shot of the Channel Tunnel. It is pretty difficult to take pictures in this area as you are confined to your car so this shot was taken through the car window with a compact camera. In my notes I had put a shot of bags or luggage as we set of in the morning, but this didn't add anything to the story that couldn't be deduced from the following shots.
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| Boarding the Channel Tunnel. |
The next image is of the car on the train in the Channel Tunnel. This symbolises the short trip across to France.
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| Making the crossing. |
Again in my notes I had the border crossing but as it turned out there was not anywhere to stop! Again we took shots through the car window with the compact camera. None were that good but I needed a shot and this was the best one. In my picture montage at the end of this piece, I have hidden the quality of this image but setting it as a background.
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| Entering Belgium. |
We have now arrived at the hotel. Although there is no sign that actually says Hotel I believe this is clear from the location of this photograph in the sequence and from the interior of the building.
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| The hotel. |
Now a bit of a jump. Here (or before the last image) I should have had a sign or something with the word 'Ghent' to show the city we were in. With this missing we go straight to a shot of a typical building and crowds of people sitting on the waterfront.
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| Typical buildings and masses of tourists. |
Now showing a more modern street view which also conveys the faster pace of this part of the area.
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| Busy town centre. |
Ghent has award winning illuminations which are shown here in the most popular part of the city to visit. This is also a glimpse of the many restaurants and bars.
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| Ghent in the evening. |
The next three images are grouped to show some of the other types of attractions to visit. The tower houses a museum dedicated to bells and also allows visitors to see the clock mechanism.
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| The Belfort. |
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| The clock mechanism. |
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| One of the cast bells. |
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| More bells in the bell museum. |
Below I have tried to select images to tell the story over three pages. The three pages roughly outline different parts of the journey, namely travelling & accommodation in the first page, the tourist element in the second and finally the historic aspect.
Conclusion
This was good fun and highlighted some of the problems you may come across, even with a photo script. Some of the images were impossible to get, like the border shots. Others I think I may have been able to get in different circumstances. Another point that this exercise highlighted is that it is not always possible to go back if you don't get what you need to in the first instance.
