Category Archives: Lighting
My Top-10 Hawaiian Sunsets
About 10 days ago I posted a picture of one of my favorite sunset shots that I took in Hawaii. You can view it here (Hawaiian Sunset at Turtle Bay Resort). In that blog post I explained that about 75% of my pictures from that trip were sunsets (but really, who can blame me?). So, today I am offering you a look at my top-10 favorite sunset shots that I took from that same Hawaii trip. How would you rank them?
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Please like, share, and comment if you enjoyed this post! Also, don’t forget to follow my blog for more photography from around the world!
Ben
Glowing Grafitti
A few weeks ago, I posted a blog post about the history of our ancient French monastery that has been passed down in our family for several generations. Click here if you want to read about it more and also look back and see the images I took of the Milky Way as well. The images below were taken on the same night. After dinner we decided to build a camp fire from scratch using one of the best fire starters, pine cones. We laughed, we drank, we then played with sticks of burning fire and acted like we were in the movie Highlander. Anyways, please like, share, and comment if you enjoyed these sweet pictures!
Hawaiian Sunset at Turtle Bay Resort
When I played college basketball at Chapman University, we took a 10-day trip to Oahu to play BYU Hawaii and Hawaii Pacific University. Fortunately, our program broke their budget a little bit and spoiled us student athletes by staying at the world famous Turtle Bay Resort for the entire stay and let me tell you, it was one hell of a basketball trip! Hawaii is such a magnificent place to photograph that I ended up with over 2,000 images after 10 days. Of which, 75% were sunsets. But who can blame me, Hawaii has some of the best sunsets in the world. This picture was taken from the main pool at Turtle Bay Resort. Please like, share, and comment if you enjoyed this picture!
Ben
Colorful Cannes
This is certainly one of my favorite shots I’ve taken since I’ve lived in Cannes. It really shows the energy and the dynamism of this condensed city on the French Riviera. The church on top of the hill is called the Notre-Dame de l’EspĂ©rance. It was completed back in 1648 and sits upon the Suquet hill in old Cannes. With a short trek up the hill, anyone can enjoy a breathtaking view of one of the most famous cities on the French Riviera. I have already been up there several times just to escape the busy lifestyle deep in the city. Click on the picture to see it in all of it’s glory. Please like, share, and comment if you enjoyed this post!
Ben
Rue d’Antibes: The World Famous Shopping Street in Cannes
Rue d’Antibes is the name of one of the most recognized shopping streets on the French Riviera. It houses some of the most luxurious brands in the world, but also has the very French, authentic shops to satisfy all sorts of different people that come visit. Located in the heart of Cannes, it is certainly one of the ‘must see’ things for tourists. It is walking distance to major landmarks such as the Palais des Festival, the Carlton Hotel, and ‘La Croisette’ which is a gorgeous boulevard that runs parallel to the Mediterranean Sea. I purposely took these pictures late at night because I wanted to highlight the beauty of the architecture. In fact, it is extremely rare to see the Rue d’Antibes this empty because it is usually bustling with hundreds of people during the day. Please like, share, and comment if you enjoyed this post! I will respond to every comment 🙂
Ben
Streets of the South
I have been passionate about photography since I was about 14 years old when I had the option to take classes at my Alma Mater, Agoura High School. It was a fantastic experience because the first year of Photography class were required to shoot in film. As much as I love digital, film photography is still one of the most fascinating processes and I recommend anyone to try it if you haven’t already. So as much as I enjoy capturing some of life’s most beautiful moments in a single, still photo, I have also developed a passion for producing short clips of fun adventures I do with my friends and family. There is no better feeling than getting people excited about something you created after spending hours on it. Aside from the excitement, these videos will also serve as wonderful memories when we will all be older.
This is my newest project that I shot 100% on my GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition. I have been working on it over the last month and I believe it was one of my better clips as an amateur filmmaker, especially considering the lack of equipment I own. I hope you will enjoy this just as much as my photography! Please like, share, and comment if you enjoyed the video! I will respond to you as soon as I can. (*Please watch in HD 1080p, video also available on Vimeo)
Ben
The Milky Way from an Ancient French Monastery
These photos were taken during July of 2012 without any sort of professional equipment, simply a Nikon D90 and a 10.2 mm lens. Of course, with a little bit of PhotoShop, the pictures came to life. As an amateur photographer, I was beyond excited with the results.
This location where the photos were taken, as we call it ‘Crouzet’, is located in the outskirts of a small village called Aubenas, France. The larger geographical area it is located in is called Ardèche. We roughly own 50 acres of the land around the building. Although it is hard to pinpoint exactly when it was built, it is believed to be around as far as the 14th century. During it’s long history, it first served as a monastery and then was later bought out and turned into a silk mill. The owner of the silk mill had two daughters and they happened to marry two Ricard brothers back in the early 1900s, which is how it fell into my family. Our tradition is to hand Crouzet to the first born son, and believe it or not, the first born child has been a boy in the Ricard family tree for as far as we know, and as the second born son, I am a little bit bitter about this tradition.
Today, we use this place as a vacation home during the Summer where we usually invite friends and family to stay with us for a week, or longer. Without TV or Internet, it truly is a therapeutic escape from life. I have retained some of my best childhood memories from Crouzet, and I hope to do the same for my children and grandchildren.
Please like and share if you enjoyed the blog post and the pictures. Comment if you would like to see more images from this magical place.
Ben
Cannes Intercontinental Hotel
The Cannes Intercontinental Hotel is recognized as the most famous hotel in Cannes and was built in 1911. It is the hotel of choice for movie stars during the Cannes Film Festival and also has made appearances in an Elton John music video (I’m Still Standing) and an Alfred Hitchcock film (To Catch a Thief). This picture was taken during a light rain on a chilly December night. I hope you enjoy this photo and feel free to comment and share with friends!
Ben
The 68th Annual Celebration of the Liberation of Cannes
It was just another night coming home from practice. While bumping my head to ‘Discotheque’ music on FUN radio about to turn into the street to head towards my parking structure, I then noticed an extraordinary amount of people. Picture the 4th of July in Newport Beach, but then add 2,000 more Italians. Yes, it was nuts. After 25 minutes of sitting in traffic within the city, I finally got to my parking structure. I ran to my room to shower and to grab my camera because something was going down. I was very fortunate to experience this because it was honestly breathtaking. Check out some of the pictures below!
The Liberation of Cannes is simply the day that French, American, and British forces, but mostly American forces (joke) took over control from the Germans during World War II. This celebration is not to be mistaken with Bastille Day which occurs on July 14 to celebrate the storming of Bastille which was used as a symbol of the uprising of France back in 1789.
I hope you enjoyed the post and I will gladly send you the original versions of the images if you wish.
Ben Ricard
Chapman University Loves Fountains
Only people that attend Chapman University will understand Chapman’s obsession with extravagant fountains such as this ‘Global Citizen’s Plaza’, which cost them a small amount of about $10 million. In fact, the fountain is gorgeous and I believe they built it because Chapman predicts this plaza to be the center of campus within the next couple decades. Talk about some nice curb appeal! I shot this picture with a Nikkor 10.5mm f2.8 fish-eye lens mounted on a tripod. It was one of the first images shot with my fish-eye.
As I said, Chapman loves fountains. This is the Fahmy Atallah Piazza that cost approximately $3.3 million, most of which is pure donations. This fountain is currently the center of campus and it represents the four pillars of Chapman’s education; intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual. This particular pillar, as you can see, represents the social pillar and each pillar is engraved with a quote from Fahmy’s poetry.
Ben Ricard Photography & Film 
