My girlfriend and I recently took a trip to France. First we visited Nantes and then Paris. There was only one reason for being in Nantes and it was to visit Le Machine de L’Ile. These are the people who think up such crazy events as the Sultan’s Elephant, La Princesse in Liverpool and Japan, and so on. They do insane things on a stupidly large scale.

So there we are walking over the bridge on our way to their museum and I’m moaning about how its 12:30pm and not the best light of the day. As we get closer to their museum we see a giant elephant break through some trees. Well there goes any issues I had with light. A 12m tall elephant walking around old ship building warehouses and a dock, that has to be photographed. I get stuck in with my 14-24 and all of a sudden I’m drenched in water. That’s the elephant’s party piece. Good job I took the D700 not my Leica.

Its seriously incredible. 12m high. 50 tonnes and driven by a 400 horse power motor. Over the next few days I’ll be showing some of the amazing things we saw there. The sheer insanity of seeing a giant elephant stomping through a ship yard, their next project ‘The Sea Worlds Carousel’ and the stupidly complex ‘The Heron Tree’. These guys are mad and I love that.

In other news, I wrote a few words on HDR for Photoshelter’s discussion on whether its a gimmick or not.