Blue - # 65/2011

Walking through Ventimiglia Old Town.

Yellow - # 64/2011

A quick trip across the border from France into the pleasant town of Ventimiglia, Italy, continues to show the style of Mediterranean life as we know it.  But climate change is making the area drier and drier.  Perhaps in 150 yrs from now it will be more like Muscat, Oman, with desalination plants and high energy consumption to power air cooling systems.  

Fun in the night - # 63/2011

I've already mentioned the how the Old Town of Menton lends itself to night photography. One evening I went out with Jilly of Menton DP and we wandered about practicing with tripods and ISOs and exposures and white balances and all those other engagingly exciting things that go with night photography.


The pleasing tonality of this scenes goes without saying, but the really totally exciting thing is the spaghetti of electrical wiring and plumbing above the steps in the doorway. If anything sums up France, this is it!! Weirdly ingenious and successfully functional in spite of itself and its quirky character.  (Well, aren't we all a bit weird?)

Cote d'Az dreams - # 62/2011

It's all too easy to over-romanticise and falsely idolise the Cote d'Azur, but it's also very easy to understand how it got and how it keeps its good reputation.  For me this is a delightful scene that any Englishman fed up with the grey British winter will long to see and enjoy.  Early morning, delightfully fresh before the day warms up. The scent of the bushes and plants. The sound of a torrent rushing down the canyon from the mountains. A terrace garden, high up and looking out towards the Mediterranean Sea where the blue sky is reflected. (I took lots and lots photos of this same scene with the hanging bird table, trying to capture the essence. I didn't get exactly what I was trying for, but so far this is the nearest).

The Buggy - # 61/2011

I can't take Monte Carlo seriously. It's a bit of frivolous fun but it's not real. What serious person would do the week-end shopping on the High Street in this vehicle? (Well, ummmm, I might!).

Menton nostalgia - # 60/2011

Colour film was almost non existant and a priceless miracle of chemistry in the 1930s and 40s. When I was a child I remember my excitement looking at Mother's old snaps and her showing me her little box of photo colouring pencils.  I was entranced by the delicate colouring and the magical effect it had on the photo. I was eager to try it and remember the thrill of quick and realtively easy success, achieving a powerful effect for little effort.

This Menton street scene seemed ripe for some "creative" treatment, so I simply clicked on "Creative - Aged Photo" in Lightroom, and suddenly realised that in a micro-second, with one click, I had more or less achieved what my Mother did while passing the winter hours, looking through her photos, lovingly colouring them and listening to a grammophone record or the wireless: no television in those days!! It existed but was, like colour film, a priceless marvel of technology yet to be widely available.

Menton Old Town - night - # 59/2011

A night-time foray up through the Old Town yielded this. (Not the finest of night time shots, but it still captures some of the atmosphere and the pleasing tonality of a night time-walk through the alleys - actually that's "climb" not walk.)

I've been neglecting the blog and my loyal "lurkers".  I'm quite precoccupied weeding and reorganising my photo collection and still trying to short out my strenuous physical exercise programme to try to overcome the limitations caused by my fall on the ice at Christmas 16 months ago.