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?)

2 hours later - # 58/2011

2 hours after dawn the sun is at a good angle to capture the magnificence of Old Menton, and the light begins to release the essence of the place.  Of course an early morning walk out to the end of the harbour breakwater to catch the colours as they change minute by minute and to take in the whole width of the town is what dedicated "real" photographers would be doing.

Sunrise out of Italy - # 57/2011

Having been away I don't have any images of Richmond to offer for the time being.  So, from Menton, thanks to the well-oriented balconies of the excellent Hotel Napoleon, here is an image of the dawn rising out of Italy.  Already, Genoa and Ventimiglia, behind the headland are bathed in morning light. The dawn is breaking over France and the town of Menton.  For a few minutes the sky is liquid gold. The border is formed by the mountains as they form the headland sweeping down the sea, all nice and neat, to divide Italy from France.  The road and railway to Italy must pass through the tunnel.

Girl on a motorcycle - # 56/2011

All over France girls are riding motorcycles. They ride them in Britain, too - but not like in France.  The best shot of all (which, of course I missed) was the girl in high heels on a motorcycle! Lesson.....never switch off the camera , and never put on the lens cover until the very end of the day. Next time I go to France I plan to photograph absolutely nothing but girls on motorcycles. I'll just sit by a road for 2 weeks and snap away. Every snap will be a winner.

'roony's big day out - # 08/75

Yesterday Mrs 'roony allowed 'roony to go to Paris on Eurostar to meet Peter http://peter-pho2.blogspot.com/ and Richard http://zurich.dailyphoto.forthmedia.com/dailyphoto/ for a full and frank exchange of views. The French got wind of this and staged a riot at the Gare du Nord which delayed the high speed train by almost 20 minutes (such is the efficiency of the French riot police who are used to this everyday minor occurrence).

My two "pics of the day" are this moody (slightly shaky) but none the less representative shot of the magnificent staircase in the Opera and below a detail of the grand dome in the recently restored and totally stunning "Belle Epoque" style Galleries Lafayette department store.

Peter and Richard were delightful companions and 'roony returned tired but grateful to the French riot police for all they had done to make his trip successful.

Running away from big trees - # 364

We'll make this the last of the shots of the enormous (I reckon they must be at least 200 years old - bear with me, and I will ask the Council's tree department) plane trees.

Thanks are owed to the "French School" for their kind comments. I'm sure that in France these trees would have been "pollarded" and held within some rather tight "rational" limits that conform to "Theory" rather than "Common Sense". Please allow me my small "John Bull" joke about our beloved conquerors who arrived in 1066 and decided to stay.

I read the other day a nice, perceptive comment in an authoritative journal........"Success in either France or Britain tends to drive the one or the other into a frenzy of productive anger and competition that has a beneficial outcome". Indeed, what would Britain be without France?

It was ever thus: an essay on thieves - # 141

Karl Moritz's coach has moved off towards Chiswick on the road to Richmond.

The passengers inside the stage coach are trapped by a bore who starts of by sounding interesting and then becomes annoying. Do read the episode for yourself. Karl gives this man five paragraphs, and so, some unknown "know-all" Brit passes into history and becomes famous.

..."The man who was with us in the coach pointed out to us the country seats of the lords and great people by which we passed; and entertained us with all kind of stories of robberies which had been committed on travellers, hereabouts; so that the ladies at last began to be rather afraid; on which he began to stand up for the superior honour of the English robbers, when compared with the French: the former he said robbed only, the latter both robbed and murdered."............