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).

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.

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.

Listening to His Master's Voice - # 106/10

Menton Daily Photo has today kindly made a reference to Nipper, HMV, and this blog.

Here is a painting of Nipper, listening intently, in the Toilet Gallery (art gallery) sited in a converted toilet in Nipper Alley, Kingston upon Thames.

From the Dogger Bank to Trafalgar via Tyne, and right across the Med - # 09/161

Hugely bad weather sweeps across the whole of Europe and the British Isles - torrential rain and wind.

So here's a rather dramatic looking shot of the Les Alpes Maritimes behind Menton taken last Summer. 

Farewell to Menton - # 09/64

Please click on the Menton link in the righthand side bar to see other selected shots of the Menton trip, taken by my fellow bloggers. Here is my farewell shot, taken on the Olympus C7070 wz compact, as we had our last hours together in the hill-top village of Gorbio.

From now on, I must return to focus on addressing Richmond, and try not to go ranging around on the hunt for other locations.

However, it's quite clear why the British "took over" the Cote d'Azur after they discovered it when making their "Grand Tours" in the 18th and 19th Centuries. The climate is indeed delightful.

What you get when you go to Menton - # 09/63

I've been moving about and having a rest from featuring Richmond (naughty, but sometimes one needs a change of scene and the opportunity to experiment).

This week end I enjoyed the excellent hospitality of Jilly from Menton http://menton-daily-photo.blogspot.com/ , Richard from Zurich http://blog.richardtugwell.com/index.cfm , Nathalie from Avignon http://avignon-in-photos.blogspot.com/ and Peter from Paris http://peter-pho2.blogspot.com/ .

Lemon trees line the streets of Menton. This lemon was picked in a Menton garden on Saturday.