We spent the morning in Annecy and were bemused by this lovely little French city. Although it did take us an hour to decide that yes, we will pay 11 euro each for our lunch because we're really really hungry now!
French bookshops there mostly sell books in French. I was despondent, as I think I might have loved reading so many of the authors displayed however it was all very impossible. I bought postcards and wrote one to my Dad while stuck in the traffic jam 'home'.
A glimpse of Annecy ...
Today I wandered along a 300 metre wooden walkway, 60 metres above a limestone gorge of churning water ...
But it was beautiful there.
We moved locations yesterday, driving some 250kms, heading for the foothills of the French Alps. And I am quietly excited because, after so many years of reading climbing literature, I shall finally visit Mont Blanc. A testing point for so many of the climbers I read.
This new gite is a quirky little cottage, 3-stories high and about 3 metres wide. It's more like a wilderness cottage in New Zealand, in some ways but still, there's a log fire burning, we cooked dinner in the tiny kitchen, we have free internet and there's tv too.
But more than anything, I am stunned by how like the Queenstown/Fiordland area this place is. We arrived in 27 celsius yesterday, I was completely destroyed by the huge pollen count - late Springs can do this they tell me. Our car was coated in pollen when we parked in Annecy. Thankfully the rain rolled in, we've even heard some thunder roll around in the mountains beside us ... and rain, blessed rain. It took the temperature down to 13 celsius and washed away the pollen.
But my idea of mountains, much to Gert's amusement, is that they should always be draped in fog and clouds. They're at their best that way. There's a creek running near the house, the rain beat down most of the afternoon, the birds sung, taking over from the cicadas who had greeted us.
Nature is alive and well in this corner of France and I have to admit, I'm really impressed by it all. The photograph was taken from the top floor of the cottage. Tomorrow and Tuesday shall involve much exploring and, quite probably, many more photographs.
Au revoir.
I found this cup, 'made in France', the sales woman told me, as I paid 10 euro for it in her beautiful little shop in Dijon. Have a peek inside Au bois d'Amourette
It's exquisite in real life, just big enough for my espresso ...
Truly, 'the end of the world' is the name of this exquisite little place, tucked away in the hills behind Nolay, Bourgogne. Gert thought it would be an idea to stand behind the waterfall to give a sense of scale. I agreed but didn't volunteer myself.
The lovely thing is that I am finding New Zealand landscapes all over France. We moved locations today... closer to the mountains between France and Italy. As I sit here, I'm looking out over fields, over the alps, covered in bush as most of the snow is gone. There's a log fire burning next to me.
Log fire because after a day of 27 celsius some thunderstorms are rolling in for 24 hours. It just might be spectacular out here, at least until the summer sun returns tomorrow. I'm glad. I either have a stinkin' cold or terrible hayfever. I'm not a creature who likes taking any kind of medication and so the suffering has been quite intense ... perhaps more so for Gert but he doesn't have a blog and so ... you can't know ;-)
Meanwhile I am rereading the essay at the start of Hermann Hesse's book, 'The Glassbead Game' ... noting that his character Fritz Tegularius is his interpretation of the brilliant but unbalanced character of Friedrich Nietzsche and that Thomas von der Trave is a detailed and easily recognisable portrait of Thomas Mann.
Vive la France!
Here I am, sitting at the table you see in the photograph below. The air is soft and warm already, so early in the morning, the sky blue, and we're preparing to wander out into another day.
Writing ... the internet ... they are forms of meditation for me. Out here in Bourgogne, I am loving the sensations of this outdoor writing and reading life.
Everyday we spend long hours wandering, exploring so there's a balance I love. Today we're back in Beaune, tidying things up as we prepare to move closer to my beloved mountains tomorrow. I shall finally visit Mont Blanc, a mountain I read of so often in the climbing literature devoured over the years. And that is what makes leaving this little oasis of peace and beauty bearable.
A glimpse of here ...
In 910, William the Pious, Duke of Aquitaine, founded an abbey under the patronage of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, accountable directly to the Pope. The abbey grew considerably until the 12th century thanks to abbots like Odilo and Hugh of Semur, who were later canonised.
Cluny was the mother house for over 1,000 monasteries and became the headquarters of the largest monastic order in the West: the Cluniac order.
And that is where we wandered today.
Bourgogne is confusing me. There is so much here. You drive 6kms and you feel you have arrived in another country ... sometimes, another time. And we have driven so many kilometres, slowly, wandering through time and space in ways I'm not sure I've traveled before.
Cluny Abbey was a Benedictine Monastery that played a hugely influential role throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. It had the highest arches in the Roman world and was the biggest church in Christianity.
Sadly French revolutionaries destroyed this incredible site in 1790. Still, it was a pleasure to wander there, learning of its history, enjoying what had survived and/or been restored.
I turned a corner searching for the 3D film room they promised us and found the corridor below there in front of me. This is simply a snapshot but I love that it captured something of the beauty that is still the Cluny Abbey.
I find myself comparing the landscapes here in Bourgogne to those back in New Zealand. Although, surely, that is the fate of the wanderer. I find myself always layering memories of places I've lived or visited over where ever I am in the now. Looking for some kind of 'fit' or familarity.
Some mornings I wake up in Antwerp and I smell that particular smell, that heavy-traffic pollution smell, first discovered in Los Angeles, a familiar scent back in Istanbul and now, oftentimes, there it is in Antwerp.
Here in Bourgogne it is the geography ... the lay of the land. The vineyards that run as far as the eye can see, the hills, the lush fields. The air is good. And somehow the cloud formations make me imagine the coast or a huge lake is somewhere close by. It's big sky country where we are.
Chateaus and castles are everywhere. Sunday was spent wandering le Château de Cormatin. Rather exquisite it was ... no echoes of 'home'. It was particular and surely an example of 'someplace else'. Unimagined. Unknown.
Evenings, and I've been relaxing with a short tv series out of New Zealand, Top of the Lake. A Jane Campion creation. I'm hooked but find the storyline disturbing. However the scenery is so beautifully familiar. Two episodes to go ... Salon.com has promised a 'superb finale'. Let's see how that goes.
And now? Sunshine and Bourgogne are calling me.
Off and wandering.
After 4 days off-off-line, here I am ... posting a snapshot of a dinner we made in Bourgogne, France.
This region is beautiful. Really beautiful.
I'm using my small travel laptop and I'm really not sure about the screen. I know there's a problem with a strange kind of film over all of the images I view on it so ... I will post snapshots, tell you some stories, and wait to process the best of the beauty when I am home again.
There were problems with the colour in this image. It's heading toward midnight, and I decided to play a while in Photoshop.
I have a more natural, unprocessed image of the same child but photoshop can be so much fun. It took me into a world that felt like art, beyond the art of photography.
This is why I love my 70-200mm lens.
People forget you're there and you can get shots like this...
I captured them, just as they were escaping the party ...
The common name dandelion (/ˈdændɨlaɪ.ən/ DAN-di-ly-ən, from French dent-de-lion, meaning "lion's tooth") is given to members of the genus, and like other members of the Asteraceae family, they have very small flowers collected together into a composite flower head. Each single flower in a head is called a floret. Many Taraxacum species produce seeds asexually by apomixis, where the seeds are produced without pollination, resulting in offspring that are genetically identical to the parent plant.
I looked up and there he was, running back towards us ...
Something about this makes me smile, makes me want to seek out the perfect words to go with it but perhaps there are no words. Perhaps there is just this.
Chi trova un amico trova un tesoro.
Usually, when I head out to a photo-shoot, it's a new location, new people, new light.
Most times, nothing is known or certain ... it's a new beginning.
I don't use lights, I demand nothing from people. I don't have a routine.
Each person, each family, each event is like an individual fingerprint and so I can't ask for the same thing.
I want them to be as they are, wear what they love, and I like it if they can take me to their favourite place.
Sometimes I check in to see if this way of working scares me. But it doesn't. It seems to be the thing I love doing best, that attempt to capture people as they are.
And anyway, I get to meet people like Steven and Isabel and that ... that is treasure, to be sure.
Translation: He who finds a friend, finds a treasure.
I've photographed a few family groups lately and it has been the love that has stood out, more than what they wore, where they were.
It's all about the love.
Sometimes you look up, just in time to see someone out there is about to photograph you ...
Meet the lovely creature I was photographing on the occasion of her First Communion.
In the past decade a new generation of photographers has directed the documentary approach toward more personal ends. Their aim has been not to reform life, but to know it.
John Szarkowski, photographer, curator, historian, and critic.
To know life. I thought, 'Yes! That describes how I approach photography. To know life, to attempt to capture slices of it, with my camera.
To slip into the midst of it, to disappear, and to come away with images where my presence was forgotten.
I'm a minimalist when it comes to photo-editing however this series require nothing.
They are as they are. He is as he is.
