Travel
I'm lucky enough to travel a lot but I also aim to understand a place in some depth. So I like to find out about the local history, sociology, wildlife and local arts. I prepare for a trip by looking up photos of the famous sights, they're usually a good guide both about the local visual interest and also a warning of what has already been done or over-done.
I try to use the tools of modern photojournalism and photography to communicate how I feel about a place. You’ll see that I have used Portrait, Street, Interior, Historical, Abstract, Landscape, Historical, Wildlife, Phone-camera and Selfie genres at different times for specific effects.
We drove up Mont Ventoux, the giant limestone mountain that towers over Provence. The summit, 1909m., has a radio communications tower which is an inaccessible military installation painted red and white like a lighthouse. The television signal broadcast from there went fully-digital in July 2011, which made useless a generation of French television receivers.
The view is truly panoramic with 360° visibility over all of Provence laid out below like the folds of a crumpled tablecloth: the delta of the Rhône river and the Carmarge, the Étang de Berre and over to the Garrigues of Nîmes. Also the massif of the Vercors, The view of the Alps includes Mont Pelvoux and the massif of the Ecrins, Mont Blanc several hundred kilometres away and Mont Visio, itself a couple of hundred kilometres away, on the border with Italy.
The sky seems almost as dark blue as the view from earth orbit!
Our hired Audi A1 was good fun to drive the roads that once were a famous motor racing hill climb course (Course-de-Côte du Mont-Ventoux) but are now more renowned with the pedal cyclists.
Just half a day's drive East from Beaune, the French Jura are the low limestone mountains where the land finally stops being France before the Alps rise up from Lac Leman/Lake Geneva.
A refreshing breath of clear air, with vista of lakes and trees, These days the gentle Jura is the province of beef, veal and dairy cattle, precision industries like watch-making and spectacles having been lost to cheaper territories.
And the calves are fitted with an interesting nose-ring which maybe helps them graze deeper in to the green grass.
A comfortable stay in Beaune gave us a useful base to explore Bourgogne (Burgundy) and to enjoy the fine wines and fine food of the region, but not too much - we saw some corpulent tourists also enjoying the town. Fine Aligoté, St Romain and Haut Côtes de Beaune, among others. But not the Nuits St Georges... maybe next time!
Beaune is a major tourist destination so although there was a warm welcome in some places, there was also the distancing of professional hotel management.
Fine weather and splendid food here in Beaujolais and Macon, just north of Lyon. The weather has even been clear enough to see Mont Blanc far away across the valley of the river Saone and several ranges of lesser mountains. Also in my postcard are views of the churches at Paray-le-Monial and Tournus and the golden-coloured vines in the vineyards above Beaujeu.
Postcard of some views of Birmingham this morning: the rebuilt city centre around Victoria Square contrasts neoclassical architecture with a mixture of modern styles.
Birmingham city centre is built on a number of hills: the layout of the streets is far from a regular pattern, following the contours and weaving around its canals, its earliest form of industrial transport. The railway cuts directly underneath the city centre, through tunnels and with New Street railway station under layers of concrete.
Yet Birmingham's architecture is relentlessly rectilinear in contrast, even the sixties cylinder of the Bull Ring tower has a rectangular grid of office windows mapped on its outer surface. Dhruva Mistry's scuptures of monumental sphinxes therefore stand out in contrast.
