France Day 10 Les Baux de Provence

May 22, 2013 Timothy Price2 Comments

Yesterday was a free day, so we did laundry, then our hostess drove us to the TGV station where we got our tickets back to Paris on the 28th and where we picked up a rental car for the rest of the week. After talking to locals and getting recommendations of places to see, Laurie and I decided we needed to rent a car so we could get out in the countryside and really explore the area. So we are still going to the same places as the class, but we are going to do a lot more exploring. After we picked up the car, we drove out to Les Baux de Provence, an old fortified city built on top of a rock at a pass in the hills, which was highly recommended. You can only get there by car or hired tour bus.

Baux is a popular village. There were a lot of people visiting the village, a lot of large groups of bicyclists slowly making their way up the hills into the city, and lots of tour buses. We parked in the village in the valley below Baux and walked up on the the stone stairways that brought us to gate 6. Just below the gate there were areas where buildings had been built into the rock that were now just cutouts in the rock that reminded us of the cliff dwellings at Bandelier National Monument. We were going to go into the old fort that would have given us access to the highest points on the ruins of the old fortification, but two or three groups of about 100 schools kids were going in, so that slowed down the process of getting in, and we had limited time as we had to get back by 6:00 at the latest for cooking class.

There are a lot of shops and restaurants tucked into odd shaped places and on terraces. We ate crepes in the narrow, almost triangular building (photos 7, 8, 9). It was pretty late so we and another person were the only people in the restaurant. The crepes were excellent and while were eating, the waitress and cook where busy bringing things in and taking things out the door. When we left, they had set up an ice-cream machine and slush machines and had a soft drinks available on the street. The weather was cool, but I’m sure when all those kids came back through after touring the fort, she would get a lot of business.

We also stopped and explored some of the vinyards and olive groves along the way, and I got my first French drive-by photo of the shark on the truck — the drives can be quite wild in France, but drivers seem quite wild everywhere. BTW we are driving the VW Up! to the left of the Mini Cooper in the second to the last photo.

France Day 7 Aix Art in the Rain

May 19, 2013May 19, 2013 Timothy Price21 Comments

We left the house at 9:00 am in pouring rain, walked around Aix all day in the pouring rain, visited a museum, a couple of artists, a bridge, a garden, a spa built over old Roman baths, photographed Death at a wedding, and got food and coffee in the pouring rain. We went to a Mass with confirmation of adults by the Archbishop at the Aix Cathedral the evening, and finally got home at 11:00 pm, cold and wet. The photos are in order of the day, with the exception of the Tapestry Museum where I couldn’t take photos.

The tapestries were of scenes from Don Quijote, and they had a show of photographs by Roland Leboye, a French photographer who has taken Cartier Bresson’s “the decisive moment” to the extreme! Leboye’s street photography was wonderful and often very funny.

The giant insects are by a local artist from Aix.

The piles of paper and paper skull are part of a Paper Art installation we ran across by chance, and the arch Laurie is standing under is at the end of the courtyard were the Paper Art was.

We stayed in the tapestry museum until around noon, so by the time we got done looking at the insects and paper art, we got some food and hung out and ate and drank coffee until it was time to go to the art installation to meet the artist.

We got to the studio and installation of artwork by Nicole Catannéo about 2:15, met Nicole and Laurie discussed art and life with her and another older woman, in French, for over an hour. Nicole has quite a story as she had an illness when she was in her 40’s which left her partially paralyzed, and then her husband died when she was in her 50’s. She got herself together and went to art classes, and now creates wonderful paintings. She and Laurie really hit it off.

After the studio, we got another coffee for some warmth and energy, and headed toward the gardens at the northwestern edge of Aix. We walked through the modern shopping area on the western side of Aix, but when we got to the planted bridge, we were too far west and had to backtrack. We finally got to the gardens and found a bathroom on the grounds which had one of the “hole in the floor” fixtures. The garden was formal with mostly grass, but it had a nice rose garden behind the main garden. It also has a mansion with a museum, but they were closing when we got up to it. The mansion has a interesting entrance.

We stopped by a spa the is built over some old Roman baths to see what it cost to do the spa and get a message — about 100€ for both and 60€ for a 30 minute message.

On our way back to the center of Aix to find some food before we went to Mass, we walked by the cathedral and there was a VW and an Audi decorated for a wedding. Sophie told me that the Saturday before Pentecost was a big day for weddings in Aix, and we saw cars from 3 different weddings. While we waited for the bride and groom to come out, death walked by the VW.

After getting a bite to eat, we got to the cathedral at 7:30, an hour before the service to get good seats. We ended up siting more in the middle because the seats in front were occupied by the folks being confirmed, which looked to be well over 100 people plus their parents, bothers, sisters, husbands, wives; whoever was presenting them to the priest and Archbishop. The service was good, and the music was fantastic with the pipe organ and choral music. Laurie and I saw Matilda, the Brasilian who told us about it after the service, and we shook hands with the Archbishop on the way out. The boy in the last photo was cutting up during most of the service with a couple other boys. He looked quite shocked when the Archbishop stopped, put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, and blessed him at the end of the service.

Blue Flame and Candy

March 15, 2013 Timothy Price5 Comments

A couple of Harleys parked downtown and The Fusion Factory.

666 Route 66

March 8, 2013 Timothy Price13 Comments

Today is my 666th consecutive post since I moved to Word Press. The number 666 is dear to me because I woman once called me the Antichrist in a public meeting (I really, really made her mad). Later I used the same formula that Boris used in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” to add up the numbers that corresponded to the letters in his name to see what they added up to, which turned out to be 666, making him think he was the Antichrist. Guess what? The numeric values of my full name also added up to 666. But it’s all for fun, as Nero was thought to be the Antichrist referred to in the Book of Revelations, and apparently, the Mark of the Beast could be 606 or 616, so all the superstition about 666 may all be for naught. The State of NM changed NM Highway 666 between Gallup and Shiprock to US Highway 491 a few years ago so they wouldn’t be mixing church and state.

So when Bruce and I were discussing what I should do for photos for this special post, he gave me the idea to google 666 Route 66. There are were actually four choices between SW, NW, SE and NE depending on which side on Central Avenue your on, east or west of the railroad tracks. East of the tracks was a hotel or the building the Baptist Convention used to be in. West of the tracks is El Rey Theater and a parking lot. If the Baptist Convention was still at 666 Route 66, that building would have been the photo of the day, but it’s a boring building and I have no history with it. So the El Rey got it. I go way back with the El Rey. When I was a kid I went to movies there, and about 20 years ago we went to see a band friend liked — the band sucked but our friend was entertaining. Around the same time, we went to a couple of salsa dances, performed flamenco, and we went to concert by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones at the El Rey. Bela Fleck was fantastic and he changed my opinion of the banjo forever. I still get mail from the Flecktones every now and then.

At lunchtime Bruce and I walked over to the El Rey Theater and he posed for me on the spot that would be 666 Route 66 SW. I used a super-wide angle lens, which made Bruce look a little like the Terminator, which was perfect. The we went around behind the building to find the back wall colorfully painted with an outline of the Virgin de Guadalupe on a back door — super! Then we photographed our way back to the office through the well painted and graffitied alleys.

Another Day, Another Rose

February 11, 2013 Timothy Price3 Comments

I know there is a bit of “déjà vu all over again” in today’s spread, but the roses were speaking to me, and another super-wide photo of the cleared property with a bare cottonwood and a stormy sky was too much to resist. The late afternoon sun shining through the bird’s coleus created interesting patterns, as well.

Moon, Clouds, Ring

January 24, 2013January 24, 2013 Timothy Price10 Comments

With an almost full moon and light cloud cover, there was a nice ring around the moon with the brighter stars visible through the clouds. Jupiter is shining bright at 1 o’clock, and Orion’s belt is barely visible between 3 and 4 o’clock. This series has three exposures take 3 minutes apart with a 17mm lens at ISO 400.

The first photo was taken at 7:27 pm MST (Mountain Standard Time) at ƒ/5.6 for 15 seconds. The clouds are slightly soft from their moving during the 15 second exposure.

The second photo was taken at 7:30 pm MST at ƒ/11 for 30 seconds. The clouds are softer, the moon appears smaller with a slight starburst.

The third photo was taken at 7:33 pm MST at ƒ/16 for 30 seconds. The moon appears to be even smaller, with a better defined starburst. More of the night sky comes through the clouds and if you look carefully, you will see the ghost of a contrail from a jet that flew below Jupiter and over the top of the moon during the exposure.

Quadrantids Meteor Shower Fail

January 4, 2013January 4, 2013 Timothy Price9 Comments

I got out my big tripod, got all bundled up, put on my 17-40mm super-wide angle lens, snapped a self portrait, and headed out into the sub-freezing temperatures to attempt to photograph the Quadrantids Meteor Shower last night starting at 9:30 pm, thinking I could get photos in the darkness before the moon came up at 11:00 pm. But when I got outside, I discovered there was a light cloud cover reflecting a lot of light off the city from the south, southeast. I followed the suggestions about how to photograph meteor showers on Spacedex.com’s Meteor Shower Guides, but it looks like I failed to capture anything but stars, planets and clouds. After an hour making exposures from different angles, I got pretty cold and went back inside. I woke up at 2:15 am, bundled up in the dark and went out the front door and tried some exposures from the front porch. The moon, at 65% full, was up to about 10 o’clock in the southeastern sky, so I made my exposures looking west and north. I got a nice shot of the Dig Dipper in the northern skies at 2:30 am, but again failed to get anything that looked like a meteors.