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.
“Dear old dirty London” isn’t so dirty any more, in fact it’s rather nice to come back to.
Home after a summer of much travelling to some fine places with exotic names, it’s time to enjoy London again; the city taken for granted by us Londoners but still mobbed by many tourists and people seeking better lives.
Starting from Barons Court, my local tube station (from where I have departed for so many adventures) the brick architecture and rounded design of the old trains seem friendly and warm compared with so much tech-look steel and concrete elsewhere; then meeting for coffee a friend in Foyles’ stylish new bookshop in Charing Cross Road, walking homewards from the burlesque of Chinatown, Leicester Square and Tottenham Court Road and through the monumental calm of the war memorials at Hyde Park Corner amidst the thunder not of guns but of the traffic.
St. Tropez,“The pearl of the French Riviera” according to the musical “La Cage aux folles”, hosts its regatta at the end of September each year. Past years have seen profusions of Russian and Greek oligarchs and their muscle-bulging bodyguards; this year it seems to be the the Germans who have the most noticeable presence in port, including prominent marketing stands from German car manufacturers. Strangely. Volkswagen weren't evident, though I did see an open-topped Beetle. The usual smattering of chic Italian and French visitors.
Travels in the forgotten worlds of the Dévoluy massif and the Valgaudemar valley in the Écrins massif of the Alpes-de-Haut-Provence. The exotic sounding names of the areas continue with the names of the mountains, my photos show the sunset around L'Obiou and the glacier on the peak known as Le Sirac. Both driving tours from a hotel in Corps, on the well-known Route Napoléon.
Sissinghurst Castle Gardens in Kent looking very much its summer best. The orchard, the gateway to the White Garden also the cottage garden and the hazel grove. The garden is the creation of author Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicholson to a layout designed by their friend Edmund Lutyens, is now open to the public and cared for by the National Trust.
Well worth even braving the south London traffic and also on this trip, we endured the traffic queues resulting from “Operation Stack M20”, the temporary lorry park on the M20 motorway due to the strikes at Calais.
See also Charleston Farmhouse, Sussex - June 2010
Dramatic sunset tonight viewed from flight BA 371 taking off from Marseille Provence airport at Marignane. The flight itinerary is peculiar at this time of the year in that the sunset appears to reverse as the plane flies roughly north-east, meaning the sun rises out of the sunset.
