Given that today is the day I make my journey back to the United States (which will make my cat very unhappy, but this time he’s traveling with me as a carry-on, not in the cargo pet area, so he might be a bit less stressed this time), I am posting two photos, with relatively little commentary.

The first is a view down the street where my apartment in France was located. This photo is from the opposite angle than the first image I posted of rue Hector Berlioz. That particular picture of my street was one of the first I took with my new digital SLR. The image here was taken with my other digital camera, which while it isn’t an SLR is more than serviceable enough. The vast majority of cameras are sufficient for almost any non-specialized purpose; it is the subject and composition that make a great photograph, not the equipment.

As in the majority of the other images in this series, I have not changed the contrast or light levels, only the size.

A larger version will appear in a pop-up window if you click on the photo below.

This second image is of the Garden Park, or Parc du Jardin; this park was visible from the windows in the living room of my apartment in Grenoble. About ten yards to the right of the line of lights is the street in the photo above.

Black and white seemed appropriate both for this image in terms of composition along with serving as an emotional tag for the end of my sojourn in France and noting my journey back to the United States, prompted by the serious illness of my father.

Again, the thumbnail is linked to a larger image if you click it.

If all goes according to plan, I leave Grenoble by train at 5:00AM local time for a journey that will take me through Paris to Cincinnati then finally to Austin at around 8:00PM at that location, a total of about 22 hours travel time into a new life. Even though I am returning to where I came from one year and seven months ago, both the place from whence I came and I myself have changed.

As was written once in a brilliant book: And so it goes.

Technorati Tags: letters from Europe, photography, photos, photos of Europe, photos of Grenoble, pictures

A group of people who work at the site where I had my expatriate assignment started a loose association of people interested in photography. The goal was to improve our skills at photography by choosing a subject that we would critique each persons photos of at the next gathering.

I wrote about the initial topic chosen, nature in the city, back when I first posted a photo of my favorite subject, the 13th century church which is about 100 yards from my former apartment in Grenoble. In that photo, the plants growing out of the crevasses and corners in the old, carved stones seemed to be a fascinating illustration of how nature takes hold even in artificial environments.

I hope to continue to participate even if only by email, and the new subject is culture. I don’t think there is any limitation beyond that single word. The photo below was taken with that subject in mind, it is of a tower from the old city wall that has been incorporated into a museum (an aside, there is a small courtyard dedicated to the rights of man and liberty with several plaques commemorating the town participation in the French Revolution, a declaration of universal human rights in the 20th century, and a small plaque thanking the US colonel of paratroopers who liberated Grenoble in World War II), and the local theater which if the posters are any indication, has a very active resident company. Even though it is only 60 yards from my apartment, I never attended any performances because my skills in French never reached the point I thought would be sufficient to appreciate the performances. Perhaps I was wrong, for the performance is in everything other than the words themselves.

Given the tower from the old city wall juxtaposed with the 1960s-vintage metalwork in the center of the photo and the illuminated “theatre” on the right, I thought it to be an interesting juxtaposition of different aspects of culture appropriate to the topic of the group.

As always, a larger photo can be seen in a pop-up window by clicking on the image below.

This image has not been cropped, nor have the contrast or light levels been altered, so it is relatively true to the colors I saw when I took the photo. Opinions are welcome.

If I am fortunate, it was not raining today and I was able to go to the brocante (kind of a flea-market) to take more photos and perhaps buy a few small mementos before I leave France tomorrow. If I have an Internet connection and the time, I will try to post any worthwhile photos later today.

Technorati Tags: letters from Europe, photography, photos, photos of Europe, photos of Grenoble, pictures

All of the previous photos (except the first, which had a few variations posted) have not been altered other than in size; however, this photo was converted to black and white. This is an alley between the 13th century church that was the subject of the second photo I posted in this series and the Cafe de la Table Rounde (I suspect no translation is needed), which has been in business since the 18th century, and I have been told it is the oldest continually operating cafe in France (I haven’t confirmed this local legend).

I think this photo should to be rotated slightly. The vertical line of the church wall on the right seems correct if I don’t look at it too hard, but the ground line seems enough off to make a distraction. Maybe I can correct it on the flight back to the US.

This alley is typical of the maze of narrow pedestrian streets in the center section of Grenoble.

As always, click on the image below for a larger photo in a pop-up window.

If all has gone to plan, today those who bought my appliances here are picking them up and I’m making whatever final repairs need to be performed to the apartment.

I have to turn in my rental car today, so I’ll be confined to the area near my hotel, but tomorrow, there is a brocante (kind of like a flea market that is set up on the streets) near the river. If I’ve finished with the apartment, I will go see if there are any interesting photos or anything small worth buying on my last day in France.

If I have Internet access, I might be able to post a photo or two before I leave for the United States at 5:00AM on Monday.

Technorati Tags: letters from Europe, photography, photos, photos of Europe, photos of Grenoble, pictures

If everything went smoothly, my furnishings were packed and shipped yesterday, and I am now working to clean the apartment. Given how filthy it was when I moved in, I will be returning it in better condition than it was presented to me.

Somehow, I still expect a “discussion” because that seems to be the way of things here. Of course, it is the way of things in a lot of places in the US, too.

Here is the next photo. I am not posting these in the order that I took them but instead in the order I find most interesting.

I have mentioned before that I have yet to visit a city in Europe that does not have an Irish pub. This photo has little artistic value, but I find amusement that the most popular hang-out for many of the American expatriates is the Irish pub that is 200 yards from my apartment.

Why go to an Irish pub when you live in France? I went to a French bar, and the girlfriends of my colleagues said jokingly they were glad that I wouldn’t be tempting their boyfriends with my Friday evening happy hours any more.

Apparently, the concept of a get-together to celebrate the end of a work-week was new to my colleagues here. I’m glad I could introduce them to an American way of celebrating being alive another week.

Tomorrow, a more “artistic” photo.

Technorati Tags: letters from Europe, photography, photos, photos of Europe, photos of Grenoble, pictures

This photo is across the place or courtyard from the church in the previous image. The light reflected on this window is from some of the lights that are highlighting the steeple. As I mentioned before, I have not adjusted the contrast or levels in the color images because these came out pretty close to what I saw at the time.

I have another image of this same window from the same vantage point, but with the zoom set to a slightly wider field.

Click on the image for a larger version.

This is the old Palais de Justice, I believe it was built in the Renaissance era.

Another image tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: letters from Europe, photography, photos, photos of Europe, photos of Grenoble, pictures

This is another photo of one of my favorite subjects in Grenoble, the 13th Century church that is about 100 yards from the door to my apartment building.

In this photo, I know the slight softness is due to a depth-of-field problem because I can see in the original, larger image where the focus is sharp, so it is not due to camera shake even with the relatively long exposure.

Again, click on the image before for a slightly larger version.

None of the color images in this series have been altered in terms of contrast or brightness, and they reflect the true colors and intensities of light that I saw with my eyes. That is why some of the next images will be a bit dark.

Technorati Tags: letters from Europe, photography, photos, photos of Europe, photos of Grenoble, pictures

I’ve quickly resized several photos of the 112 I took Sunday night so that I can post one a day for the next week using the scheduler so the blog doesn’t die while I’m too busy to even think. If anyone is interested in guest-posting, hit the “contact me” link in the sidebar and let me know.

The first photo is of colored lights on buildings. These are not special holiday decorations but the normal lighting. Also, notice the image outlined in a pale light on the bottom left. There are about 20 of these projected sketches on the wall lining the river.

As always, click on the photo for a larger image.

I’m not sure if the camera was having trouble with the focus (I couldn’t manually focus this particular camera) or if the exposure time was too long to avoid some camera-shake. It still came out reasonably OK, but not as good as if I had a tripod with my SLR, manual focus, and small aperture for a larger depth-of-field.

A short note on the language, the Cafe du Pont sign in the center is for the Cafe of the Bridge, named for the bridge you see on the right side of the photo. Bridges over rivers are key features of many cities in Europe, just as they are of older cities in America, although we have forgotten why in some cases because rivers no longer seem to be the obsticles they were for millenia before our time.

Technorati Tags: letters from Europe, photography, photos, photos of Europe, photos of Grenoble, pictures

Here’s a better balanced version of the black and white photo I posted yesterday:

(click on the thumbnail below for a larger image)

Technorati Tags: letters from Europe, photography, photos, photos of Europe, photos of Grenoble

Tonight I had dinner with friends I have managed to make at work in the last 18 months. They surprised me with two gifts, one a book on Grenoble chosen because it has a photo of my favorite bar where I initiated a habit of meeting for drinks with colleagues after work on Fridays, something common in the US but not so here. The second gift was a large book on the photographer Robert Doisneau, arguably the most famous French photographer who took the renowned image Le baiser de l’hôtel de ville (”Kiss by the Hotel de Ville”).

I tried in my inadequate French to tell them they had touched my heart, Vous avez touché mon coeur.

I had my smaller digital camera with me (not the SLR), but unfortunately I had not loaded a memory card in it, so I have no photos of the dinner. They would have only been pale reflections of what my memories of the evening will be.

After we parted, I returned to my apartment, retrieved a memory card for the camera, and took what may very well be my last opportunity to take photos in the center of town. After one hour, I had taken 112 photos, possibly more than I had taken in my entire sojourn in Europe, and definitely more than I took on any single photography expedition when I was using a film camera.

It is now almost a quarter to two in the morning here, I am stealing some sleep time to write this post before my final week here in France starts with the hectic activity that it will involve. Monday through Wednesday will be wrapping things up at work. My belongings will be packed and shipped on Thursday, Friday is dedicated to cleaning up the apartment, and Saturday will be the day those who have bought my appliances come to get their new possessions.

Sunday may be the first time I have a chance to breathe. I leave on a high speed train (TGV) for Paris on Monday, 5 December, at 5AM.

I don’t have the time to even review all 112 photos I took this evening. However, one does stand out:

(click on the photo for a larger version)

I think I’ll ultimately convert this one to black and white, but I don’t have the time tonight to tweak it.

Since the photos were all taken after 11:30PM, many while it was snowing, the flash was not useful for the majority. I have a lot of cleaning up to do for these images; perhaps I will be able to do it on the flight back to the US.

UPDATE: Here is a quick and dirty conversion of the photo to black and white, I’m sure you can see the change in the mood created in the image.

Technorati Tags: letters from Europe, photos, photos of Europe, photos of Grenoble, pictures

I will return to the United States from France on Monday, 5 December.

As I wrote earlier, I chose to go to France despite my father having been diagnosed with cancer two weeks before my departure because his prognosis appeared good. That situation has changed, and now I return to the US so I can be within a few hours travel time of my family if the need arises instead of over a day as it would be if I remained in France.

My choice 18 months ago was the right one for the time, and even looking back had more gains than losses, especially for one I respect and more so, love.

I do not leave France without a sense of loss, however. I have met many good people here, just as I have met many elsewhere in my life, and I will miss those in France as much as the others who have pieces of my heart. There are also many places I did not have time to visit, but those missed opportunities are nothing compared to the relationships between people.

We all have to make choices in our lives, and each choice involves both gain and loss.

I have often made choices that in retrospect seem to have sacrificed far more than won.

I know the choice I make now to return to the US is indeed for the best, and I do look forward to my return for reasons beyond the sad necessity which prompted it.

Unfortunately, this choice as all others cannot be made without a sense of loss.

Loss is part of what has been labeled by the literati as “the human condition” and perhaps they are right. Loss is a part of being human.

That recognition does nothing to relieve the painful void.

Learning to live with these holes in our hearts is one of the hardest lessons, one that is taught again with each choice in an encore both undesired and inevitable.

C’est la vie.

Technorati Tags: personal

NOTE: This was originally posted at The Moderate Voice on Tuesday, 8 November 2005, I am re-posting it here for those who have not read it.