During the Hillary Clinton rally in Austin on Monday night, the photographers were on the stage right before she entered the arena. One was getting a crowd shot, and he was captured in the act:

Here is an interesting photo I took tonight:

(Click on the thumbnail for a larger image)

This tree is at the end of a holiday display in Austin called the Trail of lights, and it is made using the “moon tower” in Zilker Park. The Austin moon towers are a sadly neglected set of landmarks in the town that deserve a post of their own.

The tradition is to “spin” beneath the tree while looking up. Often it is done by two people in tandem, with hands crossed over and joined between them, pushing against each other to spin and getting more speed than they could get alone. One of my favorite memories is of a time when after a happy hour with many friends, we walked the Trail of Lights as a group and then gathered under the tree for spinning. Soon, other people gathered around and joined our group, until eventually we had a circle 30 feet across cleared of people with around 50 folks all standing together at the edge of the circle and waiting to spin in the center.

A spontaneous moment with no greater meaning, yet a good memory.

The San Francisco Bay Bridge at night (click on the thumbnail for a larger image):

I don’t think it is as good as the photo I posted the other night, but it’ll do.

A photo I took Monday night when out with an old friend I worked with in France. Click on the thumbnail to go to a page with a bigger version, and click on the photo on that page to get an even larger version.

From a dear, dear friend who had met my Dad before he had cancer, in memorial to him:

A kind man
with a sad smile
sitting on a bench
looking at his sun
son
wildflowers rustle
in the
Texas breeze.

Technorati Tags: personal, photography, photos, photos of Europe, photos of Grenoble, pictures

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