Abandoned

Here in the depths of the French countryside there is no shortage of abandoned buildings – the ones that even the hardiest expats won’t buy.

A colour version of this image was included in a post entitled ‘Rural Reflections‘ that I put up last year, but I think that the greyscale conversion works well.

AbandonedB&W

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge.

Numbers

This is what passes for a licence plate around here, stencilled onto the back of the seat of an ancient and well-used tractor that belongs to the local commune.

NumbersB&W

In response to the latest of Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenges.

Name that tune

Detail from a piano in the Music Room of Chateau d’Amboise (where you can also find the empty chair).

MusicB&W

Posted in response to the latest of Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenges.

Recycling point

Every village in France has its ‘dechette’, or recycling point, where you can get rid of your old newspapers,  an alarming number of empty wine bottles and, of course, plastic packaging. Good citizens that we are, we sort out our own recycling and take it to the dechette on a regular basis. This is the sack for empty plastic bottles.

PlasticB&W-2

Posted in response to Cee’s latest Black & White Photo Challenge.

Wheels within wheels

Montrol-Sénard is a village in the Limousin countryside, not far from here, that is preserved as a living museum of rural life at around the turn of the last century. This image shows part of a piece of  machinery in the village smithy. Don’t ask me what it’s for.

WheelB&W

Posted in response to Cee’s latest Black & White Photo Challenge.

Freezing fog

In response to Cee’s latest Black & White Photo Challenge – Weather, an image taken last winter here at Tranquility Base.

Freezing fog

The link to the challenge is here.

 

 

Photography 101: Swarm

Not exactly a swarm, or a particularly technically adept photograph, but an interesting story.

The two men in the microlight are researching the habits of these geese. For about two weeks, weather permitting, they would fly over our house early in the morning. As time went on, they attracted more and more birds to fly along with them.

Haven’t seen them for a while: they must have gone south for the winter.

Swarm

Photography 101: Home

Almost ten years ago, we bought a ruin – and I do mean a ruin – in rural France as a retirement home.

There was rather a lot of renovation involved, as you can see from these ‘before and after’ photographs, but it was well worth it, as I’ve written about here.

And we still call it Brokedown Palace.

Brokedown Palace

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Dreamy

From last winter, trees reflected in Tranquility Base’s very own étang.

Dreamy

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Endurance

The blue paint on this old door in the nearby village of Bonnefont, here in Haute-Vienne, has obviously endured whatever the local climate has thrown at it over many years.

Endurance