On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
My favorite photo from this bunch is the last one, “the back end of some cathedral!” ~WaterGirl
Steve from Mendocino
Photoshop has provided me with a whole toy chest of cool effects to experiment with. I originally applied these effects rather broadly just because of their novelty, but these days I use them primarily to compensate for problems introduced either by Kodachrome used negligently, scans done even more negligently, or problems that I’ve had with blur, light leaks, etc. Cathedrals lend themselves to more extreme manipulation because of the inherent surrealism of their design. These photos are a sampling of cathedrals being weird.
San Marco cathedral in Venice, shooting into the sun.
Most occasional visitors to Europe have carefully planned objectives which they research and record, but my situation was very different. I was there to hang out with Anne-Marie’s family at different locations in France, and take excursions to top restaurants in whatever region I was in. I did research and record on those restaurants, but there’s not much of a market in stories about retired chefs and notes on meals I ate.
My excursions frequently passed by photogenic sites and monuments which I recorded in passing without bothering to learn about history or even remembering which photo was taken where. I apologize for this glaring deficiency, but I just don’t have the information available. What I have for you is just Pretty Pictures.
This shot is a good example of that. I know I was travelling with my parents at the time, and that my father was terribly amused by this shot, dubbing it “woman praying to a Renault”. I’ve always thought it to be part of repairs to Vezelay Cathedral, but I haven’t been able to find any images on line which match this. I can report, however, that we were in Vezelay for a meal at l’Esperance, Marc Meneau’s 3 Michelin star eatery there.
I also ate a meal prepared by him as guest chef at Jean Bertranou’s restaurant in Los Angeles during the period that Bertranou was dying of brain cancer. Both Meneau’s meals were sublime. I’ve long mourned the passing of Bertranou. He was one of the very best chefs to ever run a restaurant in Los Angeles.
I have this photo labeled as Vezelay, but it absolutely is not. I’m quite sure it’s the Albi cathedral, a remarkable place in an out of the way spot. I was experimenting with color substitution here (something that I’ve seen tutorials instructing people to avoid). This works for me, and these are my pictures so buzz off.
Incidentally, our visit to Albi happened because we were on our way to a meal at Hôtel de France in Auch. The chef, André Daguin, was a wild man — highly creative, his cuisine intensely regional. The chef at my favorite restaurant in Mendocino apprenticed with Daguin for about two weeks before quitting because the hygiene was so bad. None in our party got sick, and the food was very good. All in all a nice day trip.
I also had this photo down as Vezelay, but in reviewing it, I can’t find anything in the Vezelay cathedral that matches this, and Albi’s interior is very much in keeping with this detail.
This is an exterior shot of the Albi cathedral. I put in many many hours trying to make a straight ahead shot out of this, and I always hated it. This treatment maximizes some of the structural details while losing all suggestion of the remarkable red brick construction. The entire town is built with red bricks, and is unlike anything else I’ve seen in France. I will post more descriptive photos of Albi and the cathedral some other time.
Here we move to Coatapec, Mexico for another radical treatment of a cathedral. I enjoy this a great deal. Your mileage might vary.
Color substitution of a Paris scene with the back end of some cathedral there. What a tragedy, but a sign of the times.
I’ve always most loved her from the back.
lurker
flying buttresses – who ever thought that would work (and they do work, but still…)
Of course, there are other questions – who thought to eat an artichoke (look at that thing)? Who thought flying around in a tin can would work? Or who thought a platypus would work? (different concept of who did the thinking there – a deity, evolution, gaia?)
clearly i need to sleep
lurker
@lurker:
definitely some interesting takes on visual images – cool photos
JPL
Pretty pictures.
My son is a foodie and enjoys traveling for a good meal. My grand imp and the pandemic has put an end to that, at least temporarily.
Princess
Hey, I’ve eaten at Meneau’s L’Esperance too, more than thirty years ago now. Only 3-star Michelin meal in my life. Vezelay was a strange place.
rikyrah
Gorgeous pictures ?
donatellonerd
i loved Vezelay, and Albi (and l’esperance and Dauguin). Albi may be the only place I love red brick, in fact (having grown up near Kew Gardens/Forest Hills, where everything was…). and notre dame is of course obviously (imnsho) most beautiful from the back. looking forward to the albi shots.
off topic, doing my first political donation via BJ (the first via BJ, I mean) to Jaime Harrison. one of my grandfathers lived most of his life in SC and we visited regularly til he died, so i feel a responsibility…
p.a.
Nice! Especially like the color sub of the inside at Albi!
Good book:
The Albigensian Crusade by Jonathan Sumption
In twelfth century Languedoc a subversive heresy of Eastern origin flourished to an extraordinary degree. The Albingenses believed that the world was created by an evil spirit, and that all worldly things – including the Church – were by nature sinful.
Jonathan Sumption’s acclaimed history examines the roots of the heresy, the uniquely rich culture of the region which nurtured it, and the crusade launched against it by the Church which resulted in one of the most savage of all medieval wars.
Benw
Haute pics!
Pete Mack
Speaking of Notre Dame…WTF are the French thinking, building it *exactly* as before? I mean, modern building techniques are far less vulnerable to fire, even when used to reproduce the identical appearance. And a whole lot less toxic than lead. There is still time before construction begins to change their mind, and I hope they do.
Buckeye
@lurker:
Rambutans? Who look at that and go ‘there’s something tasting inside there!
I got a new cell phone in July, and it definitely has a better camera than my older one, but it doesn’t always do colors and saturation as well as the older one. So I’m adjusting them, and at first I wanted the pics as close to ‘natural’ as possible. And now my attitude is ‘eh, looks good to me!’
WaterGirl
@Buckeye: I have always wondered about smoking. Who had the bright idea that went something like:
“Why don’t I light this stuff on fire, put it in my mouth, and breathe in all the smoke?”
SkyBluePink
Lovely, quirky photos.
JCJ
@Buckeye:
Not just rambutans. What about durians? Who caught a whiff of one of those and said, “Yum!”
J R in WV
Oysters? Fish Roe? Fried shad roe? Crab? So many things we eat with real enthusiasm don’t seem like food stuff at all. Shad row is OK, but I won’t go there again at home. Oysters are back in season, I fry them for myself, do scallops for Wife who doesn’t care for the consistency of oysters. I can fry them in close proximity, she doesn’t care at all, the taste doesn’t put her off, it’s just the mouth feel.
Wife and I ate at a MIchelin starred seafood place just across the Seine river from the Eiffel tower, was wonderful, took hours, drank TWO bottles of champagne. Was on the trip where my Parisian street scene and Notre Dame pix were taken, so 2013.
Then fall of 2018 I went to NYC and met old friends there for a week of big city tourism. Was R’s first time to NYC. Last big meal was a very long lunch at a 2 star place across the street from Bryant Park… wonderful food, place had great art omn the walls, we were nearly the last customers, so I took advantage of that to walk around and admire the art. Manager came over and discussed the art, which was painted by a young woman from Alsace, who grew up just a few miles from the Chef, which they learned after Chef picked the art in a gallery.
Then the manager invited to to visit the Chef’s table in the kitchen to see the paintings there. Amazing. Hope they survive the trump Plague.
These pictures are great photos. I haven’t used my editors and photo tools to distort things, just to try to eliminate things like distance haze, bad lighting, etc. Repairs more than alterations. Great work though. I forget details about photos too, at least I usually have date info in the metadata.
Thanks for sharing these. I didn’t need to know about the Michelin starred place with the poor hygiene, tho!
BigJimSlade
The backside is perfect for flying buttresses, don’t you think?
What fun pictures!
lurker
@J R in WV: never understood the appeal of oysters. there is a lot of stuff one can crack open or otherwise open that makes sense once you see the inside of it – pineapple, which is an ugly spiny thing, or coconuts, which are just hard – oysters, you crack it open and it is still disturbing
@WaterGirl: for tobacco, my guess is someone first tried burning the leaves in a fire, and they all got a nicotine buzz, then later came up with the idea of blunts and pipes and cigarettes and all of our modern variations. Apparently coca leaves are something natives would chew and suck the juices from, leading to a cocaine high of some form
way2blue
Steve, Love your third photo—the ‘not’ Vezelay Cathedral, rather the ‘must be’ Albi Cathedral—with the exuberant color substitutions. Great color choices!