Red mountain and white blob

This is a recent specimen of a red Cournouze photo (untouched by Photoshop in any way whatsoever), taken from my bathroom window:

[Click to enlarge]

Here, taken on the same day, is a telephoto shot of the white blob in the first photo:

The "blob" is in fact the village of Châtelus. That's their church on the left. The big white building on the right, which shares a common wall with the church, is the municipal office and official residence of the mayor of Châtelus. In fact, since the present mayor has his own house about a kilometer away, the official residence is rented out to ordinary citizens.

Exceptional vision of the valley

Late this afternoon, when I caught sight of extraordinary hues in the valley, I grabbed my Nikon and took the following shot from the bathroom window:

My motivations behind this photo [click to enlarge] were actually a little more complicated, and confused. While opening the bathroom window to take a look at the dogs, I glimpsed the blurry mirror image of the Huillier houses in Châtelus, at the foot of the Cournouze. The two on the right, one superimposed on the other, gave the impression of the presence of a Byzantine chapel with a tower. I realized immediately that the extraordinary reddish light was playing tricks on me.

Autumn dawn

A quarter of an hour ago, viewed from my bathroom window, the Cournouze looked this:

Within five minutes, the cloud layer was starting to reflect the pale light of the rising sun upon the trees on the slopes of the valley of the Bourne.

Five minutes later, the Technicolor show was over. One has to act rapidly to obtain images such as these. Often I say to myself that my Antipodes blog has started to instill in me something akin to the reflexes (but not, alas, the skills) of a photographer.

La montagne - Jean Ferrat

Gazing up at the Cournouze mountain, above the villages of Choranche and Châtelus, I'm often reminded of this song by Jean Ferrat:

During the '60s and '70s, when I was living in Paris, there were three renowned poet-singers: Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel and Léo Ferré. Alongside that prestigious trio, Jean Ferrat could be thought of as the Fourth Musketeer. The TV host Michel Drucker, learning of Ferrat's death today, referred to him as the Last of the Mohicans.