Coloquintes

yeah, so much for that regular posting. Oh well.

We've been overrun by coloquintes, or gourds. Hélène planted four seeds, four, and the image below is the result in our house. This does not include the ones shes given away, or the ones that are still on the vines. The vines, btw, are literally taking over the whole backyard, growing up and through trees, down the fence and even over into our neighbors driveway.

Its amazing, really. It makes me wonder, why is this particular non-edible plant not suitable for bio-fuels? It grows like a freaking weed, and grows vertically too so you could go build some trellis' and save space.

Apparently, or maybe, its the earliest domesticated plant, although then and now just used for bowls and such. Anyway, pretty crazy plant and if anyone has an idea why this thing isn't suitable for veggie oil, please let me know!



Ps. Yeah, some of the pics there are blurry. No big deal.

Been busy

Français à suivre..

Been a little busy lately with a couple of shoots and getting my website updated. I think its going to stay as is for a while, and since everyone seems to have different opinions about my photo selections, I would love to hear some comments. www.soleilfoto.com

In the meantime, and I don't think this will be a habit, but I am pretty proud of these last two shoots. Working with limited resources, I couldn't be more proud of how they turned out.

For the wedding dress shoot, I have to thank Fernando, Catherine, Jennifer, Julie and of course Hélène, without whom it wouldn't have been possible. A great team, and the images prove it. I must also thank Nathalie from Cingi Mariage, rue St. Catherine in Bergerac, for the use of the dress.

For the dance shoot, thanks to Alexia, Laurence, and Simone for their time and the opportunity to take pictures of someone who will surely be famous someday. A spectacular dancer, no doubt about it.


J'ai eu tres occupe dernierment avec deux prise de vue et fais le mise au jour de mon site web. Je crois il sera reste comme ça pour un peu du temps, et depuis tout le monde sembles avoir un avis different apropos mes selectionnes des photos, je voudrais aime bien entendre vos commentaires. www.soleilfoto.com

Pour l'instant, et je ne crois pas je le fais d'habitude, mais je suis hyper fier de les derniers prise de vues. Travail avec les resources limite, je peux pas etre plus fier comment ils arrive.

Pour des photos de robe du mariage, je dois dire merci à Fernando, Catherine, Jennifer, Julie et bien sur Hélène, sans qui n'est pas possible. Une vachement bien equippe, et le preuve c'est dans l'images. Je dois dire merci aussi à Nathalie de Cingi Mariage, rue St. Catherine en Bergerac, pour l'utilisation de la robe.

Pour le danse, je dois dire merci à Alexia, Laurence et Simone pour leur temps et l'opportunitie de prends de photos de quelq'un qui sera certainment celebre un jour. Une danseuse spectaculaire, sans dout.

Et desole pour mon mauvais ecriture, et j'espere vous pouvez compredre...

Gonna be busy

Might not be any posts for a few days. I had a couple of shoots last week; two dancers, one in conservatoire in Bordeaux who is I think like 15 and it sort of like the picture next to the word 'ballet dancer' in the dictionary, and another who is older but was for a wedding dress picture to try to win some wedding photography business (a phrase I never thought I would utter).

So, going to be busy sorting and prepping some photos and will finally, and really, be printing my book along with adding a bio and a price page to my website (and updating its pictures too).

Plus, I am meeting with an agency in Bordeaux this week too, hopefully. So, if you are reading, send some positive vibes my way...

More garden stuff

Really quick about the blog name change, Hélène informs me that 'raconteur', which is a French word obviously, actually means "liar" in French. In all the dictionaries I have found, and certainly in English usage, it means more storyteller, maybe with some embellishment, and that would seem to fit so I am sticking with it despite the negative connotation in French.

Just a few more pics from the garden. Hélène has quite the green thumb, as you will soon see. She started a little nursery, just a box with some plastic covering it, and then slowly moved things into the actual garden. Most of the nursery stuff is growing like wildfire, and I mean really impressively. About the only thing that isn't 'fruiting' yet is the pumpkin, although its had several flowers (where the actual fruit or vegetable or whatever the hell a pumpkin is grows from) but as yet, none of them have made it. She actually ended up transplanting it next to the compost heap, which should provide for some good nourishment, since at the moment its not in a box but instead is just a pile of dead stuff.

First a shot of the tomatoes, which are coming in nicely. Probably about 4 or 6 of them already-



Next is the Coloquinte, which is really just for show and a member of the squash family, and as my Argentine-American friend here said (yes, I have one of those here), its what they use to make maté gourds in South America-



The thing is like a freakin weed, basically taking over the whole wall of her little garden. Which is good actually, because its next to our neighbors driveway and that part of the jardin (which is used for 'yard' too in French) doesn't have a wall or any bushes.

Here is a shot of the Coloquintes flowers, which are kinda cool because they open in the morning and close as the day goes by-



Last is the Courgette, or Zucchini. I've recently learned that there are multiple types of these, including the 'giant' variety which is what we have and what was in that picture with Hubert the cat a while back-



Hopefully the closing flower there gives you some perspective (they are about the same size on both the Courgette and the Coloquinte, maybe a bit bigger on the Courgette), as its a little over a foot long and probably as thick as my calf (and while I have skinny legs, my calves are not so bad). I don't think we ever made it all the way through that other zucchini, and since we now have two of these, I would guess the compost heap is going to get some of this one too. Its really too bad I am not a bigger fan of zucchini; to me it always just seems like filler.

A+

UPDATE- So, we just had lunch and Hélène made a very typical thing for us- Just a salad with some vegetables, with some frozen (non-battered) fish (sometimes its tuna) and rice (pasta is probably more common). It makes a really nice, fresh lunch, and probably healthier than what I used it eat, and allows me to get away with eating more pain au chocolate. Which by the way, is retardedly called chocolate croissants in the states. Croissant comes from the SHAPE, so they are really just bread and chocolate, just the same TYPE of bread as a croissant!

Anyway, point is that Hélène asked if I could name all the vegetables in the salad and there were some big cucumber like chunks, so I said cucumber. Turns out thats the Courgette, and I have to admit its much much better cold and fresh than I remember zucchini being once its been cooked.

Slight change to the blog

Just because American à la mode is just dumb.

New one fits me a bit better, I think. It is, after all, probably the thing I am best at...

The grapevine

Just a couple of shots of the grapevine-


First, taken a few weeks ago when they were just starting-




A little more recent, maybe last week-




And we ran a couple of wires to the patio overhang (can't think of a better word for it right now, because its not really a roof)-





Its pretty amazing how fast these things grow, lending complete understanding to 'heard it through the grapevine'. They travel fast. We visited another friends house the other night, and they had several trees which had essentially a scaffolding built next to them, and then the branches are cut/allowed to grow in such a way that they create a roof on the patio. Put a table under it, and you have shade for the summer with bunches of grapes hanging down. He doesn't know if his are table or wine either, but if wine he's got enough for at least a couple, maybe three bottles. Pretty cool.


Lastly, saw some Girolles at the market-





Thats probably equivalent to what we had, although maybe we had a little more. Not too shabby, being able to take a walk through the forest and if you know what you are looking for, having a good meal after. Thats 7€ for the Girolles, btw.

Bastille Day

I thought waiting to start this blog until the day that represents the French Revolution seemed appropriate, so here we go.

Still not sure how often I will post here. Since I started the first version of this blog, one thing I have noticed is that my 'friends' are far more interested in promoting their own blogs than reading mine. That's also part of the reason for the move to a more complete blogging platform- the blog is not really going to be for my friends anymore, but hopefully appeal to a wider audience. We'll see; I am finding the whole blogging, social networking thing to be extremely narcissistic, and even though I am as guilty as anyone, I think I would like to spend more time in the real world, interacting with live human beings. I'll probably change my mind on that once I start doing it and am reminded of how much live human beings suck sometimes...

So, Bastille Day. Some interesting differences between this day and the 4th of July. On the 4th, the US actually declared its independence with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. For a country so heavily dependent on foreign oil and cheap foreign labor, I find this term to be pretty ironic these days.

Bastille Day, on the other hand and like many things Français, is symbolic. Some rebels demanded the surrender of the Bastille, the prison in Paris, which had hardly anyone in it (7 people) and was fortified by guards that were soldiers no longer suited for combat (invalides), along with a small Swiss regiment. After the negotiations and a battle that left only one guard dead, the governor of the Bastille gave up, was promptly executed, head sawed off, put on a pike and taken on a stroll through town. The actual revolution came later, but this is the day that symbolically represents it.

And this kind of thing is actually one of my favorite pieces of imagery of the French Revolution. This was not some revolution in name only; they literally took the ruling class and cut their heads right off. Symbolism on an extreme scale.

And this is exactly why I have been having to defend the recent Supreme Court ruling prohibiting the barring of firearms, or the suppression of the Second Amendment, to my French friends. Even here, everyone seems to have lost sight of the whole reason that amendment exists- so that if the government ever gets out of hand, as practically every government in the history of mankind has done at some point, the people should have the right to take their government back, and by force if necessary.

The unfortunate reality, however, is that even with the Second Amendment intact, with the way American's civil liberties have been eroded in the name of fighting terrorism, I think it might actually be highly unlikely that there will ever again be anything on the scale of the French Revolution. Governments around the world simply have bigger guns, and coordination of anything like that will be extremely difficult with every single conversation we have being recorded, videotaped and archived.

So, to finish up the first post on this brand spanking new blog on a slightly more positive note, a little list off the top of my head why I love France-

1. We have a grapevine in our garden (just one tree), and there are actual grapes growing on it. Not sure if they are table grapes (the kind you eat) or for wine yet, but I am certainly hoping for the latter even though we'll probably only have enough for half a bottle of wine.

2. Words used for emphasis almost always have some sort of food connection. The other day, Hélène yells 'bring your strawberries in', which is the equivalent of 'get in here and eat'. Vachement (cow-ly) is a cuss word (although that one and practically every other one can be said on TV), and there are a ton of expressions that fall into this category. This subject probably deserves its own post.

3. Even if you are just passing by and you see a friend of yours with someone you don't know, you shake hands with the friend and the guy you don't know. Maybe no introductions, but you touch the other person, recognize their existence, and say salut. It's something I forget to do sometimes, because we tend to wait until we are introduced, and if you pass someone in the middle of a conversation you might just wave and say 'hey dude'. But here, if people are hanging out with your friend as you enter the bar, you greet them all with a handshake and I really like that (although its certainly possible that this custom has more to do with being in the countryside than being in France). Not to mention the kissing of girls right off the bat.

4. The stunning difference in terrain you find by simply driving 100kms. It is incredibly striking, and if you go 200kms it changes a couple, maybe three times. France is quite simply an incredibly beautiful country.

5. 'We don't have any petrol, but we have a lot of ideas' is one of my favorite French expressions.

Hope you enjoy your Fête de la Fédération!