Worldcrunch
One of my two granddaughters used to live in Özdere, a quiet village on the Turkish coast near Izmir. I went there a couple of times, taking the opportunity to visit the nearby ruins of the Ancient Greek site of Ephesus — and snapping this picture on the street, of a much more modern kind […]
I said it before: I took pictures of places (more than of people) to remember where I went. But looking at this photo now, rather than focusing on the panorama of Lithuania’s capital, I wish I’d chosen to see my wife Claudine more clearly…
Like their Easter Island counterparts, the giant statues of Tiwanaku, in western Bolivia, are shrouded in mystery. For example, the stone used for this “Monk” monolith comes from a quarry nearly 100 kilometers away.
For millennia, Aleppo was a city of riches, a significant stop on the Silk Road. Sadly, many parts of the Ancient City — including its famous souks — have now been destroyed in the ongoing Syrian Civil War.
On the waterfront of Salvador da Bahia, a fellow Frenchman was busy bargaining for a plate of Bahian acarajé. The body language of sidewalk commerce is understood all around the world.
Taking pictures of Lady Liberty with my telelens wasn’t even the highlight of this crisp October day in New York City: A couple of hours later, on nearby Ellis Island, I had the surprise of seeing my last name among the list of immigrants featured on the Wall of Honor.
Taking pictures at the vibrant marketplace in Otavalo, Ecuador required more than just pointing and shooting: I also had to avoid getting trodden on by one of the many, many pigs for sale.
In the Thai capital, I remember being treated to a lavish meal involving a variety of authentic Thai dishes, all the while watching a traditional dance performance. Here, the famous — not to mention peculiar — “fingernail dance.”
Reykjavik isn’t only the world’s northernmost capital, it’s also one of the quietest. Overlooking Iceland“s beautiful Faxa Bay, the unassuming city of then 110,000 souls looked very peaceful all these years later, with its peculiar-looking church rising in the distance.
The United Kingdom isn’t exactly renowned for its gastronomy, but I (lifelong French bon vivant ) have a special fondness for English pub food. Here in Cornwall, southwestern England, you could feast on delicious seafood — provided you first got past the local pirate.
Looking at the fading colors of this Wroclaw memory, you couldn’t really tell that at that time, Poland was in the early stages of one of the country’s worst economic and political crises. A year later, it would culminate in students uprising and ensuing repressing, around the same time as the Prague Spring in neighboring […]
When my wife and I toured northwestern Spain in the early 1970s, we made sure to visit the Roman aqueduct of Segovia. Two years later would mark its 2,000th birthday.
Can you guess what is traditionally kept under these woven bamboo baskets, on the Indonesian island of Bali? I’ll give you a hint: In French, they go “Cocorico“!
What would be a good soundtrack to this picture of my then four-year-old daughter Cécile, posing in a flower market in southern France? Though I’m more partial to classical music, Sidney Bechet’s “Petite Fleur” seems a better fit than, say, Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” …
We were in Seattle just about a month before a certain movie hit the screens. I slept through it all.
This family was looking at musicians playing outside the beautiful Jain temple of Ranakpur, in western India. Only after pressing the shutter did I realize the kid had noticed me, and was smiling at my camera.
Two peaceful windmills in the Spanish countryside? For Miguel de Cervantes” colorful character Don Quixote (a favorite of mine), these would be ferocious giants — and he would promptly proceed to attack them!
After six decades of good old film photography, I decided a couple of years ago that it was time to switch to a digital camera. One of the first series with my new gear was in Albania — this particular photograph under the watchful eye of Albanian soldiers.
Fellow travelers were posing next to Queen Elizabeth Park’s famous “Photo Session” statues, with the city of Vancouver as a backdrop. I added a layer to this already self-referential work of art: The shadow on the bottom right, next to the bronze statue of the photographer, is mine.
The only thing more impressive than beholding the ancient troglodyte structures of Turkey’s Cappadocia region, was realizing that yes, some people still actually lived in them!
The language situation in Canada“s predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec can lead to baffling bilingual signs like this one at the Montreal airport.
Romania is one of the richest countries I’ve set foot in when it comes to religious heritage. The central European state has history-packed cathedrals, exuberantly colorful churches — and in this case, beautifully peaceful monasteries.
Our trip to Sicily came just as legendary Italian magistrate Giovanni Falcone was launching the widest-ranging anti-Mafia probe ever. This light-hearted moment in Palermo reminds me of the famous photo of Falcone and fellow magistrate Paolo Borsellino, each assassinated soon afterward by the Mafia.
My trip to Nepal was definitely one of the most dépaysants, as we say here in France. This open-air cremation in front of Kathmandu“s famous Pashupatinath Temple was certainly not a sight a Western traveler like me is used to seeing.
These “birds of paradise” flowers are native to South Africa. And indeed, they thrive near the Drakensberg mountain range. Alas, these one are not of the Mandela’s Gold variety — the rare yellow form named after the anti-apartheid leader a year before we went there.
The Mevlana mausoleum in Konya, central Turkey, is considered a staple of Islamic architecture — and rightly so: I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many minarets!
There’s something almost Géricault-esque in the pyramidal structure of this shot, and the way these seals meld with the rocks of Ballestas Islands, off the coast of Peru.
I guess for some, it’s a jungle out there in Manhattan.
From afar, the northern Sahara town of Ghardaïa, Algeria looks very quiet — and very dry. But once you get to the shade of its main square, you can relax, sit back and watch the camels grunt about.
I once visited a foie gras farm in southwestern France, years before goose liver became one of the world’s most controversial delicacies. Désolé, but foie gras still is a péché mignon of mine.
This photograph of a mechanic working in the rain in the coastal Moroccan city of El Jadida was shot from the hip. Discovering this image also takes me back to a trip 20 years earlier in Tunisia, one of the only times I ever needed to get my car repaired in 60+ years of travels.
These are the Indonesian guards of His Majesty’s Kraton Guard Regiment, keeping an eye on the Royal Palace of Yogyakarta. But unlike some of their counterparts I chanced upon across the globe, they weren’t that imperturbable: The fellow on the right gave me a long, hard sideward glance as I took his picture.
Some of the stunning stained glass panels from France’s Cathedral de Chartres date back to the 12th century. And if I was able to see — and photograph — them, I’ve got to thank the people who had the good idea of removing and stashing them away during both World War I and World War […]
My wife Claudine wasn’t immune to the charms of the stunning red coral jewelry made by artisans in the northwest part of the Italian island of Sardinia. If memory serves, she bought a bracelet at that very shop. With time, the brand of film I was using back then gave my Sardinian series, fittingly enough, […]
I speak German, so I’m no stranger to the way some languages will simply slap words together. Stopping at this yurt-looking visitor office on my drive up north through Norway, I eventually realized that the apparent gibberish Polarsirkelsenteret meant “The Polar Circle Centre.” Still, neither German nor Norwegian has got anything on neighboring Finnish. I’m […]
Marvel all you want at Californian surfers, but this one-man Li River retailer on his bamboo raft is the real deal.
Just a friendly walk by the pier? Perhaps. The machetes, or “coupe-coupe” as we French call them, are a multi-purpose tool, and were ubiquitous through much of our Central American travels. But looking back at this scene was also a chilly reminder that Guatemala was, and still is, one of the most violent countries in […]
The remains of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus can be found in present-day in the southwest Turkish city of Bodrum. It was once one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World before it was destroyed by earthquakes. Tant pis ! Some 700 kilometers north is Ankara’s tomb of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first […]
My wife and I were ahead of the times with this selfie from the early 90s in the Butchart Gardens near Vancouver.
Show this picture of red lanterns in the gardens of Suzhou to any Tintin reader, and there’s a good chance it’ll remind them of the cover of The Blue Lotus.