One of the most beautiful landscapes...

Hi!
I hope that your holiday is going great!
Today, I'd like to share with you a little part of my trip in France and Switzerland.
Here is the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen in my life! There are three pictures because besides it's beautiful, it's a 360° panorama!
I let you glance at the photos and I explain just below:

The summit of the Chasseron, in Switzerland, at an altitude of 1607 meters.  In the background, the Alps: the first mount on the right side is the Mont-Blanc. You can find lake Neuchâtel on the left side, in the valley, but you can't see lake Leman on the right because there is a sea of clouds.

Here and below, there is the view towards Swiss border and France, more precisely towards Franche-Comté.

I was in Pontarlier, Franche-Comté (or in the Haut-Doubs if you prefer 😄) and I decided to go to the Swiss side and ride my bike to the Chasseron, a mountain where a mountain bike race (Coupe du Chasseron) which is quite popular there, takes place each year. I couldn't do the same path than the racers because it's too tiring but I managed to reach the summit and I have to say to you that if you want to see it with your own eyes, you'll suffer a lot because it's very difficult if you don't cheat and dare to start from the bottom of the mountain with a bike or just with your feet instead of going there with a car and just walk or ride the last meters to the summit!
Indeed, we took two hours from the bottom to the summit with our bikes, by the road with VERY rough climbs. But the reward is priceless, isn't it?

Panorama

Obviously, rocks and downhills made our happiness!

My favourite movies #1 - Visages Villages

Hey Charlie,
today I'm going to talk about one of my favourite movies:

Visages Villages

It is a movie by Agnès Varda, who is a french photographer and film maker and JR, who is also a photographer but he exposes his artworks on buildings walls, on things in town. You might have seen one of his artworks on the ride in the train to go to Paris:

So, this movie is a documentary. Great! But it's documentary with a story: Agnès Varda and JR meet and decide to make a movie;they also decide to travel trough France by van in villages to picture people and to put their photographs on walls of their villages. Therefore if you're intelligent (no offense to you if you're not), it is the title of the movie. So written like this, the movie is pretty bad.

But even if AV is much more older than JR (she is 89 and he is 34), a great complicity is built between them. All along the movie it becomes a pair that is inseparable such as Laurel and Hardy. Moreover the photographs they make are beautiful:

Look like a crew, don't they?

I've already mentionned this movie in my fantastic speech (go to the cinema, it's great!) because I love it, and I don't know how to really explain it but it has a charm that you can miss but if you get it, you will love this film(I'm sure you have a movie you love, but you can't explain why).

I hope you enjoyed the article, even if the syntax of my sentences bothered you. As you probably saw the title, there will be a second article about my favourite movies. Here is a clue to guess the next movie(s): replicants (easy one!)

Hello!

Today I’m going to talk to you about a great exhibition that I went to this weekend with Mara!

I don’t know if you’ve heard about the “Rencontres d’Arles”, but it is a photography festival that takes place every year in Arles. I went to this festival this summer, and it was very interesting! However, if you didn’t have the opportunity to go to Arles and you missed the exhibitions, I strongly advice you to go to the J1, where there is an exhibition called “Le monde tel qu’il va”, with exhibitions from Arles. If you like photography it is a great opportunity to discover a new universe!

https://goo.gl/images/ZztrPK

A bonus: the place is also really beautiful and special, as it is in an old hangar!

I hope you will go, if you do tell me about it ;)

Silène 

A bit of photography...

Gueorgui pinkhassov

I thought it would be cool to share with you one of my passion : PHOTOGRAPHY so I have chosen 

to present you a not really well-known photographer but that I think is worth knowing (to me his pictures are absolutely great even if some of you won't probably love them but anyway)

I just wrote a little biography for you to know a bit about him and then the PICTURES!

So, Gueorgui Pinkhassov is a russian artist born in 1952 in Moscow but he now also has the French nationality. Pinkhassov really began being interested in photgraphy while studying at the Moscow Institute of Cinematography, he then got the status of Independant artist.

When he moved to France he joined Magnum Photos in 1988( an International photographic cooperative based in Paris, New York, London and Tokyo and founded in 1947)

Pinkhassov often works for the internationnal press and loves traveling around the world to take pictures.

I discovered this photographer in a book about Magnum Photos and the first picture of him I saw was this one (I think the colours and details very impressive)

What I love in his work is the way he plays with colors and light, often artificial and colored lights that creates a special and mysterious atmosphere and that also gives an old look to his pictures.

Most of his photos have been taken in the street without any model posing for him, they are only moments of life, this is why I love them even more.

But enough words, I let you discover him ..

Well, I think this is enought for Gueorgui Pinkhassov, I hope you've enjoyed!

Hi dear Charlie ! What a pleasure to write an article for the first time !

For my first article, I wanted to share with you one of my passion : photography !

Today, I want to talk about a great photographer that I’ve recently discovered thanks to Mr

Leah : Louis Faurer.

I had the opportunity to go to a great exhibition last holidays in the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris where many of his beautiful pictures are shown ! If you have the occasion to go to Paris this week (yeah I know it’s probably gonna be complicated…) take note that this great exhibition ends on the 18th of december (which means today !).

                                           

                                          

                                     

Louis Faurer is an American photographer and a master of street photography. He was born in 1916 in Philadelphia but spent most of his life in New York which doesn’t surprise me given that New York is The Place to be for a photographer. Indeed, The Big Apple is an inexhaustible resource for street photographers such as Faurer, thanks to its diversity.

What I love in Faurer’s way of photographing is his capacity to sublimate unknown people we meet everyday in the street. His job was to capture these simple moments which are part of our daily life and that we do not take enough time to contemplate.

Moreover, his black and white pictures are always full of emotions and representative of a ‘gone with the wind’ past.

                   

                  

                  

Here is the link of the exhibition : http://www.henricartierbresson.org/en/expositions/louis-faurer/

Hope you liked the article !

Esther

Cindy Sherman

 Copyright. All Rights Reserved Cindy Sherman

Dear Charlie,

Have you heard of Cindy Sherman?
If you do not, check those links asap.

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-sherman-cindy.htm
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/cindysherman/#/6/
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/cindy-sherman-1938

What is great about her is whether you love her or hate her, you'll want to discuss her.

I'm  looking forward to hearing from you and from the Seconde as I know they've been analysing her art work with Mrs. Seck.

Best,
Mrs. C

Last Photo

Dear Charlie,

I spend most of my time on the Internet. I'm always looking for new websites or concepts that could, you know, keep me fascinated by this huge world. And almost everything is interesting to me ; pictures, texts, crazy projects posted on random and unknown websites, rare and short funny movies you can find nowhere else...

So two days ago, I found this little video. And I thought it was great. The concept is to ask people what is the last picture on their phone, and explain it. Hope you will like it !

Artist : Ivan Cash 

Here the video in HD : http://cashstudios.co/Last-Photo-Video-Series

Artist's website : http://cashstudios.co/

Homage to cinema classics

Dear Charlie,
I'm sure, you're eager for the next cinema club session. The next one is in January.
Meanwhile, you can go to the Vieux Port to see this original homage to American film classics.

Over there you may also go get some  treats to munch on at the Xmas market while you're enjoying the views of Marseille on the Ferris wheel.
You know what, that sounds like a great plan for the week-end, see you there!
Mrs. C.