Nice is Nice
Itinerary
2.27.04 Arrive Paris, fly to Nice, walk around.
2.28.04 Get no sleep, walk til I drop
2.29.04 Obsess about my camera, more walking
3.1.04 Do what I came here to do which is work (mostly)
3.2.04 More work . . . workshops at the SAMA conference
3.3.04 Up to London to meet with colleagues
3.4.04 Fly home
Nice is nice. I've waited a long time to be able to write that. It's terrible I know, but I'm here, I'm tired, so I should be cut a bit of slack on this.
I left San Francisco under rainy skies and rode the smallest plane United could muster to get us to Paris. Some people find it fashionable to complain about flying and travel--and sometimes I'm one of those people--but the truth is I like it a lot. Not so much the leaving, but the being there.
After laying over in Paris I hopped an Air France A320 to the Nice, France airport, and from thence, a taxi (one of the ubiquitous Mercedes E-Class diesels) to Le Meridien Hotel which sits across the street from the Mediterranean.
The great sea is an impossibly beautiful color today. Every color of sea green and blues all blended together under an azure sky. It's cold and blowy but is in all ways just what it should be.
I ditched my gear and headed out with camera--of course--to explore old Nice. Winding streets. Wonderful little galleries. And lots of people bustling about. Because it's the end of the day, many are stopping in to visit the butcher, the grocer, the boulangerie, or the pasta shop to pick up dinner. I did as well, but I ate everything on the go, including a bag of wonderful petite fours, a jambon e fromage crepe, and some of those wonderful jelly candies that are like fruit bombs.
Some pictures from my day.
Entry hall at DeGaulle [go]
Lady at the airport waiting [go]
Flag polls along the sea [go]
Baby on Board: car in an alley in old town [go]
Dog posing [go]
Pillar on a local church [go]
Laundry (like this is so interesting) [go]
More laundry [go]
Mounamel (a lovely woman who wanted me to take her picture [go]
Onion man [go]
Scooter dog [go]
Obligatory picture of narrow stairs [go]
Tattoo parlor, and no I didn't get one [go]
Against the wall hiding from the wind [go]
Window from the street [go]
I did my best to get on local time but it didn't work. I went to bed last night at around 10:30 after watching a bit of the San Antonio Spurs vs. Dallas Maverick's basketball game on Canal+. Amusing to watch players I know decently well while listening to the play by play in French. It reminded me of that cartoon about the guy yelling at the dog.
"That was very bad Rover. You should never do that Rover. If you do it again Rover, I'm going to make you sleep outside."
The dog of course hears "Blah, blah, blah Rover. Blah, blah, blah Rover. Blah, blah, Rover, blah, blah, blah."
Blah, blah, blah Tim Duncan! Blah, blah Tony Parker! OOOOOOOh Steve Nash blah, blah, blah, Dirk Noistsky Slam Doonk!
Something like that.
I was awake again by a bit after 3:00. I tossed around for a bit and then got up and did about 2 hours of yoga and meditating. I enjoyed that. Called home and then finally headed out around 6:45 hoping for a sunrise. It rose, but not that I could tell. Too many clouds.
I walked along the promenade that borders the sea towards the harbor which is probably a mile away. Very pleasant and pretty darn cold. I had on lots of layers topped off by a Gortex parka and grey driving cap. I imagined that I looked very European. I probably just looked like a dorky tourist, what with my camera and all.
The harbor isn't very large but is filled with everything from commercial craft, to dive boats, to fishing boats, to bucks-up luxury yachts. There is money here as you would expect, but I'm sure it pales in comparison to what's parked up the way in Monte Carlo.
I found the Museum of Contemporary Art which is well reviewed but it was only 8:00 or so . . . two hours to go before it opened. I continued to wander back and forth through the historical district which was nearly abandoned but for the odd butcher and grocer that were just getting started. I stopped at a boulangerie that had just opened, imagining that I would have a nice hot quiche and some juice. Well it was a quiche, even if it was stone cold.
By now the vegetable market and flower market were in full swing. They're in the heart of the historic district and I imagine every tourist and tour heads right on over. What do I know differently? Nothing, so I toured and photographed until I'd gone from one end to the other, finally stumbling into a wonderful little café called the Quotidian. Big long wooden county pine tables, big windows to look out on the world, and warm. The café au lait was especially fine. Breakfast was a two minute egg and some wonderful breads which I topped off from a selection of house jams and spreads. I can't imagine how it could have been better.
At about 9:40 or so I headed back to the Museum of Contemporary Art. The building and sculpture garden don't disappoint, nor does the art as long as you're ready for "contemporary." I have to confess I found some of it bizarre, but I was enchanted by the works of Yves Klein. Somehow I've overlooked him. In the mid-Fifties, Klein stormed the art world with his unique personal style and towering charisma. Paris was agog. His career lasted just seven years during which he painted over a thousand pieces, many of which I'm now told are classics of modern art.
By the time I got back to the hotel around noon, I had shot 200 frames (thank God for digital). Here are some of my favorites.
This is a hotel lobby. Nothing much going on [go]
Running man (not Arnold!) [go]
Fishing boat [go]
Historic district alley [go]
Nice monster [go]
More cool stuff outside the Art Museum [go]
The most amazing sculpture. It's at least 40 feet tall [go]
I have a thing for bikes and bike racks [go]
Me and my shadow go everywhere together [go]
Early morning food shopping [go]
Outside a shop in the historic district [go]
Man playing an accordion (very well I might add) [go]
Stop, go [go]
From the vegetable market [go]
Along the promenade [go]
The phone was ringing and I had no idea where I was. This happens when you spend a lot of time in hotels. It proved to be a sort of foreshadowing of a morning filled with zen-like koans.
Having not slept much in the past couple of days, I crashed hard last night. I had joined some colleagues for dinner that had predictably gone much deeper into the night than any of us had planned. In a city of good eating, none of us had a clue, so we had wound our way up the promenade until we were nearly out of street at which point we turned right down an alley and found Casa de Marie . . . at least that's what I think it was called. The food was good but not remarkable. The waiter, however, was. Many hours later I finally turned out the lights and was gone. It was just after 1:00 AM.
"Hello"
I sounded to myself like I was across the room. It was my wife calling to wish me good morning as she was heading off to sleep in California. Separated by nearly half the globe, we were both in bed though at opposite ends of the day and nine standard meridians apart. It's odd if you think about it. Later in a fit of pseudo insight, I found myself wondering, "If I'm in bed in France talking on the phone to my wife who is in bed in California, which bed am I really in?" Think about it.
The sounds of the cleaning crew outside my door finally roused me. It was 9:26. Out the window I could catch a corner of blue sky. Outside I pulled my coat tightly around me. Hat and scarf weather, but mine were sitting upstairs in my luggage.
I walked a different route today. West down the Blvd. Etats Unis which follows the coast until I couldn't stand the cold any longer. I headed North into the city and onto the same promenade we walked last night. Sunday morning on a winter day and it's nearly deserted. I could feel a second koan coming on.
"If you're in a famously beautiful and romantic city and it's bone chilling and you're alone, is the city still beautiful and romantic?"
I didn't know this, but Nicean's take pride in their Carnival parade which highlights, among other things, the town's long connection to flowers. I've missed the event by several days but the telltales--giant reviewing stands lining the procession route, large graphical signs that I suspect were adorned with flowers, carnival rides, stacked up temporary barriers, etc.--are still everywhere in evidence. I find it all fascinating but a week after the event and the sense of gaiety has been replaced with a workmanlike sense of "let's get this junk packed up and out of here."
I finished my morning in the same cafe I had visited yesterday. There was something about those big country tables and the warm crowd I suspected would be there that suddenly seemed terribly urgent.
The Cafe Quotidian was all packed in. I sat by a window just down the table from two young American visitors and their local host. Cafe au lait in hand I found myself eyes closed just listening to the voices around me.
My language skills are terminally inadequate, but a French cafe at noon on a Sunday isn't really about the words. It's like listening to one of those popular songs that you only know the first line to. It's the sound that's pleasing and the occasional recognized word or two is simply a bonus.
Just prior to coming here I purchased a new digital camera, a Canon 10D which is by every review I've read, and I read a lot of them, a magnificent picture making machine. I think that's actually a good way to think about modern digital cameras.
One of the joys of digital photography is the ability to instantly review images. If you don't much care, you can glance at the screen on the back just to make sure that you've actually recorded an image. If you do care, you can check the histogram for exposure range and view the image at various orders of magnification to check focus. I'm not entirely sure this is a blessing.
In the past, I would have taken my Leica and a couple of lenses and shot black and white. The whole kit fits in a couple of pockets. There is a battery for the light meter, but everything is mechanical. It's nearly impossible to kill the camera, and if something does go wrong, you can work around it by guessing at the right setting or focus distance.
The 10D is different. It's got more computing power than my second personal computer. You find yourself listening for the little beep that tells you the camera has locked on a focus point and accurate exposure. Last night as I was editing the day's takes I noticed a kind of softness in the images. I checked one, then two, then all of them. I compared them to the day before. Then I compared them to images I had taken with other cameras (they're all on my laptop). I fell asleep last night and woke up this morning with this gnawing sense that my miraculous high tech image machine was somehow out of whack.
Back before digital, it was still possible to ruin your photos. You just didn't know until you got home and got your happy snaps back from the photo lab. Now it's possible to find out moments after you've taken the picture that you're not getting what you thought you were. Except in this case, there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I changed lenses, changed settings, done everything I can think of and it's still there: A hard to describe softness I associate with cheapy disposable cameras, not professional grade image machines.
Koan number three. "Is it right to be happy walking around Nice taking what you imagine to be wonderful pictures? Is it right to be sad walking around Nice taking what you suspect are slightly unfocused pictures?" I mean after all, isn't the point that you're in Nice walking around?
Some images from today.
I call this a "dock thing" [go]
Table on the beach [go]
A beach is a cold place to eat breakfast in February [go]
Bench on the Blvd. Etats Unis [go]
Feeding the birds [go]
Phone on the promenade [go]
A little girl. It's all a matter of scale [go]
Alfa Romeo reflecting on the buildings behind [go]
Balconies from below [go]
Chairs on the sidewalk in the cold [go]
Graffiti. The squiggly stuff is spray string [go]
Town square after the Carnival [go]
Bleacher seats left over from Carnival [go]
Inside the Quotidian Cafe [go]
Cafe au Lait [go]
You've head of the"Gameboy"? These are gamegirls [go]
I regard myself as a pretty technical person--and a pretty competent photographer, but I've been humbled. If you read the previous post you know that yesterday I was convinced that there was something wrong with my zoomy new Canon camera. It couldn't be user error. After all, see points A and B: I'm technical and a competent photographer.
It was me. There's nothing wrong with the camera. The humbling part, or maybe it was amazing, was how I came to learn this. I went online. Should have thought of that first. I went online to the Canon forum at www.dpreview.com and posted a whiny complaint about the soft images my camera was making . . . after explaining the part about how many years I've been taking pictures and all the gear I either own or used to own.
It really didn't take more than minutes before the responses started coming in. It's astonishing if you just think about it. An American in Nice, with a piece of technology I bought from New York that was made in Japan that was shipped to San Francisco. I was on the Internet getting real-time advice from posters in the US, Nice of all places, and Taiwan.
Within a couple of hours, I had lots of useful information, some encouragement, the odd blandishment, and some good links to look at. Astonishingly, I didn't get badly flamed by any of my new advisers. One person asked that I post some pictures which I did. Pretty soon I several of the people were offering some pretty technical analysis. One person even manipulated one of the images in PhotoShop to show me what could be done. The verdict?
1) Learn how to use the camera properly (oh, that).
2) Remember all the basic things you've either forgotten or only pretend you know. These have to do with focusing and setting the right shutter speed for the lens size. This is basic, basic stuff.
3) Set a couple of things differently in the camera.
4) Learn how to use PhotoShop. Digital images from cameras like these need a bit of fluffing before you make gigantic prints.
Which brings me to the last point. How did I come to the conclusion the images were soft? I was viewing them at 100%, which from this camera was the equivalent of a picture 40 inches wide (I can explain it if you really want to know). That's a bit of an enlargement given that the sensor that makes the images is the size of my thumbnail.
So basically, I'm a dope. I thought I knew what was what but I didn't. Instead, using accurate information but completely out of context, I came to a false series of conclusions ending up with my amazing new camera didn't work right. Wrong.
Some images from the end of the day.
Local Asian Restaurant [go]
Standards used to rope off restaurant on the beach [go]
Buying ice cream [go]
Girl waiting outside [go]
Sunset looking west [go]
Sunset looking the other way [go]
Scooters (2 of the zillions) [go]
Walking on the Blvd. [go]
Ferris Wheel [go]
Send mail to
webmaster@kevinhoffberg.com
with questions or comments about this web site. Copyright © 2004
Kevin Hoffberg
Last modified:
05/03/06