Autoire

February 18th, 2015

Autoire is a very small little village with a population of around 350, located in the Lot department of southwestern France. About 40km southwest of Turenne (where I was staying), it was a nice way to spend a sunny morning. It was late June, I had just left Turenne and was headed back to Vence and then back to Tennessee. As I love to do, I had mapped out a day’s worth of stops along the way, visiting several beautiful little French villages. Autoire was the first stop of the … [more]

Bargème

November 22nd, 2014

Bargème, located in the Var department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur, is about an hour and a half drive west of Vence. It’s a tiny little town with a population of only about 150, located high up on a hill, making it the highest village in the Var. The main attraction are the ruins of an old castle, not much of which is still standing. I spent a wonderful, warm, sunny afternoon there in early June, walking around and taking photos. Besides the castle there isn’t a lot of activity. There was … [more]

Albi

October 26th, 2014

Situated in the Tarn department in south central France, Albi is a small town with a population of about 50,000. Located about 85km northeast of Toulouse it’s a beautiful city (too big to be classified as a “village”) with a huge 13th century cathedral (Cathédrale Sainte-Cécile) and the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum, which is located in the Palais de la Berbie, one of the oldest and best preserved castles in France. This past summer I passed through Albi on my way to Turenne. I stopped for several hours, walked around the main part … [more]

Lourmarin

August 7th, 2014

Lourmarin is another wonderful village in Provence, located in the department of Vaucluse, about 20 miles north and slightly west of Aix-en-Provence. It was the last village I visited on my summer trip in 2014. There’s a lot of history here as the village lies in a very important junction that for centuries has provided a gateway to the south of Luberon. Now home to about 1,100 permanent residents the small village has seen massacres, destruction, decline and rebirth over the last 500 years. The village itself is nice, though rather … [more]

Eze

December 22nd, 2013

Eze is one of my very favorite French villages. It lies just a few short kilometers outside of Nice and I have visited it on a variety of occasions. It was the first “village perché” (perched village) I ever found in France and it just totally blew me away with its small, narrow, winding, steep stone streets and pathways. Carole and I first visited Eze in the mid 1990s on one of our trips to MIDEM. We took the bus from Nice and spent an afternoon exploring the little town. … [more]

Germantown

March 23rd, 2013

I’m taking a class at Watkins College of Art, Design & Film (where I also teach) this semester called Documentary Photography. One of our assignments was to spend a morning in the Germantown neighborhood of Nashville taking photographs. I wandered around the area for about two hours taking lots of photos. It’s an incredibly interesting neighborhood located just north of downtown. It is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Nashville and it is also in a very dramatic period of transition. There is construction and activity on almost every block. … [more]