Life is too short – kind of confirmation…

You remember, for about 10 days, I was explaining that we have decided to go twice to St Barth this year, as “life is too short”. In the meantime, two important persons for me just passed away extremely brutally:

  • The father of one of my best friend since 25 years (“Papa Fogli”) who was one of the most brilliant passionate and fascinating person I have met. He was a renowned metalworker craftsman, an artist and master in his field (“Meilleur Ouvrier de France”). He was 74 and died in his garden from an heart attack. He has marked positively and for ever all the persons that had the chance to be in contact with him…
  • Pierrot, the owner of the Pipiri restaurant in St Barth, one of the figure of the island. It was always such a blast to have a dinner at his restaurant, not only because of the food, but also because of Pierrot and his special art of making you “feel at home” immediately. He liked also very much Stevie Ray Vaughan, which is making you already very special for me ;-) We will miss him in some days on the island. His brutal death at 54 was a real shock for everybody on the island.

This both persons had something in common: they were real profound nice and so kind guys and gentlemen, bringing love, humor, intelligence and support to other people and their family. Our current world is so full of disrespectful idiots and bastards, the mankind has not really won with these two losses…. On the other side, I am sure that all the people they have known will keep them in their heart, also as example. So do I!

So, if we would have needed a confirmation of our “life is too short”…

And this also, as a “brutal reminder” to say “I love you” to our beloved, again and again. Do not forget, it can be brutally just “too late”…

Life is too short – Saint Barth in 2 weeks

As life is too short, and after a (very) fast “family discussion” for a while, we have decided all three together that it is the right moment to return to Saint Barth a second time this year. And this, in exactly two weeks (we will arrive on August 3)!

We are all three just super mega happy, starting to prepare us for our coming stay in paradise.

It seems that the island is very green, so hopefully new perspectives for new pictures ;-)

 

(writing this post near our fireplace, strange cold summer here in Alsace/France…)

Canon vs. Nikon

via Mashable

No no, I’m not entering the religion fight between the Canon and Nikon fans ;-) As you may know, I’m a happy Canon user for years now, and with the time, you get used to the interface of Canon or Nikon cameras and, if you have some good expensive lenses, you are so or so stuck with one or the other.

There are for sure some detailed differences between both brands, but generally speaking, both have very happy users since years…

What I haven’t realized, on the other hand, is the difference of size between both companies. Actually, Canon is much bigger than Nikon and is selling 4x more DSLR than Nikon! That was not clear for me, always had the impression that both are more or less of equal size…

  Nikon Canon
Founded in 1910 1937
Number of employees ~ 26’000 ~ 197’000
Revenues on cameras
2008
2010
4.8 bn EUR
4.8 bn EUR
12.1 bn EUR
11.5 bn EUR
Revenues on DSLR
2008
2010
2.1 bn EUR
1.9 bn EUR
7.9 bn EUR
8.1 bn EUR

Provence, Baux-de-Provence, Saint Rémy, …

We could have some days off end of April at Les Baux-de-Provence in South-East of France / Provence. A real nice stay actually! I finally invest the time to post-produce my photos. This time, no big equipment, just my little Canon S90 and DxO…

Ousteau de Baumanière

Ousteau de Baumanière, an excellent hotel, perfectly positioned near les Baux-de-Provence, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (which is much nicer than les Baux, too much touristic and artificial for our taste), les Alpilles, Avignon, etc. Service was really great, as the room we had. Two restaurants in the hotel, both worth a visit ;-) L’Ousteau itself which is a 2* Michelin, absolutely fantastic, and la Cabro d’Or, a 1* Michelin, which is also very interesting. We had there a “vertical” degustation menu with 10 dishes all based on different excellent local olive oils, including the dessert!

hotel ousteau de baumanière

hotel ousteau de baumanière garden

hotel ousteau de baumanière swimming pool

hotel ousteau de baumanière swimming pool

hotel ousteau de baumanière restaurant

 

Baux-de-Provence

baux-de-provence village

baux-de-provence village

baux-de-provence by night

 

Oppède le Vieux

A small village in the Luberon

oppède le vieux luberon

oppède le vieux luberon

oppède le vieux luberon

oppède le vieux luberon

Olive groves

This region is a kind of paradise for people (like me) that likes olive oils. A lot of small producers, so many different tastes, pure happiness!

olive grove

Les Alpilles

les alpilles

les alpilles

les alpilles

Portfolio

You can find the whole Baux-de-Provence portfolio here.

Saint Barth 2012 booked!

Yes yes yes, it is already time to think about Saint Barth 2012 ;-) Our reservations are done for the flights, villa and car, as usual beginning of June. Actually, the only way to have a chance to get *the* villa which is attracting us!

So for next winter, we have chosen a very modern villa. A quite uncommon one in Saint Barth, as we will have a direct access to a beach, Petit Cul de Sac. One of the few villas there with a beach access.

Have a look!

Already excited now :-)

All pictures are copyrighted by Si Barth, the real estate agency we are working with for our villa renting in Saint Barth.

Montreux Jazz Festival 2011

The program of the Montreux Jazz Festival 2011 (July 1 – 16) was published yesterday, as usual quite a bunch of interesting concerts!

With my friend Manu, we have decided us for the July 13 night with two concerts:

Both concerts are quite promising, in two very different styles. We could reserved two very good places, centrally positioned, not far away from the scene. Ticket-price is really going up, outch… Anyway, still very happy to be able to go there again this year ;-)

Montreux Jazz Festival Foundation 2011, © Artwork Francis Baudevin

Saint Barth 2011 – Day 17

To celebrate the “first week over and back to work”, I would like to share these pictures taken from the plane just after the take off from Saint Barth. My personal mood at this time was, how to express that?, not the best moment of these fantastic holidays…

Saint Barth from the plane