Scooters...

You know you're in France when a crescendo of noise erupts down a narrow street and you turn to see a young lad on a scooter doing a speed inversely proportional to the decibel levels.  It's annoying (especially to someone with hyperacusis like yours truly here), but infinitely preferable to getting mugged/abused by a load of feral yobs like you might encounter in other places of the world.   There are a lot of scooters around Antibes...you see them lurking in alleys, all innocent-like.  Here are some I encountered while they were resting...

Beside the Picasso Museum, Antibes Old Town

Looks like the owner of this one just jumps out of his (or her) bedroom window, leaps on his (or her) scooter and pip-pips off to wherever he (or she) is going.  Very PC I am, in case you hadn't noticed...

Nice framing in that shot, methinks.  I did contemplate moving that traffic cone out of the way, which somewhat attracts the attention away from the subject in the centre of the shot.  There is always a debate in photographic circles about whether to remove objects that encroach in a shot - litter is the classic example.  Some people insist that the photograph should be a true record of 'what was there, then'.  Although I have a lot of sympathy with that view, I'm not in that camp - sometimes I might move something out of the way, but most times I don't.  If it's possible then I might move myself to take something I don't like out of shot.  I didn't do either here - moving closer to the scooter would have ruined the natural frame of the archway and I left the cone in the shot.  Was I right?  Let me know by leaving a comment below!

Two for the price of one in this one

The old town of Antibes is rather quaint and just right for an amble about - reasonably level ground, lots of little shops to admire and a good smattering of cafes and eateries when the legs start to give out and a small libation beckons (which it did often, I have to admit - but I was on holiday).  The daily Marche Provencale is lovely just to walk through early in the morning - huge bowls of olives of all varieties, spices galore, cheeses, flowers and vegetables.  The meat counter was also impressive, but the Little One wasn't amused by the heap of skinned lapins on sale - it probably made her think of her own lop-eared hoppity thing back home.  Understandable.  I think it's something to do with having the whole carcass on show, rather than just a cut of meat as you would normally get for the bigger animals.  I mean, if there was a whole skinned cow on show I'm not sure how many people would still be inclined to have that steak for dinner.  Similarly for a horse (well this is France we're talking about, right?).   A joint of beef, or just a steak - well that doesn't look like an animal, does it?  I mean we all know it comes from an animal, but we don't have to acknowledge that when just buying a piece of it.  Strangely most people have no issue with buying and cooking a whole chicken, or a fish - maybe it's different for smaller creatures.  OK I'm going to stop talking about this now, you'll be glad to hear - but I reserve the right to come back to this issue at a later date.  I might even tell you about the project I once had with a local abattoir, which was most interesting...

Not a touristy street, Antibes Old Town

Now this last shot is much more interesting than those in yesterday's posts, don't you think?  I like places to be real, me.