Try-athlons change you – the basics here in France

It started as an idea. Someone mentioned this to me and I wondered if I could. Now I know I CAN. Gratification through effort. What am I raving on about do you ask? Triathlon. I have to say it again, try try try ahtlon. I have always been a rather, very, sporty type but also needed to let that competitive panther that lies in me, out. Grrrrr. So when I signed up to join one of the area's most well known clubs (also for it's rugby, football, rowing, cycling… divisions) the Aviron Bayonnais Triathlon last April I knew I was in for a big challenge. Pourquoi? Because it's a mind blowing challenging sport combining a swim in open waters, a cycle on sometimes hilly roads and a run that you could frankly do without, right at the end. The distances are multiple, you can choose from XS for novices and first timers, SPRINT for those who want speed but shorter distance, Olympic Distance (called Courte Distance sometimes here in France), Half Ironman (ok that's starting to become inhuman), Ironman (yes, the one when you finish crawling across the finishing line) and then, the ULTIMATE HEAD and BODY BLASTER: the extreme triathlon, the ones that go up stupid terrains where near mortals wouldn't even go for a light walk without stopping under the strain, where the water is a nippy 11°C and the cycling terrain is like cycling up Mount Everest, on a bad day. Being a fit person with a real inclination for outdoor sports made me over exited to try it out. I started in the club mid season when everyone else had been training together already for months. But I wasn't playing catch up. Read on...

A short essay on photography and mental print

I still cannot stop taking mini snapshots of everything I see in my head. I think, one day, my over stimulated-sometimes-childlike brain is going to simply protest and ask me to just STOP be quiet Fiona. Just let me take is EASY for a few minutes. But until then, I do not intend to slow my mental snapshot habit. When I am able Read on...

End of summer… in my eyes and through my Canon

Through summer, I took so many photos, so many instants of my life. Here are some of my favourite shots from this summer and end of this hazy daze of sun and heat, here in the South West of France. Read on...

JR Street Artist

I discovered JR on an Instagram feed a couple years back and since then I followed his work and travels across the planet. You see, JR, super inspired and contemporary French artist, uses the street as his gallery. And isn't the urban landscape a permanent show? Art in all it's forms: Movement - Music - Rhythms - Colours- Read on...

The supereye and perception of Bill Phelps

This weekend in Biarritz I was lucky enough to go visit the Wheels and Waves custom and vintage motorbike gathering by the famous light house. I am fascinated by old chrome, used leather, the smell of old bikes and the sounds their owners have given to them adapting special exhausts the these amazing creatures, panthers of steel that drive Read on...

Graphs and tags and ocean photography

As I have already shared with you before, tags and street art draw me in to their interesting and wild form of free liberated art. By the ocean near where I spend most of my time, I sometimes come accross on my meanders, beautiful colour filled unusual art. Here are some pictures from my last shoot, in Anglet, by a factory that stands tall Read on...