How it all started… and why this new blog

Dear Friends,

Welcome my new blog.  I’ve prepared an imaginary red carpet for your arrival!

So – a quick explanation of ‘why a new blog?’   I started blogging over ten years ago. The first was a blog about dogs who spent their holidays in my house in the south of France whilst their owners went away. Not a boarding kennels, but a ‘pension familiale’ – a home-from-home for dogs. They  lived in my house, slept where they wanted, on the sofa, in my armchair and often my bed!

Then, a year later I started Menton Daily Photo and Monte Carlo Daily Photo and also Riviera Dogs – posting each day. I wanted to share my love of the French Riviera, the beauty, the traditions, the food and of course the people and the dogs.

At the beginning I hadn’t a clue about photography – the horizons weren’t straight, buildings sloped, the exposure was woeful – don’t ask! But slowly I came to love photography and then I fell madly in love with it – I was hooked. Then came years of reading about it, learning from photographer friends, watching YouTube videos, teaching myself to be a better photographer. And of course buying new and better (and more expensive!) cameras. And eventually I was ready to attend some truly great photography workshops where I learned even more. I’ll be writing about those another time. In the last year or so, I’ve come to realise that the photography I most love to shoot the is life, people, street photography and dogs (and often a combination of all of those).

So, the reason for this blog? – well, lately I’ve been posting images of Naples and Nice and Aix-en-Provence on my Menton blog. That’s not good blogging when the blog has the word ‘Menton’ in the title. And so it’s time to move on, to post what I really want to post and not be restricted to a specific area.  But for those of you who follow the Menton blog, don’t worry, Menton, the surrounding medieval hill villages (including my village, Gorbio) and Monte Carlo won’t be forgotten. I live here after all. And if you want to look back at postings on any of those three blogs, well, they aren’t going anywhere. You’ll be able to find all the posts and photographs from the last ten years at any time – I just won’t be posting on them anymore.

So onwards…. if you are interested in life as it’s really lived in the south of France and Italy, dogs (of course!) and my journey in photography, come with me … and do subscribe for updates (see the link below).

See you soon – love Jilly x