I took this picture on August 15th. As usual, I brought my camera with me when I went out. Little did I know that I would end up battling the heat, spiny bushes, dead branches, and sharp stones. I drove along the winding, narrow roads near Tarascon in southern France and, in a brief moment, caught sight of what seemed like a fairy-tale castle. I had to stop the car, pull over, and head straight toward it. I took over a hundred pictures of the "castle." However, as I got closer, I realized it was not a castle at all, but rather the "Abbaye of Frigolet." It wasn't until I got home that I understood: that sometimes, you need a specific point of view—only one, in fact—for the magic to endure. Sometimes, magic requires distance; it tends to vanish as you get closer (or older).
Horia Alexandru Pop was born in Romania, Eastern Europe, and has been residing in France since the 1990s, with some years spent abroad in Germany, England, and Australia. He is a versatile writer, creating poetry, short stories, and scripts, and he is also a filmmaker. Horia has a passion for photography, especially capturing portraits and scenes from the street or nature.
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