05: Learning to Fly in the Rhone Alps

During a quiet walk down an off-season ski slope in the Rhone Alps, I noticed two figures: one, a young girl of three or four, the other, an older man who I assigned as her father. The man, downhill and downwind of the girl, gripped two thin strings in his hands, and was shouting instructions to the young girl. Suddenly there was a flutter as a small triangular kite took to the cloudy afternoon skies, before almost immediately plummeting nose first into the soft grass below. The young girl ran to the crash site with enthusiasm to collect it, and the two repeated the process until, eventually, the kite remained airborne long enough for me to snap a picture, and for the girl to adopt the perfect kite gazing pose.