Thanks all for commenting.
Thomas, it is not exactly a series, because I made no effort to achieve any kind of homogeneity. One camera, two lenses (quite different animals, not really a good match), and whimsical processing. The scenery and the weather were not exactly homogeneous either, cold wind an warm sun, roman limestone buildings and contemporary steel & glass stuff... but enjoyable all the same. Arles especially was a nice surprize (my first visit there): despite being famous, if only for its photographic events, the city is not swamped by luxury boutiques or real estate peddlers like poor Aix en Provence for instance. The old town rather reminds some rundown places in Italy.
Hans, one peculiarity of wavy curves is that they have at least one flat area, here in the light greys, where contrast is annihilated. The result is a mix of high contrast and low contrast zones (e.g. the walls in the front, and the roof in the back). There is more structure in the sky than in the ancient wall
John, you guessed right. That's also a reason for pushing the saturation, but I should have been more cautious about the reds that are "overstated". The Zeiss is a great performer indeed, here shot at f/8-f/11, but great too wide open, despite a slightly nervous bokeh.
Akira, you're right about the "wet plate" effect, although it was not my intention. My concern was the bland sky and I did not want to use masking (the whole stuff was lazily processed in NX studio). Curve was adjusted to "populate" the sky while avoiding halo effects near the tower edges or the cross on the roof, which would have exceeded my tolerance threshold.
