I visited yesterday the very interesting exhibition “When Forms Come Alive” in Hayward Gallery in Southbank Centre in London. This is a contemporary sculpture exhibition centred on organic forms.
Last holidays, I organized a mini trip with my family to the Normandy landing beaches used by the allies during D-Day. This is a quite common thing for French people, but I never had the opportunity to bring my son there neither my wife who is quite reluctant with anything war related.
Omaha beach memorial
The D-Day beached area is actually quite wide and there are plenty of sites to see. We had a bit of limitations for various reasons and I wanted not to overwhelm everybody. Factor in that the weather is not great in Normandy in February, so I had to cut short on my bucket list.
The west side of Omaha beach
I thought it would be a good tour to include Omaha beach, one of the most well know areas. The beach is kilometres wide, and I was mostly looking to picture the new sculpture “The Braves” that was added to the old memorial some 10 years ago.
A bunker.
Of course we landed ( that’s an easy one ) on the wrong side of the beach, but I found the bunker above ( bucket list ticked).
Omaha beach National Guard Monument
My next stop was the American Cemetery of Normandy in Coleville sur mer. An understandably sad place.
American Cemetery of Normandy – 21mm View
There is a museum at the entrance which is very interesting, I have not visited the one in Arromanche which is supposed to be very good as well so I cannot compare.
American Cemetery of Normandy – 50mm View
Second tick box of my list. There are sadly many military cemeteries in Normandy, I remember being very impressed by the German one in La Cambe when I visited it as a teenager.
Remains of Arromanche artificial harbour
Third thing I really wanted to visit was the artificial Harbour of Arromanche. It is hard to fathom that nearly 80 years later the concrete cubes used to create a practicable arbour for the allies are still here ( not all of them of course). This is an testimony of the incredible D-Day adventure if needed.
A concrete element of the Harbour
One element of the Harbour that can be approached at low tide, so I planned my visit timely.
As I mentioned above, Arromanche sports a museum that reopened last year but was originally built in 1954.
The museum is well guarded
At that point we had to head back to our base in Deauville. That was quite a full day, a couple of things I wanted to see that I did not manage : some big batteries and bunkers before reaching Arromanche, the German cemetery mentioned before, Utah beach where you can find well preserved bunkers and some planes.
Bunker in Etretat
Just to be safe I also shot the above bunker in Etretat the day before, you can see the hollow needle.
I found mildly interesting and border bad taste to visit the sites with my WWII area Leica. The body dates from the late 40’s but the Summitar 50mmF2.0 is definitely contemporary to the war. So I carried the Leica IIIC, the Summitar and the Voigtlander Color Skopar 21mmF4.0, with the Sekonic light meter. I intended to shot this subject with the Agent Shadow film, which gives a kind of more vintage look, but actually I finished the roll before reaching Normandy and I switched to the TMAX 400, crisp as usual.
If you haven’t watched it, I recommend watching The Longest Day the 1962 epic about D-Day.
Happy new year dear readers. January is coming to its end, but its never too late, so here is my first post of the year.
Back in December we visited the amazing exhibition of Daido Moriyama at the Photographer’s Gallery in Soho ( London) and I discovered that their shop in the basement has a dream selection of films.
I am still going to patronize the usual smaller shops but I think it’s great to be able to put one’s hand on the stuff you read about in blogposts. So I browsed the shelves and found a roll of the just available ( and if I am correct not for long) color film from Harman.
I vaguely remembered that Harman is the company producing the Ilford films, but frankly I don’t know much more. So at the end of December we were back home in Cannes for family holidays and I finished my roll of TMY400 and loaded the roll of Phoenix 200.
As you can see on the first picture the film has a very pretty ( odd?) yellow color out of the canister and once processed a pronounced purple tint. I loaded the film in full light, in the skate park above, but I don’t think it had any effect. And set the meter to 200ISO, although the film is said to have latitude ( but not so much if you read some reviews).
The skate park is a new addition to the Cannes cityscape, that day was really gorgeous and the tint of the film goes pretty well with the colors of the place.
Moving a bit further towards the Pointe de la Croisette I took a couple of shots of boats. I think we see here what people mean by the film being very contrasty.
I quite like the picture above, probably the color scheme fell right into the soft spot of the film, and the light being softer the contrast is less accentuated ( oxymoron )?
The four pictures above are taken along the promenade des Anglais in Nice. A certain atmosphere develops there, probably mid afternoon winter light and overcast day helps with the contrast. The feeling is very vintage.
Back in London, the dummies below were remarkable by their red heads. The glow is quite funny, I would say unexpected.
The Standard building renders pretty well ( overcast, mid afternoon ) with not so much color cast. Definitely vintage and some glow around the lights.
Bye Bye Georg Baselitz sculpture in Hyde Park.
Finally walking on a beautiful lunch time towards Hyde Park I met these two nice Brazilian students, one holding a Nikon F3, we had quite a long chat ( in the cold), and parted our way after taking this shot. This gives an idea of how skin tones are rendered.
Final word? Probably worth a try. Surely has a lot of character, I think Hartman said the film was experimental. A very specific vintage look, a lot of contrast but I probably won’t try again to be honest. If I compare with the post about the Cinestill 400 D I think the Cinestill has a lot less color cast, a smoother rendering of contrast, but ok its more expensive ( 12.5 GBP vs 17 GBP if I remember well).
Last week end was Notting Hill Carnival in … Notting Hill area in London. The party last 3 days with the Monday, that falls on a public holiday being the “adult” carnival.
About two millions of people, converge to the area for a Caribbean, African, South American party.
It was my first time and as much as I like a street party this is a bit borderline. It was already very difficult to move where reaching Notting Hill gate, I was not sure it was such a good idea.
Very light closing, lot of booze, that shouted for a cocktail for a not so family friendly afternoon.
But then you go by the back streets ( because the wife said so ) and you get close to the action, people are cool and happy campers, music is loud and enticing.
So well you grab your Leica and lets the fun begin.
I carried the M262 and 35mm Summicron Asph v2 as usual ( I am boring ) and no change of lens. I also put in my bag a M4 with Summicron 50, but that will be for another time.
Once again the 35 is a great lens for such event where you can stand in the crowd. Compared with London Pride where you had to stay outside of the action, this is an opportunity for close encounters.
Moving location we found a nice spot where in between sound systems I met a group of film shooters.
The arrival of a Brazilian batucada was a welcome change in between blasting sound systems.
… temperature was rising
Photographer trying to convince a dancer to pose. This guys was doing some off camera flash shots and was pretty good at directing “models”.
Everybody was pretty happy to pose.
Above is a group of French speaking participants, the carnival is a real babel.
You already know I am not a mass shooter so all in all I shot below 200 frames in 2 hours, and maybe 3/4 of a fil roll, that is not very professional I know. But I am just a hobbyist. I will off course put 2024 Carnival in my agenda. Advise to self ( and others if they are interested ) : travel light, just bring the M262 and 35 and maybe the M6 and 50, avoid bringing a bag its hard to move with one in the crowd. Also pay more attention to the shutter speed, maybe it is time to play with the auto ISO.
In Singapore I often shot Hindu, Buddhist or Taoist ceremonies, but never Christian ones ( nor Muslim by the way). I came across the Corpus Christi procession two years ago by complete chance and it is now on my agenda one year to the next.
The Westminster Parishes of Maiden Lane & Spanish Place, together with the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy, the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, and the Order of Malta, invite you to a week of celebrations, centred on the Blessed Sacrament.
The week culminates in a procession bringing Christ to the streets of London, and honouring Him in the Most Holy Eucharist
One to two hundred devotees walk from Maiden Lane in Soho, through Regents Street, Oxford Street, make a first stop at the Ukrainian Cathedral (opposite Leica Mayfair), then cross Oxford street north along Selfridges to end in a short celebration at the Spanish church in George Street.
a guestRegents street as you never saw itcertainly an interesting unday attraction The Ukrainian Cathedral
This type of events is also a good opportunity to meet fellow photogs years after years, or to make new friends.
All shots with the Leica M6 “Classic” with either the 28mm Summicron Asph v1 or the 35mm Summicron Asph v2. I used two rolls of Ilford Delta 400 bought in my last trip in Singapore to my favourite shop there ( Ruby Photo ).
I also carried the M262 and the 90mm, but that’s another affair.
the good usage of the 28mm
If you read that far I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Shall I indicate that these pictures have no intentions to mock nor to proselytize?
A bit more than a month back I bought two rolls of Cinestill XX in the Aperture UK shop in London. I have read about this film, but its the first time I saw some available for purchase, so I picked two rolls to see what it is like, keeping in mind that I will have a road trip in France a few weeks down the line.
I loaded the first roll soon after and started shooting in London over a couple of very sunny week-ends we had in late April.
The XX box claim to be a variable speed motion picture, but on a conservative move, I set the M6 speed dial to 200, and put a 50mm lens in front of it, most likely the Summicron v5 or the Summilux v2 with a yellow filer.
Balthazar’s bride
It is very difficult to tell which one I used from the pictures.
TwinsOff the wall
So a good first part of the roll was shot in London, the weather was nice and my brain clicked in shooting mode.
Fashion addicts
When holidays started, I spent a day in Paris, with not much shooting action, then drove to the Loire valley, where frankly I felt more compelled to use the digital M and 28 mm cron.
But here are three shots of the park of the Chenonceau castle.
At this point we drove to Bordeaux witch I never visited before and seems to be a good place for street photography, just enough people, and specific places.
The film was processed by my usual lab here in London : Analogue Films in Shoreditch, it seems they were not very familiar with the film at first. They managed to do their usual good job as processing and scanning.
The last part we moved to Biarritz in the Basque Country, capital of surfing in France.
Life is a beach
I always found very odd to shoot sea side in black and white, but hey why not, my parents did this ages ago.
Bay watchLocal artistsThe market
I found the XX a bit too grainy for my taste, maybe blame the processing, who knows? Lets see how the second roll turns out.
Oh yes, the cost. The film was 11£ a roll ( almost 13 Euros, 14 USD, 19 SGD), mmm I think I still have some HP5+ in my 100ft roll. And Analogue Films charge about 8£ for process and scan.
Browsing through my storage room ahead of my move to London, I went through my boxes of old pictures and binned most of the prints, but naively kept negatives, probably something like 20 to 30 rolls that were never scanned and spent most of the past twenty years in storage.
1993 Dereliction – Brussels
I really like browsing through old pictures because that’s why we take them in the first place right? Being able to watch them later. Most of the rolls were shot between 1992 and 2001, between my arrival in Brussels and my first digital camera.
What do you see when you look at old pictures? Well ok in this case what I saw first that the negatives, the Kodak Gold mostly, were pretty deteriorated and got yellow stains that wont go away.
1993 Chez Guillaume Villers sur Mer
Beyond this, with nearly 30 years of decantation, not many picture pass the bar of being shareable. I smiled at my old self, look thoughtfully at departed family members and lost friends. It is more walk down memory lane than an art exhibition. But a lot of pictures are frankly crap, and there are always lessons to take from this. The saddest thing is all those scenes which are not shot correctly and for which I only took one shot. Maybe an extra shot or a third and the memory would have been golden. My lesson here is to try to concentrate and if you can’t well at least try to multiply the chances.
1993 – Amsterdam style wedding
In 1993 I already bought my Nikon F3 with a 35-70F3.5 zoom, and offered my wife an Olympus mju-1, I think most of the shots here are done with the Olympus. 10 years before digital cameras hit the consumer market, I loved this point and shoot. When I arrived in Brussels my area of the city was quite derelicted and I was looking for a camera that would enable me to shoot pictures like the first one : abandoned houses viewed through a crack in a door or an opened window, showing the unseen, the essence of photography. Well ok, film was expensive back then so I did not overuse it…
1993 – Barcelona
Years before I learned the term street photography I was attracted to random stanger…
1993 – JF in Brussels
By then friends also had film cameras and there was no Facebook, so most of the time you never saw the pictures they took of you.
Hope you enjoyed this small reading, back form the time where film cameras where cameras, full stop.
More to follow…
Scanned with Epson v800, small correction in Lightroom
It has been quite commotion recently in Singapore, when the news hit the headlines that the area of Geylang called Lorong 3 will have to be handed back to the state by their owners.
Like in UK, there are many schemes of property ownership in Singapore: you can own the land of your property of just have a lease for a certain time (generally 99 or 999 years). In that case the owners of the properties had a 60 years deals and they have been informed for a while. Most of the houses are sublet to foreign workers, and some also house some places or worship.
This is not a walk down memory lane with charming old houses presenting architectural interest, home of families and smiling old folks. This is rather a set of shabby terraced housed built in 1960, in various states of dereliction. Of course the areas as a historical and Social interest and is worth documenting.
It is hard to believe this “new normal” has already been in place for 7 weeks. A quick heads-up for the near future : a phased “unlock” will start from first of June, the only sure thing is that schools will reopen on on a rotational basis. So it looks I will be able to write a few more of these posts.
I did not take the camera out of my bag this week, or did not even took a bag. Finally today, I decide to put the M262 + 28mm Cron around my neck on my walk to Chinatown to collect my dinner.
Excellent light when crossing from People’s part to Chinatown
The old Samsui woman seems lonely without any tourists around. I hesitated taking pictures of the stalls of Chinatown, all curtains pulled down, but the light was not great.
On the area in front of Chinatown Complex a few old folks were hanging around in relative self distance.
In front of the Buddha tooth relic temple, the incense burner was covered with a cloth, an unusual sight,
Finally I think I managed to capture the new life of the F&B outlets adapting to the crisis by offering take away and delivery, Above in front a a Korean BBQ, delivery men waiting on social distanced chairs.
And below patrons waiting outside the popular Kok Sen local eatery in Keon Siak Road.
Or a Japanese restaurant spelling out loud.
It seems that the female figures will be masked for a while on the pictures
Time of the week again!I think I just took the camera with me three times this week, and I did not made a single shot today.
Deserted Clark Quay
The weather is still indecisive but we have some nice moments, and some late afternoons with beautiful lights. I started the week with the old Summitar 50 that is on the M262 for a couple of weeks now.
Strange lights on this office building (or is it a hotel?)
Despite its back focusing issues, it performs quite well.
Hair Dressers are re-opening
… enough to capture the event of the week : the re-opening of hair dressers.
Clark quay still empty
Saturday, I decided for a change and picked from the magic box the 28mm Cron Asph v1. You can think how nice the old lenses are, and you can challenge me to tell objective differences between the two shots of Clark Quay, but the newer Leica lenses rock, they are the one who justify owning a digital M body. I always recommend to everybody who wants to go the digital M way to get at least one newer lens.
I have set the M body in auto aperture mode, but as much as it generally work, I always end up shooting at a too low speed. You will tell me this mode should be used with auto ISO, but yeah OK, it really needs some practice to be put to good work.
A human
Yes I managed to shoot a human, that was a while since last one.
An eateries at Chinatown MRT
I think it is always easy to take random pictures and rather difficult to shoot something that means something to you and on which you want to express something. I wanted to shown the blocked Chess game area where a lot of old folks gather usually.
The area is now locked as you can see. I hope you get the feeling
Finally a shot of Potato Head, in a very quiet Keong Siak Road as night was falling down,
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