I'd rather be in ... Paris ...

One of the nice things about having a blog is that you can be completely indulgent ...

So, from time to time I will present images that are more about where I would prefer to be ... not that I don't mind where I am, but I suspect that being permanently on holidays sometimes seems quite attractive ...

These images are a small selection of frames shot in Paris during September 2005. My wife and I were lucky enough to travel to London, Paris and Venice for about eight weeks. Leaving the kids and travelling was very unusual, but we got used to it after about the first 12 hours ...

Like any holiday snaps, they probably mean more to me than anyone else ... but if you need any motivation to go to Paris at any time, maybe these give a glimpse of the beauty that this city gives up at every turn and in every light. (OM4, selection of lenses, Fuji Superia 400)

Warwick cemetery

This series of shots was taken at the same time as "In the memory of Charles" using my Mamiya pro/Sekor 45mm combination with Ilford FP4. I used perceptol at 1+1 when developing the film to try and minimise grain while maintaining the finer details across a wide range of tones.

I am looking forward to getting into the darkroom to wet print each of these images because lower key tones always seem to print better than my scanner treats the negatives. I am sure that it is not the scanner (Canon 8800f) but a fault with the user ...

It might not be such a good start to a blog for the opening series of images to be quite so funereal. Perhaps the next images will need to be colour and a little lighter in mood ...

In the memory of Charles ...

I wasn't sure about the first post to make to this new site.

It may seem a little unusual to find oneself in a cemetery whilst on a long weekend away. I did have a reason to visit Warwick cemetery: My wife's grandmother is buried there ... so off to Warwick I went with my youngest to visit Honey's grave ...

It rained, we had no umbrella and couldn't find the grave in the amount of time we gave ourselves ... perhaps next time ...

I was drawn to the older plots near where we were looking and the very bleak weather made the scene quite compelling. Many of the headstones are tilting precariously or have fallen already. I took this in relatively light drizzle, just before it started raining quite heavily. (Mamiya 645, sekor 45mm, fp4 @ 125 developed in perceptol 1+1)