Shooting Nantes at Night with HP5+
One September evening I walked between Place Bouffay and rue des Petits Écuries with the Nikon FE and a roll of HP5+. Box speed—400 ASA. No pushing. No stand development. Just me, tired eyes, and the hope the city would be kind.
It wasn’t always.
Some frames failed outright. Missed focus—my eyes couldn’t lock the split-image patch in the dim light. Others blurred from camera shake at 1/15th, handholding like a fool. I won’t pretend those shots have hidden merit. They’re gone. But the ones that landed? They held more than I expected.
Because Nantes at night isn’t dark. Restaurants pour light onto wet cobbles. Shop signs, streetlamps, even those little menu stands outside cafés—they all feed the scene. I’d guess the focus, press the shutter, and move on. Later, scanning the roll, I found detail in shadows I thought were lost. Not because I’d exposed well—I hadn’t—but because HP5+ gathered what was there even when I fumbled.
That’s latitude in practice. Not a spec sheet promise, but the difference between a usable negative and a blank one when your hands shake and your eyes fail. I didn’t push to 1600. I didn’t need to. I just needed a film that wouldn’t punish me for being human.
The December shots are more traditional street work—grey skies, low sun, the light you expect. Even the coffee cup photo owes something to Instagram. I won’t deny it. We absorb what we see online; it seeps into our framing without us noticing. No shame in that—it’s just how we learn now.
But the September shots that worked feel more like my own. Standing in Place Bouffay as evening deepened, watching light pool around tables and bounce off stone—I wasn’t chasing a look. I was just there, squinting, hoping. And HP5+ met that without fuss.
I’m not claiming mastery. I’m claiming a few good frames out of a roll that also held misses. That feels honest. Cities don’t go dark—they transform. And sometimes, even with bad eyesight and shaky hands, a simple roll of film gives you just enough to keep walking.
All photographs shot on Ilford HP5+ at 400 ASA, developed in standard chemistry. Nikon FE, Nantes—December 2025 and September 2025, Place Bouffay and rue des Petits Écuries.
IJM Photography 
Ian, your photos are always such a joy! I never miss a post. When you wrote that cities don’t go dark but transform, it brought me right back to a stretch when I was driving Uber and Lyft before sunrise. I’d watch Orlando wake up in layers – night‑shift workers heading home, cleaners finishing their routes, grease‑trap guys wrapping up the jobs no one ever thinks about. I never realized fast‑food places get scrubbed top to bottom in the dead dark of morning, but that whole hidden world is there if you’re awake to see it. Your line captured that feeling perfectly.
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I’m not always up so late, I assure you! Especially lately where I have become an adept and devotee of the early night. It might even be doing me some good. But cities don’t go to bed, you’re quite right! The population transforms and changes. I’m happy I’m not the only one who sees it! Thank you.
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Nicely done !!! Wow
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thanks Ted. Nothing ventured nothing gained I suppose.
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