Monochrome panorama of the Merville Battery casemates across open ground, Canon 6D Mark II 16-35mm, Normandy

The Merville Battery

I went to the Merville Battery in August 2019, between Pegasus Bridge in the morning and the war cemetery at Ranville in the afternoon. I wrote about both of those and never wrote about this, and the photographs sat on a disk for seven years. This is the part of that day I had let go of.

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photo of me taken by my wife's cousin

A Family Is a Timeline: Weddings, White Hair, and the Roads of Normandy

On the passage of time: through a family, through a landscape, and through the photographs we leave behind. On the 8th of August I watched Maureen marry Maciej.

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Crowded bathing pool at the foot of a limestone quarry with children in the water and graffiti on the rock face, Canon AE1 Program 50mm, Nantes

Jardin Extraordinaire: This Time I Actually Looked at the Map

I headed back out with the Canon AE1 Program to capture more of the Voyage à Nantes, this time at the Jardin Extraordinaire—a hidden garden carved into an abandoned quarry. With the car at 48°C, it was sweltering, but the wandering through Chantenay and an unplanned brewery visit made the day worth every frame.

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Théo Mercier's Fossil Opera — sand ammonites and half-buried cars before the Opéra Graslin colonnade, Nantes

Voyage à Nantes: Following the Green Line

It was 46°C in the car when I set off and 40°C by the time I reached Place Graslin, which is not the weather for walking a city. But Le Voyage à Nantes paints a green line through the streets and I wanted to follow it, at least as far as I could manage without melting. The AE1, a roll of HP5+ rated at 100, and whatever the evening put in front of me.

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Haven’t Forgotten About You

I know it’s been quiet here, but that’s just the natural rhythm of accumulating material before bothering to process it properly. Jardin Extraordinaire, Voyage à Nantes, a zoo visit, and Normandy have all given me photographs and notes. New posts are coming soon.

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AI-generated illustration of photography books, tabby cat, Nikon camera, tea mug, Nantes cityscape with bridges, black ink style

AI, Identity, and the Bridge That Doesn’t Exist

I asked an AI to show me what ijmphotography.net looks like, and it gave me back a Parisian bridge that doesn’t exist in Nantes. But it got everything…

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Wooden crate of courges on a Clisson market stall, black and white film, Nikon FE with Kodak Tri-X 400

A Fan Letter to Monochromia

There’s a photography blog I keep coming back to, and I want to tell you about it. Monochromia is a collective — photographers from Chicago, Nuremberg, Rome, Washington D.C., and a village on the Nile, all posting one black and white image at a time with barely a word of explanation. I contribute the occasional shot from France, which makes me biased. It also makes me a better photographer.

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Woman with crutches standing beneath the inverted glass pyramid of the Carrousel du Louvre, Fujifilm XT2, Paris 2020

A Day in Paris with My Daughter: The Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and 127 Floors

A day trip to Paris with my daughter Kate in July 2020 — the Louvre, the Pyramide Inversée, and more steps than anticipated. Shot on Fujifilm XT2. Republished six years on.

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Golden wheat field at sunset with lone telegraph pole, Fujifilm X-T2 Helios 44-2, north Vendée France

On the Way Home

I had been noticing these fields for weeks from the car window — flat wheat and telegraph poles in the north of the Vendée, golden in the evening. One night, on the way home from dropping my daughter off, I had the X-T2 on the passenger seat and finally pulled over. The Helios 44-2 was on the front of it. I was back in the car in under half an hour.

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