Four decades behind the lens. Seven years of sharing the journey.
Welcome. I’m Ian — photographer, horn player, and writer living in the Vendée, near the Loire-Atlantique border. This blog has been running since 2019 and shows no sign of stopping.
You’ll find black and white film work, travel essays, orchestra photography, philosophical digressions about why any of us bother pressing the shutter, and the occasional camera review written by someone with strong opinions and a perhaps unreasonable attachment to grain, Art, and maybe a little history, or things that make you go, “hmmm….” No algorithms chose what appears here. No agency wrote it. Just forty years of looking, and seven of writing it down.
The panama hat, the walking stick, the hearing aids, the beard, have become characters in this story.
Start anywhere. Stay as long as you like.
Latest from the Field
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The letter: October
October was supposed to be the quiet month before November. Instead there was a funeral in Brittany, the camera I learnt on in 1987 bought back for fifteen euros, and a day lost to working out what is actually happening in France. Read more
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What is happening in France is a French story
A friend in the US asked what is going on in France. I live here, and I wanted to answer with facts rather than a feeling. This is the short version, and one request. Read more
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France, October 2026: what is going on
A friend in the US asked me what is going on in France, so I spent a day checking what is known and what is only claimed. This is the long answer: the history, three popular claims tested against the evidence, and a dated list of what to watch next. Read more
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Jean Paul Jacob, 1946 – 2026
I have written this article a thousand times in my head. Jean Paul Jacob was my father-in-law, and he taught me a lot of my French by arguing with me. This is the version that finally made it onto the page. Read more
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This One Is Mine: Shooting a Praktica MTL3 Again
My son was off to forge a knife, so I dropped him at Le Gâvre with a Praktica MTL3 and a roll of RPX 400 and went looking for something to photograph. It is the camera I learnt on in 1987: same model, same shutter noise, a different decade. The plan for the rest of… Read more
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The first letter
A couple of hundred people signed up to hear from me and I sent them almost nothing, because I could never work out what a newsletter from me was supposed to be. I think I’ve got it now. Here’s the first one, published so you can see what you’d be getting. Read more
Featured Projects
- The UK Chronicles
A solo journey through Britain with the Fujifilm X100F — Northumberland in late summer, the coast at Alnmouth, light coming low off the water. Traveling light enough to actually notice things. - The Film Archives
Black and white film photographs made before this blog existed — Nantes, Clisson, and the Vendée. The negatives had been sitting in binders for years. This is where they finally got out. - Photography Philosophy
Not technique. Not gear. The question underneath all of it: why does any of this matter, and what are we actually doing when we press the shutter? A series of essays without easy answers. - Inside the Orchestra
Three years photographing the Symphonique des Bords de Loire — rehearsals, concerts, and a tour to China. The quiet moments before the music starts, and the ones after. - If you’ve been reading this site for a while and there’s a frame that stuck — the street, the light, something from China, the Vendée, Nantes, wherever — I can probably make you a print of it. Just send me a message.
About the Photographer
A photographer, ever so slightly stubborn, analogue at heart and digital when needed. I’ve been developing my own film since the 1980s. I built this blog in 2019, not for followers, but for focus.
I shoot what moves me, and I hope, sometimes, it moves you too.
Stay in Touch
One letter a month — never spammy, always sincere.
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