“ON NE PEUT PAS ACHETER LE BONHEUR MAIS ON PEUT ACHETER DU BON VIN.”
You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy good wine.
I found this handwritten on a café window in Nantes, and it stopped me. The French don’t really promise happiness, they promise pleasure, and the city seems built around that idea.
I walked through Nantes for days with my camera, trying to understand what makes a city not just beautiful, but livable. What I found changed how I think about urban life.
The lampposts told me a lot. Twisted metal trees with globed lights, more sculpture than street furniture.
This question was everywhere. In the Passage Pommeraye, a 19th-century shopping arcade where statues line ornate balconies and natural light floods through glass ceilings. In the Théâtre Graslin, where neoclassical columns frame a cultural temple that feels both monumental and welcoming.
Nantes treats beauty as something everyone gets access to, not a luxury reserved for a few. The city is carefully designed but never precious about it, and the old and the new sit together without much fuss.
An elderly couple sat on a bench in Cours Cambronne, backs to my camera, just watching the world go by from behind an iron fence.
Later, in the Passage Pommeraye, someone sat alone in a bistro chair among the statues and columns, resting or reading or just thinking, in no hurry to be anywhere else.
What I like about Nantes is that it doesn’t insist you be sociable. You can sit in public on your own without it being strange. The city makes room for company and for solitude equally.
The espresso cup sat empty on its saucer. Someone had been there a few minutes earlier, had their coffee, and moved on. You can’t buy happiness, but a coffee and five minutes to sit down costs less than you’d think.
That might be the real lesson of Nantes: you don’t need to be happy all the time, just to have regular access to small, reliable pleasures. Good coffee. Good food. Good company or good solitude. Somewhere pleasant to sit.
Happiness is the big abstract thing you chase and rarely catch. Pleasure is smaller and more immediate, and you can actually have it on a Tuesday afternoon.
The bicycle stood locked to its post, basket empty, waiting for whoever left it there to come back and ride it somewhere, work, home, a café, a friend’s place.
Nantes offers small pleasures rather than promising grand happiness. You can’t buy joy, as the sign said, but you can buy a good espresso and sit down and see what happens next.
And sometimes, that’s enough.
Here is the full lot of photos taken at the beginning of March on HP5 (box speed) and 4 photos on Rollei RPX 400, all shot with the Nikon FE, and developed in Ilfosol3 1:9. For me they represent different aspects of Nantes – Bouffay, Place Graslin, la place Cambronne, la rue Crébillon, le passage Pommeraye, et la rue de la Paix.
Birdsong in Black & White: A Morning at the Jardin Extraordinaire
I’d never been to the Jardin Extraordinaire before. And I’d never shot Ilford Pan 100.
Honestly? I wasn’t sure what to expect from either.
What I found was a place that felt alive — birds everywhere, water cascading down massive rock faces, people just being there. Reading on rocks. Walking along paths. Letting kids splash in the shallow pools. And if you look closely at a few of the wider shots, you’ll spot the Grue Titan across the Loire at the Hangar à bananes. It’s not in the garden, but it’s in the photographs. I like that. A small nod to the bigger story of this city.
The Jardin Extraordinaire is built on an old granite quarry in the Prairie au Duc. You can still see the rock faces where they cut into the hillside, metal walkways clinging to the stone, plants reclaiming what machines once carved out. And that waterfall — 35 metres of water pouring down the old quarry walls. Dramatic and peaceful at once, if that makes any sense.
What I didn’t fully register while I was shooting is how the garden fits into Nantes’ wider landscape of transformation. The Hangar à bananes, the Machines de l’Île, the whole Île de Nantes redevelopment — they’re all part of the same conversation about what to do with industrial space. The garden is the quiet, green chapter. The crane across the water is the bold industrial punctuation. When I got the scans back and saw the Grue Titan peering into a few frames, that clicked.
Full disclosure: I was the older gentleman in the Panama hat, moving slowly around the paths with a cane and an analogue camera. Taking my time. Stopping to frame things. Not in any hurry.
I watched the Nantais doing their thing while I did mine. A parent reading on a rock while children scrambled nearby. Couples strolling. And me, clicking through 36 frames like I had all the time in the world. Which I did. That was rather the point.
I did spot one other photographer — shooting with a very modern, very impressive DSLR. And I had to consciously stop myself from slipping into smug film photographer mode. Oh, you’re chimping your screen? How… digital. I held it together. Mostly. The honest answer is we were both just doing the same thing with different tools, and there’s room for all of it.
As for the Pan 100 — I’d heard it was contrasty, fine-grained, sharp. What I didn’t expect was how well it would suit this particular place. The Jardin Extraordinaire is all about contrasts: dark rock against bright sky, rough stone against smooth water, industrial metal against wild greenery. Pan 100 didn’t fight any of that. It leaned into it. I shot mostly between f/5.6 and f/16, trusted the FE’s meter, and when the scans came back I was — pleased? Surprised? Both. The images feel like the day felt.
My favourite shots aren’t the big dramatic ones. They’re the clusters of berries photographed close enough to see their star patterns, the metal butterfly on a gate, a single log on the path casting a long shadow. The things you almost miss when you’re moving too fast. With 36 frames and a roll that costs money, you look. You wait. You notice things. And then those become the photographs you actually care about.
I developed it at home, as always — Ilfosol 3 at 1:9, scanned on the Opticfilm 8100. No lab, no outsourcing. Just chemicals and patience. The smell of the developer, the little thrill of seeing what’s on the film. It’s all part of the same story.
I’ve got some Kodak Ultramax 400 in the fridge. Expired 2022. No idea what it’ll do. I think I’ll take it back to the Jardin and find out.
All photographs shot on Ilford Pan 100, Nikon FE. Home developed in Ilfosol 3 (1:9), scanned on an Opticfilm 8100. Jardin Extraordinaire, Nantes. The Grue Titan at the Hangar à bananes appears across the river, uninvited and welcome.
P.S. If you’ve been to the Jardin Extraordinaire, shot Pan 100, or you just love Nantes — drop a comment or send a message. Always happy to talk shop.
P.P.S. And if you’re curious about home development or scanning, ask away. Happy to share what’s worked for me.
P.P.P.S. And if you ever spot me at a photo spot with my FE and a Panama hat? Please gently call me out on the film snobbery. I’m working on it.
Saturday’s concerto rehearsal was done — the collaboration, the translation, the careful work of integrating guest artists into an established ensemble. But the concert wasn’t just one piece. It was a full programme. And the rest of that programme needed rehearsal too.
Sunday. No soloists. No concerto. Just the orchestra, the conductor, and the grind.
I loaded HP5+ pushed to 3200. Same Nikon FE, same 50mm f/1.8. But three stops of push this time — more grain, more contrast, more raw. If Saturday’s 1600 was work, Sunday’s 3200 was iteration.
You can feel the difference when the guest artists aren’t there. Saturday had a particular energy — the stakes of building a shared language with people from outside the ensemble. Sunday was just us. The regulars. The people who were eating lunch in the car park the day before. Corentin back in his seat next to me. Viktor on oboe. Nicolas patient behind the timpani. The conductor at the whiteboard, same as always, but now talking only to people he knows.
No translation needed. Just the work.
Here’s what general rehearsal looks like: we play. The conductor stops us. Again. We play. He stops us. From 47. We play. No, from 45. We play. Better. Now from the top of the phrase. Over and over, getting it right, then getting it better. It’s not glamorous. It’s not even particularly musical most of the time. It’s iteration — and the HP5+ at 3200 suits it. The grain is heavy but not ugly. Textural. Urgent. Honest about what it’s depicting.
What strikes me looking at the images now is the concentration. The hunched shoulders, the heads bent over sheet music, the conductor’s hands cutting through the air. Nobody is thinking about dinner or what they forgot to do at work. For these few hours everyone is just here, trying to make something work. The grain matches that energy — it says this is real, this is process, this is nowhere near the victory lap.
The full arc of the weekend, in one table:
Fomapan 100 — Lunch
HP5+ 1600 — Concerto
HP5+ 3200 — General
Camera
Pentax ME Super
Canon AE-1 Program
Nikon FE
Light
Natural daylight
Mixed indoor
Mixed indoor
Grain
Fine, subtle
Textural, controlled
Pronounced, raw
Mood
Relaxed
Focused
Urgent
Story
Community at rest
Collaboration at work
The machine in flow
Three cameras. Three films. One story.
The choices weren’t accidental. I chose Fomapan 100 for the lunch because I wanted calm. HP5+ at 1600 for the concerto because I wanted texture with control. HP5+ at 3200 for Sunday because I wanted the grain to do some of the work — to say without saying it that this is unglamorous, repetitive, necessary. The photojournalists who shot jazz clubs in the 1950s understood this. You don’t hide the process. You lean into it.
From my seat in the horns I photographed the machine I’m part of — the horn resting in its case between takes, valves gleaming; coffee cups on the floor by the woodwinds; sheet music thick with pencil marks. These are the million small adjustments that add up to a rehearsal. And eventually, if everything goes right, to music.
Seeing the Symphonique des bords de Loire through a viewfinder across a whole weekend changed something. I saw not just the work but the commitment behind it — all these people who could be doing anything else on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon, here instead, playing the same bars until they’re right.
Rehearsal is where the music is actually made. The concert is just the victory lap.
The trilogy is complete.
Shot on Nikon FE, 50mm f/1.8, HP5+ pushed to 3200. Edited in Lightroom — contrast via tone curve, subtle vignettes, grain left exactly where it was.
P.S. All three parts are now published: Part 1 (Fomapan 100, Lunch), Part 2 (HP5+ 1600, Concerto), Part 3 (HP5+ 3200, General). Thank you for following along.
Part 2: The Work — Rehearsing a Double Violin Concerto on HP5+ 1600
The lunch break ended. Tables were folded. Containers packed. The last crumbs brushed away.
And then they arrived.
Two Chinese violin soloists — guest artists who’d travelled some distance to play a double violin concerto with our little orchestra in a French community centre. They weren’t at lunch. They weren’t part of that casual, sunlit gathering outside. They were here for work.
So were we.
I put down the Fomapan and loaded HP5+ pushed to 1600. Swapped the Pentax for the Canon AE-1 Program. Same 50mm philosophy, different camera, different film, different mood. The sunlight was gone. The fluorescents were on. The break was over.
You can feel it when rehearsal starts — the shift from community to concentration. From chatting about weekends to counting measures. The conductor, same man who was smiling over a food container an hour ago, is now at the whiteboard, baton in hand, writing notes about tempo and bowing. The soloists take their places at the front. Tuning. Focused. Not quite part of our tribe yet — guests, professionals, here to do a job.
I photographed from my seat in the horn section and from the aisles during breaks. The AE-1 Program in Program mode — no thinking about shutter or aperture, just framing and timing. The camera handled exposure. I handled seeing.
What you witness, photographing a concerto rehearsal, is translation. Not just musical ideas passing between conductor and players, but something more specific: two soloists from one tradition finding a shared language with an orchestra from another. The conductor stops us. Softer in the strings. The soloists adjust. He stops again. A touch more projection. They adjust. We play. He listens. He stops. This goes on. Not because anyone is wrong, but because everyone is finding the same musical space.
HP5+ at 1600 sits in the right place for this. Not the fine, almost invisible grain of the Fomapan lunch shots. Not the raw, declared grain of 3200. Textural, controlled, appropriate — honest about the work without dramatising it.
The three-roll arc of the weekend, laid out:
Fomapan 100 — Lunch
HP5+ 1600 — Concerto
HP5+ 3200 — General
Light
Natural daylight
Mixed indoor fluorescents
Mixed indoor fluorescents
Grain
Fine, subtle, clean
Textural, present, controlled
Pronounced, bold, raw
Contrast
Gentle, even
Moderate, balanced
Punchy, dramatic
Mood
Relaxed, communal
Focused, collaborative
Urgent, iterative
Story
Community at rest
Collaboration at work
The machine in flow
Same orchestra. Same weekend. Three worlds — and the technical choices were the point from the start.
From my seat in the horns I see the whole machine differently than an outsider would. I know which passages are coming. I know which sections are struggling. I know the rhythm of this room. But through the viewfinder I see something else — the strings moving in that eerie synchronised way, the brass gleaming under the fluorescents, Viktor on oboe, Nicolas patient behind the timpani, Corentin next to me absorbed in something difficult, glasses slipping, completely gone.
The small details tell it too. A French horn resting in its case between takes. Coffee cups on the floor near the woodwinds. Sheet music thick with pencil marks. These are the million small adjustments that add up to a rehearsal — and eventually, if everything goes right, to music.
Saturday was the concerto. The focused, collaborative work. Sunday would be the rest of the programme — no soloists, just the orchestra and the conductor and whatever needed fixing. The grind. The iteration.
Part 3 is coming.
Shot on Canon AE-1 Program, 50mm f/1.8, HP5+ pushed to 1600. Edited in Lightroom — contrast via tone curve, subtle vignettes, nothing added that wasn’t already there.
Let’s Connect: Mentorship, Prints & Collaborations
A brief and practical note.
After six years of writing here, I’m formalising something that has been happening informally for a while — people getting in touch to ask about prints, about learning, about working together. Which is lovely, and I’d like to make it easier.
So here’s where things stand:
Mentorship — I’m happy to work with photographers who want to develop their practice, whether that’s film, digital, or somewhere in between. One-to-one, remote or in person if you’re near the Vendée. We work on what you actually need, not a fixed curriculum.
Prints — A selection of black-and-white work from the Nantes series and elsewhere is available as archival prints. If something on the blog has caught your eye, get in touch and we’ll talk.
Collaborations — Photo walks, workshops, joint projects — I’m open to conversations. No guarantees, but I’m listening.
Article suggestions — If there’s something you’d like me to write about, say so. Reader questions have produced some of my better pieces.
The best way to reach me is ian@ijmphotography.net. I aim to reply within a couple of days. French is fine too — n’hésitez pas.
That’s it really. No agenda beyond making good work and occasionally sharing it with people who care about the same things.
I’m a bloody fool. I made the stupidest of mistakes when shooting HP5 Plus 400 speed film at ISO 100.
I’d been intending to use 100 ASA film in my Nikon FE, so in preparation, I had set my camera’s ISO dial to 100. I loaded the HP5 and forgot to change this blasted setting. By the time I realised, I had already taken “some” photos. I didn’t want to wind the film on to change the setting because the sun was shining and I didn’t want to waste the light.
In for a penny, in for a pound. I thought, “What the heck?” They say you have all this “latitude” with film, so I went online to find out if I could salvage the roll. Here we go for a walk in the Parc Garenne Lemot in Clisson.
I developed the film in Ilfosol 3 (1:9) and used the development times for Kentmere 100, praying that I would have something usable…
THE STATUE – Front view of classical statue on pedestal – This shot demonstrates the beautiful tonal range achieved through pull processing
The Theory: Pulling Two Stops
For those who aren’t deep in the film weeds, here is what I actually did. By setting my camera to 100 ISO while using 400 speed film, I was overexposing by two stops.
Now, common wisdom says that pulling HP5 to 200 ASA (one stop) is perfectly fine. But I thought I was pushing my luck pulling it two stops to 100 ASA. I thought I was taking the mickey with the film gods.
By giving it extra light and less development, I was essentially asking the film to reduce contrast and grain significantly. I was testing just how much abuse it could take before the negatives turned into flat, grey mush.
I didn’t develop it for standard HP5 400 times. I treated the whole roll as if it were 100 ISO film from start to finish.
The Results
When I pulled the negatives out of the tank and held them up to the light, I braced myself for grey mush. What I got instead was dense, rich negatives — a bit chewy for the scanner, but nothing it couldn’t handle. And when the scans came up on screen, I just sat there for a moment.
The first thing that struck me was the shadows. HP5 at box speed can get muddy in the dark areas — a graininess that clogs rather than adds texture. Here, the shadows under the pergola and along the fence are deep and rich, but they’re not blocked up. You can still see into them. That matters.
FENCE WITH LONG SHADOWS – Diagonal shadows cast across gravel path – wood grain inside film grain. Both doing their job.
2. Texture and Grain
But the real revelation was the grain — or rather, the near-absence of it. Because the film had been drowning in light and starved of development, the grain structure in the mid-tones is almost Delta 100 territory. Look at the texture on that weathered wooden post. Every crack, every split in the grain of the wood — the film is rendering it, not obscuring it.
WEATHERED WOODEN POST – Close-up showing wood grain and texture – The fine grain structure is clearly visible in the wood texture
3. Highlight Control
I’d been braced for blown skies. Two stops of overexposure in spring sunshine — I was mentally preparing my excuses. But the reduced development had pulled the highlights back beautifully. Look at those bare branches against the sky. It’s a grey gradient, not a white void. The film held on.
BARE TREE BRANCHES AGAINST SKY, Garenne Lemot — I was expecting white sky. I got this instead.
4. Tonal Range
And then there’s the tonal range across the whole roll — from the white marble of the statues to the dark foliage behind them. The separation is superb. There’s a creaminess to it, a classical smoothness, that I’m honestly not sure I’d have got from HP5 at box speed. A happy accident, as it turns out, can sometimes produce results you wouldn’t have had the nerve to plan.
ORNATE URN WITH STATUE IN BACKGROUND – Layered composition – Foreground and background detail with smooth tonal transitions CLASSICAL COLONNADE – Stone pillars with cloudy sky – Weathered stone texture and cloud detail demonstrate the technique’s versatility
The Verdict
So, was this a disaster? Absolutely not.
In fact, it might be some of the most satisfying film I’ve shot in a while — and I shot it by accident. The shadow detail is rich, the highlights are controlled, the grain is almost invisible in the mid-tones. It has that smooth, almost medium-format quality that you usually have to pay for in slower film and longer development times.
Ornate scrollwork detail – Razor-sharp detail and micro-contrast prove no sharpness was lost
It turns out, what I thought was a stupid mistake is actually a technique some photographers use on purpose. Pull processing HP5 (rating it at 100 or 200 ISO and developing accordingly) is known to produce finer grain and lower contrast. I thought I was pushing my luck going two stops, but the film handled it like a champion.
Would I Do It Again?
Would I do it deliberately? Probably not — if I want 100 ASA film, I have 100 ASA film. But that’s almost beside the point now. What this roll taught me is that HP5 has reserves I hadn’t tested, and that sometimes the best thing you can do is commit to the mistake and see where it takes you. In for a penny, in for a pound — and in this case, the pound came back with interest.
If you ever load the wrong film, or find yourself caught between changing light and the wrong ISO setting, don’t panic. HP5 can take the abuse. It might even thank you for it.
Have you ever accidentally shot film at the wrong ISO? Did you save the roll or bin it? Let me know in the comments below.
Happy shooting
Ian from IJM Photography
P.S. The Kentmere 100 development time was a guess. An educated one, but a guess. The fact that it worked is either good research or dumb luck. Probably both.
P.P.S. I have since checked the ISO dial on the Nikon FE before every single roll. Every. Single. Roll.
P.P.P.S. The images from this roll are available as prints. Some accidents are worth keeping.
Continuing on from my last article about shooting in sub-par lighting, I’ll introduce my next roll of film—RPX 400 from Rollei. I usually like this film. This roll also marked the first time I really tried to use the Tone Curve tool in Lightroom. I’m still getting used to it. But I thought that with RPX 400, I might be able to make some ordinary prints somewhat less ordinary.
After forty years of doing this, you’d think I’d have it all figured out. You’d think I’d have a fixed workflow, a set of rules, a way of knowing exactly what the result will be. But this roll reminded me otherwise. There’s always something new to learn, or something old to look at differently. And I’ve started to wonder if there’s something honest in admitting that, rather than pretending the process is ever truly finished.
Pont Caffino on a February afternoon is exactly that kind of place. I’d never visited before, though I’d heard about it from other photographers. The sky was uniform. The light was flat. Nothing was going to jump out and grab me. So I loaded the Rollei, walked down to the river, and started looking.
The River
The water level was low—noticeably so. I knew this because not long before, I’d been at the Maine in St Hilaire de Loulay where the river had broken its banks completely. You couldn’t even see the weir there, just water spreading across the landscape. Here at Pont Caffino, the opposite was true. More of the granite banks showed through. More of the weir structure was exposed. The river looked different, and I found myself photographing it differently.
River surface with bridge in distance
When the light is flat, water becomes less about reflection and more about texture. You notice the foam patterns, the subtle ripples, the way debris catches on submerged rocks. RPX 400 handled this beautifully—there’s a softness to the water that feels accurate to how it looked that day, not how I wished it looked.
Water Level Gauges
The gauges became an unexpected focal point. They’re functional objects, not particularly beautiful on their own, but they tell the story of this place better than any dramatic landscape could. The reflection of the numbers in the still water added a compositional echo I didn’t plan but gladly kept.
Weir Structure
Where the water quickened over the weir, I had to be careful with exposure. Film handles highlights more forgivingly than digital, but I still metered conservatively. The fallen branch caught my eye—it’s the kind of detail you miss when you’re looking for the big shot, but it adds a diagonal line that pulls the frame together.
On editing the water: The challenge here was separation. When both sky and water are grey, they tend to merge into one another. I used subtle dodging to lift the highlights on the water’s surface, just enough to ensure the reflections didn’t disappear. Nothing dramatic. Just enough to guide the eye.
The Cliff Face
The granite cliffs that frame the Maine valley are dramatic even in bad light. They’re also popular with climbers, which adds a human element I hadn’t planned to capture but couldn’t ignore.
Climber on Granite Close-up
I haven’t shot rock faces like these on HP5+ before. The nearest I got to that was shooting in the Pyrenees mountains—different stone, different light, different everything. So I didn’t have a direct comparison to fall back on. What I noticed with RPX 400 is how it renders texture without aggression. Every crack and lichen patch comes through, but without the bite that HP5+ might have given. For this particular day, that suited the mood better.
Climbing Scene Wider
Seeing the climber and belayer together reminded me that landscapes aren’t empty. They’re used. They’re lived in. The rope creates a diagonal line through the frame, and suddenly there’s narrative—someone is trusting someone else, and both are trusting the rock.
On editing the cliffs: This is where dodging and burning did the most work. Flat light makes rock faces look two-dimensional, like cardboard cutouts. I spent time burning in the crevices and dodging the raised surfaces, essentially repainting the light that wasn’t there when I pressed the shutter. It’s not about creating drama that didn’t exist. It’s about revealing the dimension that the light flattened.
Details
I’ve learned to slow down on days like this. When the big vistas aren’t cooperating, the small things start to speak.
Catkins/Branches
The catkins hanging from bare branches aren’t dramatic. They’re not even particularly interesting as a subject. But they caught the light in a way that felt worth capturing. The shallow depth of field creates a dreamy quality, and the grain—more noticeable here than in the landscapes—adds character rather than detracting from it.
Water Edge Vegetation
Mechanical Detail
The mechanical detail—the lock gate mechanism, I think—was almost accidental. I was walking back from the viewpoint and noticed the bolts, the geared rack, the weathered metal. It’s the industrial counterpoint to all the natural elements. Sometimes you just stop and shoot because something looks like it has a story.
On editing the details: I was careful not to over-sharpen these. The natural grain of RPX 400 provided enough texture without needing digital enhancement. If anything, I pulled back on clarity rather than adding it. These images work because they’re soft, not in spite of it.
The Town & Viewing Platform
For the full perspective, I drove up to Château-Thébaud’s belvedere, “Le Porte-Vue.” It’s a striking piece of architecture—Corten steel extending 23 meters out at 45 meters above the river, designed by Emmanuel Ritz and inaugurated in 2020.
Walkway to Viewpoint
Walking out onto the platform, you feel the height. The steel underfoot, the railing at your side, the valley opening up below. There’s a figure in this shot—could be another photographer, could be anyone taking in the view. It adds scale and reminds you that you’re not alone in these places.
Le Porte-Vue Architecture
Framed View Through Steel
The Corten steel handled the flat light better than I expected. The weathered texture gave the film something to hold onto, and the geometric lines contrast nicely with the organic landscape beyond. The framed view through the steel structure became one of my favourite shots—it acknowledges that you’re looking from somewhere, not just capturing a scene.
River Valley Overview
This is the establishing shot. The full Maine valley from above, all the elements visible at once. You can see the weir, the cliffs, the tree line. After seeing the Maine at St Hilaire de Loulay with water everywhere, this view felt almost spare. The lower levels exposed more of the structure than I’d imagined possible. It’s the image that ties everything together.
Church Steeple
Village Street
The village itself grounds the landscape. The church steeple adds a human landmark to the valley. The quiet street with its leading lines and the number “28” on the wall—these are accidental details that add authenticity. This isn’t a pristine wilderness. It’s a place where people live.
On editing the architecture: I focused on straightening lines and ensuring the steel texture didn’t look too smooth. The flat sky was retained intentionally. I could have blown it out or added artificial clouds, but that would have been dishonest. This is the light I had. This is the day I experienced.
On Making It Less Ordinary
Looking down at the river from Le Porte-Vue, I thought about what I was actually trying to do.
This was my first time at Pont Caffino, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. RPX 400 felt right for this quieter, more exposed version of the valley. But the film alone wasn’t enough. The scans came back flat—accurate, but lacking the dimension I remembered from being there. That’s where the work began.
In Lightroom, I used the Tone Curve to add a gentle S-shape, nothing aggressive. Just enough to add punch without crushing the blacks. I lifted the deepest shadows slightly to preserve the atmosphere. And then I spent time dodging and burning—manually painting light into the highlights of wet granite, holding back exposure in the shadows of riverbanks, guiding the viewer’s eye through texture and tone.
I’ve only started using the Tone Curve with this roll of film. I’m still getting used to it. But I’ve found it offers basic yet subtle controls, as does the dodging and burning. It’s easy to feel like this is cheating. Like you’re admitting the photograph wasn’t good enough straight from the scan. But I’ve started to think of it differently. Dodging and burning isn’t about fixing mistakes. It’s about translation. It’s about taking what you saw and felt and finding a way to communicate that to someone who wasn’t there.
There’s a danger in thinking you know everything. Usually, that’s when you stop seeing. When you assume the light will behave, or the film will respond the way it did last time, you miss what’s actually in front of you. I’d rather be the one still figuring out the Tone Curve after forty years than the one who thinks there’s nothing left to learn.
The result isn’t dramatic. It’s not the kind of image that stops you scrolling. But it felt honest—a quiet enhancement rather than a transformation. And on a grey February day at Pont Caffino, that’s exactly what I was after.
Technical Note
Film
Rollei RPX 400
ISO
Shot at 400
Camera
Nikon FE
Lens
50mm f/1.8 Nikkor
Development
Ilfosil 3 (1:9)
Scanning
Plustek OpticFilm 8100
Lightroom Adjustments:
Tone Curve: Gentle S-curve, highlights lifted slightly, shadows preserved (First serious use of this tool for me)
Local Adjustments: Radial filters for dodging/burning on rock textures and water surfaces
Grain: No reduction applied
Sharpening: Minimal, applied selectively on details
Thanks for reading. If you’ve shot RPX 400 in similar conditions, I’d love to hear how you approached it.
Maybe I’m a little stubborn, just maybe, but I’m insisting on using my Nikon FE and for my health I have to get out. I had some Tri-X that needed using, and some HP5+ left over, so time to use it. And it does my mental health good too—getting out of the house despite the horrible light and rain.
“They” always say to go out in good light and use golden hour. We haven’t been blessed with good weather lately (understatement of the year contender 2026), and I always say just go out anyway and do it.
I shot two rolls that afternoon—72 frames total. Tri-X and HP5+, both at box speed. No pushing. I developed them in Fomadon LQN because it handles flat light cleanly: shadows stay defined, grain doesn’t get muddy even when the sky gives you nothing. When I scanned them, about half were ok enough to keep—36 frames that worked. Of those, maybe half a dozen were real keepers. That’s how it goes. Not every frame needs to be a masterpiece. Some just need to exist.
In Lightroom I only used the curves tool to pull a bit of separation between the wet stone and the grey sky. I wasn’t trying to manufacture contrast that wasn’t there. The rain had already done part of the work: cobblestones held texture because the light was even, puddles on the stairs created accidental reflections, and the streets were empty enough that I didn’t have to wait for tourists to clear the frame.
I won’t pretend I enjoyed standing in the damp. My shoes got wet. My hands were cold. But I needed to leave the house, and the camera gave me a reason to do it. The film was a deadline. The weather was irrelevant.
As you can see in the following photos, the light wasn’t fabulous, so we adapt. There are still interesting things to be seen.
Shot on Nikon FE with 50mm f/1.8. Kodak Tri-X 400 and Ilford HP5+ rated at box speed, developed in Fomadon LQN. Edited in Lightroom: curves adjusted for shadow separation only.
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.
I didn’t set foot in the cathedral while Voyage en hiver draped its silence in municipal spectacle. Not out of protest—I simply couldn’t bear to see sacred space turned into a backdrop. So I waited. And when the banners finally came down in December, I loaded a roll of Ilford HP5 into my Nikon FE and walked back in—not as a tourist, not as a patient, but as someone hoping to find the light exactly where I’d left it.
I’ve always abhorred political recuperation. The Voyage en Hiver had no place in the cathedral’s reopening. This was about worship. About returning to God in a space that had been quiet for too long—not about municipal branding or winter tourism. “Give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and unto God what belongs to God.” (Matthew 22:21)
That day, I chose God’s silence over their spectacle.
My hands were cold when I raised the camera. December light in a stone cathedral is a quiet thing—more absence than presence. I wondered, honestly, if 400 ASA would be enough. But I wanted authenticity: more grain than digital noise, more truth than polish. So I trusted the FE’s metering, opened up my aperture, and let the film do what it does best. No second-guessing. No LCD screen. Just the click of the shutter and the hope that the light would hold.
And it did.
The frames that emerged are darker than summer would allow—but this was December, after all. And in that darkness, something gentle remains: the grain cradling the texture of worn wooden pews, shadows tracing the ribs of vaulted stone, candlelight bleeding softly into halos where no banner now hangs. Black and white stripped away every distraction—the logos, the seasonal clutter, the noise—until only what mattered remained: light on stone, silence between pillars, the architecture of reverence.
One frame in particular stays with me: the candles. Shot at 1/30s, my hands unsteady not from illness but from the simple weight of the moment. The focus slipped slightly. The flames blurred into one another. And instead of frustration, I felt a quiet relief—the film hadn’t captured perfection. It had captured presence. Grain became breath. Blur became prayer.
I didn’t go to “get out of the house.” I went because the space was clean again—just stone, silence, and the stubborn glow of candlelight. And for a few minutes, with the FE cold against my palm and the smell of incense in the air, I remembered why I love film photography: it doesn’t lie. It holds what’s there—shadows and all—and asks only that you trust the process.
They sold a spectacle. I took back the light. And the grain—warm, imperfect, alive—proved which one will last. My small act of reparation…
Disclaimer Alert. This post talks about sensitive subjects but should be read, even by my mother. Not everything in this world is perfect. We don’t all have perfect lives. It’s not all toxic positivity. Listen first to the Deep Dive talking about this article.
Not great to be honest. Today was not a good day. Today was particularly shitty. Well more pissy and shouty, but more about that later. Let’s get something straight. Despite what might be said in this article, I love my daughter and wife very much. I just don’t like them a whole lot. I can’t fucking stand them to be honnest.
My daughter is turning out to be an entitled little shit that is a typical teenager who thinks the world revolves around her and that we must all bow down and accept every whim and of course respect her and talk to her nicely.
Dad, are you on your meds?
Not effing likely. Why should I take them just to put up with you?
So not at my best… It would appear that I have survived blue monday. But only just. My “darling wife” is right in the middle of menopause and thinks HRT is only good for giving her cancer. Intriguing thought to be honest. At least like that I won’t be getting shouted at any more for being a useless shit show despite all the work I’m doing on myself, I’m still a waste of air.
Stop doing that thing you keep doing!
Breathing Dear?
Why should I even bother taking the meds?
Because why should I take meds just to put up with you?
Good fucking job I love you.
Maybe I should just jump under a bus and put them all out of their misery…
Shame I actually like my son. He’s a good kid. He took me out to a lovely restaurant for my birthday. Then we went to a ‘retail outlet’ for me to buy myself a present which is adorable but I need to declutter and have too much shit in my house.. The clutter is doing my head in.
Ah well. It could be worse. I could be back at work… One of my great fears. At the moment the fashion seems to be to treat your staff sufficiently not too badly for them to be put on leave for depression. Oops! Well that worked out really well.
Birthday on Monday and if anyone wishes me a happy birthday, I will be screaming at them internally, swearing at them and cursing them, whilst saying “thank you”with the appropriate grace.
And no—
I don’t want to talk about it.
I don’t want to heal.
I don’t want to find meaning.
I just want it to stop!
For precautionary self censoring reasons, don’t jump under buses. You might damage the bus. You probably won’t but safety first eh! Help lines: 🇨🇭 CH: 143 🇫🇷 FR: 3114 🇬🇧 UK: 999 or 116 123 🇺🇸 US: 988
For years, I’ve shared images here — not because they were “good,” or “marketable,” or even finished — but because they stayed. They lingered after the shutter closed. They returned to me in dreams, in quiet hours, in the slant of afternoon sun months later.
Some moments refuse to be forgotten.
So now, carefully, tenderly, I’m offering six of them — made physical. Not mass-produced. Not disposable. Just… present. As they were meant to be.
Each print is produced through WhiteWall on museum-grade archival paper, using pigment inks rated for over 100 years. Made to order. Shipped with care — because if you’re making space for one of these in your home, I want it to feel like a conversation, not a transaction.
There’s no rush. No countdown. No pressure.
Just paper, ink, and a moment that mattered.
1.
Path to the Pavilion — Huizhou Lake, China
When they told us we were stopping at a lake before the evening concert, I wasn’t exactly thrilled. A leisurely stroll around a lake? Moi?
But China has a habit of surprising you.
When we arrived at Huizhou, surrounded by hazy sunshine and bamboo groves, pagodas rising from still water, temples half hidden in trees — I felt something I hadn’t expected. Happiness. Pure, uncomplicated, unexpected happiness.
I was walking slowly with Mathilde, one of our violinists nursing a bad foot, taking our time while the others rushed ahead. It was that unhurried pace that did it — the kind of walking that lets you actually see things. The light was filtering through the trees, sparkling on the water, and the path curved gently ahead of us toward a pavilion that felt like it had been there for centuries.
I raised the camera and didn’t think twice.
There are days on tour when the music and the place and the people all align into something you know you’ll carry for the rest of your life. This was one of them.
Shot on Fujifilm X100F — Huizhou Lake, China, 2024
2.
Reflections on the Canal — Shao Xing, China
It was one of the last mornings of the tour. The parenthesis, as I’d come to think of it, was beginning to close.
My colleagues had discovered a hidden residential quarter the evening before — the kind of place that doesn’t appear in guidebooks. Round entrances leading to inner courtyards. Red lanterns going up for Chinese New Year. Fish drying under the rafters. Boats drifting on ancient canals.
I was told to turn left outside the hotel, walk ten minutes, and I couldn’t miss it. Which is, of course, exactly the kind of direction I usually do miss. Not that morning.
The quarter was just waking up as I arrived, camera in hand — my wife having specifically asked me to remember to shoot in colour this time. People were clearing their throats, eating their rice for breakfast, mopeds carrying their passengers gently to work. The canals reflected the old white walls and tiled rooftops in the still morning water.
It was authentic China. Not the gleaming towers of Shenzhen. The China that has existed for centuries and quietly continues to exist, unhurried and completely itself.
I didn’t want to leave.
Shot on Fujifilm X100F — Shao Xing, China, January 2025
3.
Skyline of Absence — Passage du Gois, Vendée
It started as a solo escape. A sandwich from a bakery, the Canon 6D Mark II dusted off, and a deliberate decision to go somewhere without tea shops to distract me.
The Passage du Gois is one of those places that shouldn’t exist. A road across the sea connecting the Vendée mainland to the island of Noirmoutier — but only when the tide allows it. Miss your timing and the Atlantic rolls in faster than a galloping horse. The beacons aren’t decoration. They’re for the people who got it wrong.
That January day the tide was out, the sky was vast, and Noirmoutier sat on the horizon like a quiet guardian. The blue reflected in the still water. The sea air did what sea air always does.
I stood there for a long time, just looking. The horizon was almost empty — just sky, water, and those silent beacons receding into the distance. An absence that somehow said everything.
Sometimes that’s all photography really is — permission to stand still and actually see what’s in front of you.
I like calm. I like it about as much as I like tea and cake.
Shot on Canon 6D Mark II with 50mm f1.8 — Passage du Gois, Vendée, France, January 2020
4.
Coastal Sky, Vendée
There are days when the sky simply takes over.
Near Fromentine on the Vendée coast, I set up a long exposure and let the camera do what the eye cannot — blur time itself. The clouds became something liquid, something moving, while the sea held perfectly still beneath them. Two different versions of the same moment existing simultaneously in one frame.
This is not a dramatic sky. There is no storm here, no crisis, no golden hour showmanship. Just the coast breathing — slow and steady and completely indifferent to being photographed.
I find that deeply reassuring.
Shot on Canon 6D Mark II — Near Fromentine, Vendée, France, 2021
5. Title: Vespa & Whiskey
I’ll be honest with you. I’d spent the day doing what the Quartier Bouffay does best — supporting the local hospitality industry with some enthusiasm. Somewhere between lunch and late afternoon I’d slipped into the beautiful Église Sainte-Croix, perhaps to balance the accounts a little.
Coming back out into the afternoon light, I turned a corner and stopped dead.
There it was. A Vespa, resting against a whiskey crate as casually as if it had always been there. Vintage, unhurried, completely itself. The kind of scene you spend years hoping to stumble across.
I reached for the Praktica MTL3 — the same camera and Pentacon 50mm f1.8 lens I first learned photography on in the 1980s — and didn’t think twice. Some moments don’t ask for deliberation.
Right place. Right time. Right camera.
Shot on Praktica MTL3 with Pentacon 50mm f1.8 — Quartier Bouffay, Nantes, France
6. Steam and Sizzle, Shenzhen Night
They called it Operation Shenzhen Nights. Corentin and Paul had planned it with the enthusiasm of five-year-olds at a zoo — a night out in Shenzhen, no concert, no schedule, just the city.
We took the tube across town, red lanterns swaying overhead for Chinese New Year, and emerged into organised chaos. Street food stalls everywhere. Skewers of chicken, octopus, and things I decided not to look at too closely. Scorpions and crickets were offered. I drew the line there. Some adventures have limits.
But the steam rising from the food stalls against the neon-lit night — the sizzle and smoke and smell of a city that never quite stops — that was something else entirely. I had my camera out and I wasn’t putting it down.
Shenzhen at night is a city in perpetual motion. Young, electric, completely alive. Standing there amid the chaos — nearly 53 years old, gammy knee and all — I felt something I hadn’t expected. Completely present. Completely there.
What happens on tour stays on tour. But some images deserve a wall.
Shot on Fujifilm X100F — Shenzhen, China, December 2024
And then — because I believe in the power of the overlooked — there’s a seventh.
7.
The Smallest Museum — Alnmouth, Northumberland, 2022
I’d started the morning properly — tea, toast, elevenses at Scott’s of Alnmouth, watching the sea mist lift off the Northumberland coast. When it cleared it was one of those impossibly sunny September days that makes you wonder why you ever left.
I wandered without a plan, Canon 6D Mark II in hand, letting the village reveal itself at its own pace. Alnmouth is that kind of place — it doesn’t rush, and it doesn’t need to impress you. It just is.
And then I found it. A tiny wooden shed standing quietly under an open sky. No grand entrance. No ticket booth. No gift shop. Just a modest building holding stories too small to shout and too true to ignore.
I stood there for a moment before raising the camera. Some things deserve a pause before you photograph them.
Shot on Canon 6D Mark II with 16-35mm — Alnmouth, Northumberland, UK, September 2022
I don’t make photographs to sell. I sell them because some moments refuse to be forgotten.
If one of these finds its way to your wall, I hope it does more than hang there. I hope it reminds you that some things are worth keeping — exactly as they were.
