IJM on the Streets — Nantes: The Book

Close-up black and white photograph of a near-empty Cafés Richard espresso cup on a saucer and tray on a café table in Nantes, a blurred figure in the background, shot on Rollei RPX 400.

IJM on the Streets — Nantes: The Book

Ten years. One city. Sit down, order the coffee, let the place come to you.

It started with sitting down. Ten years of parking at the Feydeau car park, walking into town not especially fast, finding a bench or a terrace table or a warm rock at the Jardin Extraordinaire, and staying there while the city got on with its afternoon. Somewhere along the way I noticed that this was not a failure to do street photography properly. It was the method.

The book makes the argument at full length: the best street photographs come not from hunting but from inhabiting. Find the spot. Sit down. Let the place come to you.

IJM on the Streets — Nantes is nine chapters and a decade of film. The Bouffay at night on HP5+. The empty espresso cup that turned out to be the whole thesis. The café above the weir at the Chaussée des Moines. Two seasons at the Jardin Extraordinaire. The year I refused to photograph the cathedral until the banners came down. And the Île de Nantes in 2016, with Kate, aged seven, and her Olympus Trip 35 — her photographs turned out better than just fine, and it is all on record now.

Everything was shot on film — HP5+, Pan 100, Kentmere 400, RPX 400, APX 100 — developed in my kitchen. The missed focus stayed in where it earned its place. The candles in the cathedral are slightly blurred. They are staying that way.

Thirty-odd black and white photographs. Nine chapters. Ten years. One city.
Available as a PDF ebook — for the price of a few good espressos.

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P.S. Kate has been informed that she features prominently. She has requested royalties. Negotiations continue over tea.