jules Verne – IJM Photography

This story actually begins in my village in Vendée, with a foray into the next town and its Saturday market. But you could argue that it began earlier in Nantes when I bought my son’s girlfriend an old film camera, a Canon AE1 with a 50mm f1.4 lens, that I nearly kept for myself, but in a pang of culpability, couldn’t. I would have replaced it with a more classic standard 50mm f1.8 lens. Damn you conscience!

Let us start therefore not at the very beginning but the second beginning, which is like the first beginning, but is in fact the second, thus being named the second beginning, but is still a rather good place to start as the Sound of Music told us whilst explaining the notes to sing by using a woodland creature, the sun, me, a long long way to go, sewing, a note after the previous one, an afternoon snack with bread and jam etc.

I might start at the very beginning after all. My son’s girlfriend is on a journey, much like myself, discovering photography. As some of you Dear Readers might have noticed, I’m ever so slightly old-school. Having a digital camera, and shooting like it was a machine gun hoping for the best is not my idea of what photography should be. I am more sedate, probably because I am more rotund middle-aged gentleman, aka fat bald git, but find that it suits me. I prefer to take my time. One of the advantages of film photography is that it forces you to slow down, and concentrate to take a picture, with apparently, but I’m not quite sure, supposedly even, more value. When I take a photo, I take a photo on purpose. I do not do it whimsically on the off chance of realising “the” shot. I also learnt on film, so maybe this is a habit I picked up early on.

Anyway…. I thought this might be a way to help Elise slow down, and to be more mindful when photographing something or someone. Mindfulness is all the rage at the moment, but I think it might just be more about taking your time and being conscious of the action you are partaking in. I refer the reader to the middle-aged rotund gentleman comment earlier.

I made sure she had some film in the camera so it was useable straight away, and explained to how to focus, not just the lens but mentally too. Explained what all the dials and displays were about and basically let her get on with it.

We are now at the second beginning, which is still an OK kind of place to start. The day is Saturday, and the previous day we had arranged for them to come over for lunch, and I said that I would go to the market and get some goodies, which means basically, some nice saucission, cheese, nice fruit, some duck sausages to be eaten later on during the week without necessarily needing to duck whilst eating them, but duck sausages, because they were made with duck meat. Obviously a duck that didn’t…. I came home with my goodies, and was told off for buying too much and how were we going to eat all that…. We gave it a fine go!

Elise then had the idea of doing the typical after French lunch walk, and we were all told that we would be doing it. However, a friend phoned to invite her to a pyjama party, so there went that idea. I riposted, saying that it was fine and that we should go out into Nantes to take pictures the next day with the film cameras. I prepared a couple of cameras for them to use, and some rolls of film.

Even if we didn’t go out I knew I would be at least good for a nice cup of tea. For Christmas, which was well before the beginning beginning, and even the second beginning, I had brought my daughter a mix to make Madeleines, which French people automatically associate with Proust, in the same way the English automatically associate a cup of tea, with another cup of tea. The smell as I came down was amazing a filled the house with loveliness and sweetness. There was also a huge dash of tastiness when I bit into Madeleine number one. I showed immense self control and put four of my Madeleines into a box with a further half a dozen to share with Killian and Elise. They too, were very happy with my display of self-control.

The enthusiasm for “going out for a walk” from the previous day had all but disappeared, but we eventually set off for Nantes to visit the Jardin des Plantes, which was where Jules Verne once hang out back in the day. Tradition, tradition, tradition….

I had my X100F, which I adore, Killian a 1960 Kodak Retinette 1B, and Elise the infamous AE1. We made a good go at it and ended up cream crackered after a nice long walk. As the all round good egg that I am I made sure we passed by an open bakery on the way back to the car to get the a treat for the gouter, which usually is the four o’ clock snack for small children, that older children or younger adults still seem to enjoy, even a middle aged rotund gentleman….

This weekend I haven’t taken any photos, but as they say so well in Blue Peter, here’s one I made earlier. These photos are now two weeks old. They were taken from different sides of the Loire. The first were taken in the Hangar à Bananes on the Saturday when I was with my daughter, and the ones overlooking the Loire the day after when I went to see my pregnant friend, who, by the way, is no longer pregnant, and has a new baby at home.

More important news for the family. My son has passed his driving test. This is of course wonderful and we are very happy for him. However it means that he has to have a car to drive and find work. He had the choice between my “Dad” car, and his mother’s smaller car. As he’s over 6 feet, he decided on my car. It also has cruise control, and a speed limiter, so there’s no excuse to get pulled over for driving too fast. This is all well and good,but it means that I have to get a new car. Ah well. Somebody has to sacrifice himself, and so I sacrificed myself.

Now with a new car, even a second-hand car, you have to get used to it and take posession of the space. Now I don’t know about you Dear Reader, but I seem to spend quite a lot of time in my car. It’s like an extension of my home. When you see people picking their noses in a traffic jam, it’s because they are, in their heads of course, still at home and behave as if they were. I listen to music in it. I eat in it. I drink in it (water of course). And I use it to go to places to take photographs.

So that Sunday, I thought, ok, I’ll go into town, and I took my camera along with me just in case… Yeah well, I know “you” believe me.

Where am I going with this? Yes, the photos from the North side of the Loire were taken on the Sunday when I saw my pregnant friend, at the Butte Sainte Anne, where I had been once before and messed up my film development. Right. I’d taken the first photos from one side of the river, and the next day, I took photos on the other side of the river. That makes sense doesn’t it?

The Jules Verne (a native of Nantes) Museum is at the top of the hill, and the statue of the boy is Jules as a boy. The other statue is of Capitaine Némo with his sextant looking down the river towards the sea.

The Monday was the 11th of November, Armistice Day, and it’s a public holiday here in France. I thought it would be good to spend some quality time with my daughter.

She is my reluctant model, but will allow me to take a couple of shots of her. Then she starts getting moody, and says, “aller Papa, on se dépêche làààààà!” So I make a noise and continue my way. And then stop to take another photo. This of course is the last straw and I’m told how “j’en ai marre Papa. Aller!!!” So I move on. We try and find the Altercafé only to find that it has changed owners and no longer exists. I see her dreams of Orangina and chocolate brownie go up in smoke. As any father worth his salt, I make sure we find somewhere else. We ended up going to Evil M (or Mac Donalds for the uninitiated). It was during this outing that I took the photos of the huge crane.

I made it up to her this Saturday by going into town and having tea at Chop Chop. She had a hot chocolate, and I had French Earl Grey tea. We also had a Brookie. It is a concoction which is a mixture of chocolate brownie and chocolate chip cookie. It’s the kind of thing that makes you put on weight by just looking at it. Bad, and yet so good at the same time.

Now this week I decided to go back to the cathedral for mass. I was seeing a different friend this time, and we hadn’t seen each other for about a year for various reasons, but she got me when she said she’d baked a cake! A rather nice one too. I said I would bring the tea.

The French are great with food, and cake, but tea is not their forte! Every time I go back to the UK I always stock up Yorkshire tea, which is like drinking a cup of home each time I make a cuppa. My friend is Algerian and appreciates tea about as much as I do. It’s always the small things you miss. It has been known for me to spend a lot of time and effort just to go and find that little something. When we were on holiday in Honfleur this Summer, they had an English section in the local supermarket. Needless to say, the children and I bought a big bag full of stuff, and had to go back to get what my French wife had told us to get… Oops.

Soooo… We talked, drank tea, ate cake, talked again, drank more tea, and ate more cake. I can’t think of a better way to spend an afternoon when the weather is so depressing outside. However I didn’t make the same mistake as I did last time. Oh no. I had learnt my lesson. I peed before going off to mass. I made sure I had enough time not to have to walk at a brisk pace and with purpose. The service was lovely and the music was amazing. It adds so much to the mass, and the organist played at the end of mass while I said my rosary. I left the cathedral and headed off to get a burger.

In the street where the pub is, there’s a new place that sells vegan burgers, and it’s such a refreshing change, and the owner is a great guy. And as I’m a well brought up gentleman I went to the pub to say hello to my friends working behind the bar. Again, that is the only excuse you’re going to get.