Category Archives: Photographs

Paris revisited

Bio, Photographs

One last visit to The City of Light.

My first visit in September, 1974 had been nothing but joyful, confirming my love of all things French.

By October, 1977 my utter disillusionment with England saw a one way ticket to America in my baggage but, before boarding that Pan Am flight, a second and final visit to Paris was indicated. I simply wanted to cement the images of that gorgeous city in my mind. And in my Leica.

These are among the very last monochrome film images I ever took. Thereafter, once in America, my salary would double, my taxes would halve, my suit count would rise from one to three and my prospects would improve two orders of magnitude. And Kodachrome and the local printing place would obsolete TriX and the smelly chemicals and enlarger in the home darkroom/bedroom.



At the Arc de Triomphe


Self portrait with Leica




At the Elysée Palace, Cadillac and all




Wedding in Parc Monceau, quite possibly the most perfect public park …. after the Tuileries Gardens


Parc Monceau


At the Holocaust Museum. Appropriately spiky and threatening


At the Holocaust Museum


Café Cher(ie)


Working girl


The Venus de Milo has seen better days



Gorilla



Mailman


Train conductor


Gendarmes








If the English are a nation of animal lovers then the French are a nation of dog lovers


Pipe and pigeons

Leica M3, 35mm Summaron, TriX. What could be more perfect for street photography? All images ‘scanned’ using the Nikon D800.

The Hebrides

Photographs

Rugged.

By September, 1976 I had decided that it was time to move to the New World but one last trip to the wilds of Scotland was indicated. Rugged and windswept these are very remote places in seemingly terminal population decline. And who can wonder?

The various islands are connected by ferries and I recall making some pretty rough crossings.












A crofter’s cottage on the island of Harris, where the famous tweed cloth is hand made.

Leica M3, 35mm Summaron, 50mm Summicron, 90mm Elmar and Nikon F, 28mm and 80-200mm Vivitar lenses, TriX, ‘scanned’ on the Nikon D800.

Easter Sunday

Photographs

Sunny interlude.

That rarest of events in London, a sunny Sunday, brings out the crowds. And while these images were snapped at a park parade on Easter Sunday in 1976. the watchers were of greater interest than the paraders.





The three wheeler is an Invacar, a vehicle designed for invalids. Horribly unsafe, it probably created more invalids than it accepted.




Leica M3, 35mm Summaron, 50mm Summicron, TriX ‘scanned’ with the Nikon D800.

Battersea Power Station

Photographs

Though completed in 1935, Battersea Power Station on the south bank of London’s Thames very much adheres to the high Victorian dictates of English architecture. Large, foreboding, massive, lugubrious, overpowering and anything but welcoming, it was decommissioned in 1975, just a few months before these images were taken in March, 1976.





The forces that be wrangled for almost four decades (!) about how to redevelop the site which is now a high end shopping and residential location. Needless to add, it was sold to foreign investors like pretty much everything else in today’s England.

Nikon F, 28mm Vivitar, TriX, ‘scanned’ with the Nikon D800.

The V&A

Photographs

Theft central.

Dating from 1852, the Victoria and Albert Museum in west London houses what may be the greatest collection of stolen arts and crafts in the western hemisphere. The English excuse this act of plunder as ‘Colonialism’. I call it theft. The colonies are now gone but the V&A remains.

Still, morals apart, there was always something of interest to be found there when these images were snapped in October, 1975.


Oy! Hands off!


Cleaning ladies. Perfectly coiffed and most charming.


Workers’ break.


Snooze.


On guard.


Tapestry.


Looking down.


Expert at work.


Runner

Nikon F, 28mm Vivitar, TriX, ‘scanned’ with the Nikon D800.