Eight Minutes Old

This is one of my favorite photos in my series on vacant tourist spots and towns. I did most black and white pictures of this series last year, at the end of summer. They are all shot on my preferred black and white film, the Fuji Neopan Acros 100, to be precise.  I was in northern Brittany (France) and was fascinated by the sight of these empty streets, closed shops and left-alone vacation-homes.

I like it because the house is not shown as prominent as in the two shots before, but it is still clearly visible that there are no people living there in this time of the year. This impression of emptiness is supported by the wide, empty curved street in the foreground. In addition to this, the straight, also empty street in the middle attracts and guides the viewers eyes into the human-less distance. The cloudy sky luckily had a brighter spot which lies behind an over the house, emphasizing it and breaking the gloomy atmosphere. this light spot is contrasted by the darker trees on the left.

All in all I like the picture because it expresses the feelings I had at this place and also allows the viewer to stroll around with his/her eyes in this deserted town, just as I did with my feet.

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This picture on Seen.by

Very similar to the photo-post before, I must admit. But that is the nature of a series.

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After the tourists have left, the empty houses are shuttered, standing lonely besides each other. The lively, noisy summer is gone and now the houses have their vacations.

I have to finish presenting this series. There still are about ten pictures to come, and my archive is going to burst at the seams. I have the dim feeling that the blog might not be the best place to exhibit my photography. It is perfect for presenting individual pictures, as I can take the time and write about a single one in detail. But for showing coherent series of pictures some sort of gallery page would be better.

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Let’s go on with the series of abandoned houses in Brittany, France, after the tourists left at the end of the season. This black and white photo shows a closed restaurant, which is for sale (the signs in the windows say ‘a vendre’). It looks like a typical tourist-eatery: Grill, Pizzeria, Moulerie; with a fake timber-framed construction in a town that is deserted once the summer is over and the sky becomes grey. I wonder what is the story behind this house. What where the happy and the bad days, what dreams where dreamed and abandoned? My feeling tells me that barred houses live in the past. They are a sign for bygone days and, until they are open again, have no future.

Speaking of the past: Two days ago I met my old kindergarten teacher, by chance as I had to organize some things at my hometown. I would not have recognized her (neither would she remember me), but my father introduced us. It is strange to go back with your thoughts over so many years, but somehow it is kind of appropriate now that I finished my degree. It shows me from where I came to arrive where I now am. Interesting how many thought this short conversation kicked off in me. It was difficult to explain what I am going to do now as my PhD. I have to come up with some simple description. You learn how to explain your work in precise scientific words, but when you talk to people who are not in your field you feel like a idiot and can’t get to the point.

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Just a quick update, so I can participate in the August Monthly Special at Take Out Photo: Triptych.

The wedding was wonderful, everything is fine and we are exhausted from organizing and having party. More about this in some days or weeks. Oh, and we are waiting for the photos. As expected we did not have the time to take some on our own.

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How does inspiration work? I don’t know how this is with you, but for me it is a rather mysterious process. You have to come across the right mixture of contemplation and new experiences. But there has to be more to it, sometimes we simply see something in a new way which might trigger an idea. That usually is not the case while we follow our daily routines, at least not when they include the usual, hectic lack-of-time-stance most people follow. I think it is necessary to stop for a moment, take a step to the side and forget about the problems we have not solved yet.

How does this correspond to above picture, you might ask. Well, the scene depicted in the photo inspired me to the “Brittany after the season”-series, I think. It was in northern Brittany, in a small tourist-town called Sables d’Or les Pines. The tourist season was over already and so we walked by many houses with shut windows. Itwas a bit frustrated that there was nothing interesting to shoot, wherever I pointed my lens, the picture newer felt “right”. Then we arrived at this wide square, between the beach and this big building. It was similar to the many individual houses, all windows where covered, the shops were closed, too. This concentration of the scenes before was what I needed to be inspired. Not singular houses, that are side by side but still separated, but this big building with lots of apartments and tourist shops that all were unused, the big square in front deserted. This center of a little town, without any human life except us. I suddenly saw the bigger picture, that all those places where people had enjoyed their summer vacations were abandoned for the rest of the year. This gave a deeper sense to pictures of shut-down shops and deserted houses. I felt I had found what I was looking for. Except that I first had to find it to know what I was missing.

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