Magic Lantern Show

A Quick Stroll in Père Lachaise . . .

2012-01-31T23:51:00.001+01:00

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I've been away from the blog and the blogosphere for a little while, have been a bit under the weather of late, but am hoping all that will pass and the breezes that blow will soon fill my sails again, and set us off across the blogging seas, full speed ahead, and damn the icebergs !
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The two books of photos that were in the works have just arrived, and I'm thrilled with the quality of the printing, they are a pleasure to peruse. I've added links in the post about them (here) which you can click on to see a full simulation of both books, with pages you can turn right on your screen.
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In the meanwhile, I was in Paris again the other day, and couldn't resist the opportunity to go take a quick stroll in Père Lachaise on a chilly but sunny late afternoon. These are a few of the photos done that day. The problem with Père Lachaise Cemetery is that it is so incredibly densely packed, and vast, that one could spend months trying to explore all its nooks and crannies and alleys and cul de sacs. Nearly everywhere one looks there is art, art from over the past few hundred years. A gold mine for photographers who enjoy that sort of thing. Like me. Believe me, I often count my blessings for living so close to Paris and being able to go spend a day there whenever the spirit moves me. For even just a short walk in a previously unexplored corner of Père Lachaise can yield up unsuspected visual treasure.
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Just inside the entrance on the west side, along the Boulevard de Mesnilmontant, this woman in bronze greets the arriving visitor. I can think of worse welcomes. And then setting off into the maze, one quickly stumbles on all sorts of sights. Oh, and am entering this over at Taphophile Tuesday, as I suppose after all these years, I am a confirmed taphophile, there can be no doubt.
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This translates as : "The book of life is the supreme book, which one can neither close nor open of one's own volition, and when you would like to return to the page in the book where you were in love, you find that you are already at the page where you die"
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The Alpha and the Omega...
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This next is interesting in that the name at the base of the bust, if you can make it out, is Pozzo di Borgo. Over the past few months a new French movie titled "Intouchables" has set records for attendance, a truly fabulous film, about a paralyzed man and his caretaker. The film is based on a true story, and the name of the handicapped person the film is about is Pozzo di Borgo. Am wondering what the relationship between the person buried here in Père Lachaise and the man in the film is, but most probably an ancestor. A chance find, out of the tens of thousands of graves in Père Lachaise.
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Reflections from Saint Denis . . .

2012-01-23T01:17:00.000+01:00

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A week ago Monday la Grenouille and I travelled to Saint Denis on the northern outskirts of Paris to meet up with Virginia (Paris Through My Lens), Genie (Paris and Beyond), Genie's daughter Holly, and Peter (Peter's Paris), ostensibly to visit the Basilica where the majority of French royalty were buried over the centuries of monarchy, but especially simply to enjoy some good blogging company in person. I think it is safe to say a good time was had by all. Especially when the conversation toward the end of the afternoon over hot chocolates, coffee, and tea turned to how to make macaroons and the finer points of powdered sugar and the proper humidity of macaroon dough. That there were some macaroon experts present become abundantly apparent. Thanks for a great time you all ! (Or for those who hail from Alabama perhaps I should say : y'all !)
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As it is the weekend, and a few reflections were seen that afternoon in Saint Denis, I don't want to miss James' Weekend Reflections, so some of the following photos may count as my submission there. It was a brilliantly clear winter afternoon, with the Paris sun low in the sky, light was bouncing every which way, reflections were almost inevitable. Like this first of the Basilica facade reflected in a shuttered bistro window opposite.
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The Saint Denis town hall was adorned with a large poster wishing all a fine year in 2012, the same image was reproduced on smaller posters visible around town. The sun was dazzling ! And even at just shy of quarter after two in the afternoon already shadows were quite long.
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On the glass case covering a fine piece of funerary art inside the basilica I noticed the upper windows of the basilica were offering reflections, a bit blurry here.
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But changing the focal point allowed to see the stained glass windows reflected clearly, while the art under the glass went out of focus.
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From left to right, la Grenouille, Virginia, Genie, Holly, and last, but certainly not least, Peter. Thanks again for a fine afternoon you gals and guy !
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Odds and Ends From a Book Maker . . .

2012-01-16T03:10:00.001+01:00

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As mentioned in a recent posting here, I've been very busy of late putting together two books with collections of photographs in them. The second one just went off to the publisher today, with a large number of cemetery photos in it from over the years. The books were put together with software from the web site www.photographiesbook.com , both will be hardbound, 98 pages long (their maximum possible) in a 30cm x 30cm format, on high quality satin finish paper. Can't wait to see them in the flesh. If by any chance anyone would be interested in owning a copy of either or both, please send me an email to owenmart333 at gmail dot com, and I'll be happy to give you more details.
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And both of the books can now be viewed in their entirety by clicking here for the book about the Causse Mejean, or by clicking here for the cemetery project.
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Here are a few screen shots of the cover and some pages from the cemetery project . . .
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And following are the cover, the title page, and a few interior pages from the first project that was sent off to the printer already two weeks ago, and which should be ready very soon. The photos are all from the area around Florac in the south of France, mainly on the Causse Méjean, that small corner of paradise.
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Giving Thanks...

2012-01-11T05:25:00.000+01:00

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Here's giving thanks to all of you for your visits to these pages in 2011, and hoping for more fine blogging exchanges in warmth and levity and joy and poignancy throughout the year in 2012. It never ceases to amaze me that anyone ever found there way here at all, out of all the millions of blogs out there to visit on the internet.
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This wall of plaques saying "Merci", or "Thanks", was in a cemetery on Reunion Island. Hope to return there one of these days, it was one of the most amazing places I've ever been.
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Where To From Here ?

2012-01-07T20:47:00.000+01:00

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These past few weeks I've been going through nearly all my photographic archives. A first book of photos about the Causse Méjean in southern France is at the publisher. A second book project with even more photos in it, about cemeteries, is in the works. Selecting the photos and doing the page layout for each of the 98 pages in these books is a monumental task, but there is something highly satisfying about the work. The time spent in these efforts, not to mention the recent holidays, explains why I haven't been out and around the blogosphere as much as I would like. Hopefully when the second book is off to the publisher I'll be able to get some more sleep and get out to visit more.
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When I set out to start this blog over three years ago I had in mind that the Magic Lantern Show was in itself a sort of book project, a web book if you like, documenting a small part of my past photographic work, and continuing to present new photos as time goes by. I would be dishonest if I were to say that I didn't harbor some hopes that the blog would in some unknown way lead on to other opportunities to see some of the many photos herein published in one way or another, or perhaps give rise to ways to display them in public, and even sell some of them. That hasn't really happened yet ; perhaps a blog among all the millions of blogs out there, all clamoring for attention, is not the right vector for seeking further outlets for creativity, although it has led to meeting all of you wonderful people, which is priceless of course.
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The small showing still in progress in Paris is a first step in the direction of finding other outlets. The opening of a virtual gallery on the ImageKind.com site is a second step. Having two self-published books in hand is a third step. But I can see that if any further progress is to be made, I will have to put together a portable "show" of sorts, between large prints of photos, the books, and a collection on an iPad, and then go start pounding the streets of Paris, knocking on doors, wearing down shoe leather, talking to people, asking for direction, and hoping somewhere a door will open, a receptive eye and mind will resonate on the same wavelength as these photographs, such as they are. And then where ? Realistic ? Unrealistic ? I honestly don't know. But without trying I will certainly never know. Time will tell.
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In the meanwhile, here are a few photos for your pleasure. The first two will be in the cemetery book. The second is my entry for Weekend Reflections over at James' fine meme site. The yellow leaf in rainwater with trees reflected was on a memorial marker in a German cemetery near the Verdun battlefield. And the third is for those of you who enjoyed the previous post below of scrapbooked photos on a wall in Paris. . . another collection of images, under glass this time.
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Messages From Far and Wide . . .

2012-01-03T03:21:00.000+01:00

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I found this wall covered in postcards and scraps from far and wide in an abandoned place in Paris quite some years ago, and came across these images while going through some photos in preparation for a small book project. A first book is off to the publisher, and a second is soon to follow... self published of course, no book deals in the works here yet. (:-) But for some reason this scrapbooked wall seemed appropriate, someone was publishing their own book here, and left it as a creation when they moved on. The place has no doubt long since been bulldozed, but at least these pictures remain to attest that someone pinned up all these odds and ends. Will no doubt post more info here about the books that are in the works when they come off the press, so stay tuned if curious to see what has been percolating on a back burner over the holidays. And may your new year be full of messages from far and wide, postcards to tack up on walls, scraps to glue in the scrapbooks of your life, and happiness, health, love, wealth... and whatever else you may be hankering after.
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The Second Day of Christmas . . .

2011-12-30T02:24:00.000+01:00

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After all the butterflies for Christmas the other day, the breezes that be are blowing a few more your way, as the spirit of Christmas shouldn't be limited to a single day. Going back thousands of years, long before anyone had ever heard of a fellow named Christ, there were pagan feasts in the days after the 21st of December to celebrate the fact that the days were getting longer again. And that, imho, is an excellent reason to put on a big party. The feasting and partying at the start of winter got hijacked along the course of history by European culture for certain religious purposes, but I think it is good to remember that these post winter solstice celebrations go much farther back. So in that spirit, here are a couple more butterflies to bring you tidings of joy : The days are getting longer again !
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Baskets Full of Butterflies . . .

2011-12-22T05:10:00.000+01:00

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I was trying to think of what I could get you all for Christmas
If I could get you anything, anything at all
And after a little reflection, it finally came to me
What better gift for bloggers than butterflies ?
Oodles of butterflies . . . bundles of butterflies
Baskets full and boxes and bags and wheelbarrows
All full of butterflies
Butterflies to let loose in your life
Bouncing on the breeze
Frolicking from one flower to the next
Fluttering freely in flight
Alighting where they will
Gracing purple blooms in your afternoons
For are we not all a bit like butterflies
Flapping from one blog to another
Resting a fleeting moment, then fleeing
Pollinating, cross pollinating
And off again to the fertile fields of daydreams . . .
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A Day For Quiet Contemplation . . .

2011-12-16T06:31:00.002+01:00

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My job has been keeping me more than busy of late, and I regret not being out and about in the blogosphere more than I have been, but one must at times sleep, and at times relax. This past weekend I went for a walk in a local cemetery that I hadn't looked at closely in the past, simply to get out and breathe some fresh air and clear the head of cobwebs.
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In such places I find peace and quiet, and ample matter for consideration and reflection on the vicissitudes of life. One can learn about acceptance in cemeteries, acceptance of what is cruel and hard in the world, acceptance that we do not last forever, that there are some things that we can do absolutely nothing to change, and in accepting certain realities, one can perhaps better appreciate what we do have, and then make the most of it. And I love what graveyards reveal about history, about those who have gone before, who would otherwise lie forgotten, were it not for words carved on a stone, for a simple work of art created in memory of a departed soul. Even stones do not last forever, and as stones return to sand and dust, so do bones, so do bones.
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In this first, the sky and cross reflected on the surface of a glass globe serve to remind that James' Weekend Reflections is in progress.
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Daniel Camus passed on in 1920 at the age 7 years 7 months. After surviving the hardships of the war years, then the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1919 (which killed more people than the Great War did), his tombstone does not say what he died of. Angels Laid Him Away
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I couldn't help but think of Antoine de St Exupery who disappeared in 1944 over the Mediterranean off the south coast of France when I saw this sculpture on the tomb of Jean Pater, who died in 1940 at the age of 29. The graceful stone aircraft carving here reminded me of engravings of airplanes on several French postage stamps from the 1940s and '50s, images of which can be found, like most things these days, on the internet. A St Exupery memorial stamp was issued in 1948.
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A soldier from WWI...
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1927 to 1986...
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Marius Dufremelle died in the Argonne in July 1918. Just the name "Argonne" brought to mind immediately Robert William Service's poem The Man From Athabaska, which was beautifully set to music by Country Joe McDonald on his 1971 anti-war record. The stone here is slowly disintegrating, returning to sand. The verse in question says :
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"For I joined the Foreign Legion, and they put me for a starter
In the trenches of the Argonne with the Boche a step away;
And the partner on my right hand was an apache from Montmartre;
On my left there was a millionaire from Pittsburg, U. S. A.
(Poor fellow! They collected him in bits the other day.)"
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Paul Plessier, 29 years old, killed at Douaumont on 28 April, 1916 (a fort which was the scene of fearsome fighting at Verdun)
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So young, so young to be killed for his country...
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Stained glass in disrepair...
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Sailing Away On a Pool in Paris . . .

2011-12-11T20:35:00.000+01:00

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Do you remember how we used to look at the world when we were children ? The seemingly endless miracles and discoveries ? But how to keep that sense of wonder alive, as passing time and the endless stream of awful news from around the world strive to obliterate it ? Where corruption and greed seem infinite ? Is it still possible today to dream of a better world, where our remaining wildlife will not disappear, where humans could live peacefully without continual violence ? Where the dreams we dreamed as children could yet come true ? Where we could sail off on small boats toward a brighter future ? At a small round pool in the Tuilleries Gardens near the Louvre in Paris, the answer is Yes.
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And as there are some reflections in these last three pictures, this could then qualify for participation in James Weekend Reflections, where light bounces around in the most amazing manner, from all over the earth.
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Works of Art In the Strangest Places . . .

2011-12-07T03:53:00.000+01:00

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As much as I love to wander in museums and wonder while pondering the profuse profundities of fine paintings and sculptures from over the centuries, I also love to wander out of doors and let chance play her mysterious role in revealing minor marvels and natural art, which spring into view unbidden and unexpected in surprising places. One just has to tune in to their frequency, and oscillate with them for a while. Here are just a few examples seen recently while out walking hither and thither. Hunting and gathering. Watching how time and weather transform most anything, from what it was, into something entirely other.
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Lights in the Night . . .

2011-12-02T07:02:00.000+01:00

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And then I turned around, and this is what I saw . . .
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Strange Delights . . .

2011-11-28T04:08:00.001+01:00

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A garden of earthly lights, right in the heart of Paris, along the quai Branly, by the museum. No wonder people call it the City of Light.
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More Orange For the End of Autumn . . .

2011-11-25T06:32:00.000+01:00

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Anybody up for some pumpkin pie ?
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Take Me Down to the Sea Again . . . to Sail in a Ship of Dreams . . .

2011-11-20T04:20:00.000+01:00

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...The Lost Lady of Locquénolé
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How many times did we run out to sea
Out to the British Channel
Descending the Bay of Morlaix
So early in the morning
With the tide just starting to turn
And every time we motored by
The Chateau du Taureau in the fog
That fort out on a cold rock
In the middle of the bay
I swore I heard the ghosts of prisoners calling
Those who drowned while trying to swim
From that accursed jail out on the wide water
Where chill currents could drag a man under
Never to be seen again in this world
Those prisoners from fine families of old
Who had found no useful place in life
And turned to gambling and liquor and gold
Or maybe those ghostly cries were from
The souls of 114 men who drowned
When the Alcide went down in 1747
Two days before Christmas
The bay is full of hungry water and cold bones
Yet we motored on out to sea
Time and time again
Day after day, year after year
In fog and all sorts of weather
Reading the compass bearing due north
Heading for open water
Seeking the spots where the sea bass rise
Pulling up traps full of lobster and crabs
Dreaming of mackerel while mending the motor
Some days simply just drifting
Watching the wind play on the waves
Our faces weathered by salted spray
But nothing lasts forever
We grew old and grey
Feebled and hobbled
Our lady put to sea no more
There she lies tied to the shore
For years she'd float when the tide came in
But now she floats no longer
Graffiti grafted on her sides
Perhaps the ultimate insult
Time's cruel work persistant
Broke open her joints, splintered her planks
Before long there will be naught but the engine block
Rusting away in the mud and the flood
And the dream of a seagoing lady
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The photos above were taken in 2008. The hull was still fairly well intact, I don't know if she could have been restored from that state, but perhaps at least salvaged to sit on dry land to be admired for some years to come. But that was not to be, and this past summer I took the following photos as she lay split open and filled with water with every high tide. She will surely soon disintegrate. From dust to dust.
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A Small Show In Paris . . .

2011-11-13T05:43:00.001+01:00

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It is a great pleasure to share with you here that a small showing of four photos that I took this past summer in the south of France has just begun in the Canon Photo Prony store at 55 rue de Prony, 75017 Paris, and will be up for the next few months. I would like to give a big "Thank You" to Gilles and his team there. We got to talking last summer one day, and I mentioned that some of the photos from the trip in July to Florac and the Causse Méjean could be seen here on the blog. It was a very great and positive surprise when a couple of weeks later he asked me if I could do some large prints in order to hang them in the store in Paris. So shortly thereafter I delivered four big prints, measuring 45 by 60 cms, or roughly 18 inches by 24 inches. And as of yesterday they are hanging in the store. The first public showing ever of any of my work, in printed form of course. This blog is where it started, in virtual format. But there is no comparison between a print done on fine quality photographic paper, and what can be seen on a computer screen. In any case, should you happen to be in Paris in the near future, please do drop by to say hello to Gilles and the team at Photo Prony, and take a look at the prints of these photos. These are the four photos thus exposed.
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C'est un grand plaisir de partager l'info ici avec vous qu'une petite exposition de quatre photos faites cet été dans le sud de la France vient de commencer dans la boutique Canon Photo Prony, au 55 rue de Prony, Paris 17ème, et sera visible pendant quelques mois. J'aimerais dire un très grand Merci à Gilles et son équipe au magasin. Nous avons commencé à parler cet été à propos du sejour que j'avais fait dans le sud, et du fait que quelques photos de ce voyage étaient visibles sur le blog. Imaginez ma surprise quand quelques semaines plus tard il m'a demandé si je pourrais fournir quelques tirages en grand format pour exposer au magasin. Peu de temps après j'ai livré quatres grands tirages, format 45cm x 60 cms, et depuis hier ils sont joliment présentés dans la boutique. C'est la première fois que mes photos en format papier sont exposées quelque part, il n'y pas de comparaison entre la qualité d'un tirage sur papier de bonne qualité et une image sur écran d'ordinateur. Bref, si vous êtes dans Paris dans un avenir proche, n'hésitez pas à passer par le rue de Prony pour dire bonjour à l'équipe Photo Prony, et voir ces photos de plus près. Voici les quatre photos.
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The rue de Prony begins just opposite the main entrance to the Parc Monceau in the 17th arrondissement, shown here. The round columned building here primarily houses public toilets. (just in case !)
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And just a few short blocks up the rue de Prony from the Parc Monceau you will find the Canon Photo Prony shop.
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Merci BEAUCOUP Gilles !
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Symphony in Orange Minor . . .

2011-11-09T17:54:00.000+01:00

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Just from this first image, can you identify the subject matter here, without looking further down ?
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For the anatomically minded among you (who can't help but be a little fascinated by anatomy, when confronted with the marvellously intricate workings of the natural world, including our bodies ?) the finely filigreed lace work of this structure may conjure up memories of distant biology classes, fractals, and all the studies of the most incredible designs that Mother Nature pulls out of her seemingly infinitely wondrous bag of tricks. And no, it is not a tomato behind a dried out leaf.
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Is it clearer now ?
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The wonders that surround us never fail to floor me. Just take the human eye, for example. Compared to the human eye, even the finest of digital cameras with their millions of pixels and an assortment of lenses from fisheye wide angles to super telephotos and everything in between, still cannot compare to what the human eye can capture. And in such a small package too. The lens opening and thickness of the pupil is tiny compared to the lens on any camera, and the retina with its most amazing array of color and light sensibility is still far superior to any film or digital sensor, not to mention the visual processing areas of our brain which leave the software in a camera back in the stone age. How lucky we are to have such wonders already pre-installed as standard equipment at birth, they don't even have to be ordered as options.
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Yes, these are the fruit of chinese lantern plants. (Physalis alkekengi) They showed up unannounced in our garden last year for the first time, maybe the gift of a passing bird (?), and this year there were even more than last year, so I guess they multiply themselves. Last December I did a couple of posts about them, here, and here. This past weekend I was poking about in the garden, and saw that this year's crop had already ripened, many had gone beyond ripe, and were already showing their skeletal structures. So it was well time to harvest them.
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What better favorite plant to decorate a blog called the Magic Lantern Show ? As I delved deeper underneath their wide leaves, I found more and more lanterns in all states of ripeness, many with their fruits visible within, some empty, though with no sign of possible exit for the fruits, leaving me wondering if they had been eaten by gluttonous little scavengers ? Apparently the fruits are good to eat, richer in vitamin C than lemons, according to one website I read today, and full of other therapeutic herbal qualities. If they are not only fun to look at but healthful as well, I may have to plant more of them !
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An autumn breeze blew in a cluster of red leaves around the lanterns that had piled up outside.
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Here they are back in August already well formed, but in varying degrees of advancement. Who knows what mysterious laws govern the transformation from green to gold to rich orange while the fruit seeds develop within ? Who wrote the notes that form the pages of that long slow symphony in orange minor ?
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Finally at the end of an afternoon spent contemplating their mysteries, they whispered to me, "Take us inside, place us in a safe place, enjoy our beauty through the coming winter..." What could I do but obey them ?
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So they have now taken up residence in pottery platter on our coffee table where one can sit and ponder over them regardless of the weather out of doors, where their fine lace forms will perhaps last longer than had they fallen to the ground in the autumn rains, and withered under winter snows.
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As I sat and watched them this November evening, my eyes became unfocused while listening to the soft strains of their gentle orange ballad, and a flowing orange dream took possession of my drifting mind.
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Orange winds blew me further out upon an orange sea . . . where orange waves lapped merrily. ("Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream"?)
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May your autumn days be graced with luminous orange bliss. (for those of you in the southern hemisphere, where Spring is well along now, replace "autumn" with "Spring", and gloat a little :-)
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Window Shopping . . . or : Two Cats and a Van Gogh

2011-11-06T20:31:00.000+01:00

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James' Weekend Reflections has been going strong for over two years now, and I have to take my hat off to him for the force that pushes him on with this project. Week in and week out he puts it together, and then gets out and visits most everyone who participates, leaving a kind word here and there. He makes the time to do that, which is no easy task, I'm sure. So, bravo James, great job, keep it up, you started a wonderful meeting of minds, as people participating from all over the world attest.
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I liked the floating chair and sleeping cat here . . .
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This second cat was protecting his turf . . .
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And finally, I was thinking, if Van Gogh did reflections photos, he might have done this one...
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Of Weathered Wood and 'bandoned Boats . . .

2011-11-04T02:39:00.002+01:00

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What is it about peeling paint on the weather-beaten wood of ancient boats, many of whom will go down to the sea no more, left to their resting, rusting places in the mud of estuaries, which touches the heart just so ? Dreams of catching fish and crabs, hauling up the elusive lobster, landings in distant ports, pirates and pirogues, folk songs singing of cockles and mussels alive alive-oh, to be walking after Molly Malone, buying her fish to take home with a pint of ale for supper, smoking a pipe by the fire after. The memories of poems written or unwritten that permeate those planks, punctuated by a rusting nail, a corroded band of brass that bears the breath of salt mists and gossips of shrieking gulls, why does weathered wood conjure up such visions ? I shall not wax so prolific as a Melville or a Coleridge, with his rhymes of rime, I shall leave you to whatever rêveries these images may evoke.
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("Rêverie", what a lovely word... my French dictionary defines it thus : "Etat de l'esprit qui s'abandonne à des idées, des images vagues". A state of mind which abandons itself to ideas and vague images. But in French, "vague" as an adjective means vague or uncertain, imprecise, but as a noun, it means "a wave", as in waves on the ocean... so "images vagues" becomes images of waves...) I leave you to these images...
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Ah, after that little escape, that escapade on the vast seas of dreams, would you care to join me on board for a cup of fresh brewed coffee, ground from beans brought back in canvas bags from distant islands ? Do pull up a spot on the bench here, have a cuppa, and tell me where you've been off to.
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Those Who Went Before . . .

2011-11-01T04:36:00.000+01:00

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On this Hallow Eve which passes into the Day of All Saints, what better time to give thought to those who went before ? I often step into graveyards, and ponder a moment the stories told there, on stones, in sculpture, in photographs. I fear that to many of these tombs no visitor comes, to forgotten graves, yet what point a cemetery if no one comes to remember ? Thus I serve as a benevolent mourner, a recipient for memories, a holder of spiritual hands. And if I take a photograph away, it is only in hoping that these silent resting places will not be forgotten, as even graveyards disappear, stone crumbles, sculptures rust, photos fade, and dust returns to dust.
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World War One remains visible in graves and monuments all over France, even now, nearly 100 years later. On this first cross, it is marked 1914-1918, and at the base of the cross, "Pro Patria".
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Will anyone remember the name of Maurice Bourdon, aged 22, once this plaque has rusted away entirely ?
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A chapel and lines of white crosses mark the burials from a battle near here in the summer of 1918, in the last big German advance before they were pushed back and the war ended a few short months later.
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Two brothers remembered, but not buried, side by side.
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Antonin and Egalité Thiebaut. Antonin received a head wound at Mouilly in the Calonne Trench near Verdun on 27 October, 1914. He died from complications four years later on 31 October, 1918. Egalité was killed in February 1916 on the front at Verdun in the Bois des Caures, buried on hill 344 (another dreadful name from Verdun) his grave disappeared during the battles and heavy shelling of the entire area which followed throughout 1916.
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Marcellin Ducroq was killed in Germany in March 1945. That Second war ended not long after.
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Charles Prouillet fathered two children with Lucie Depuille, a girl, Marie-Jeanne who lived from 1925 to 1926, and a boy, Jean-Marie, who lived from 1926 to 1927. Charles died in 1931 at the age of 29, while Lucie lived on another 50 years. One can only wonder what they went through. Life is not easy for anyone, but some seem to get more than their fair share of tragedy.
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There was no name and no dates on this young woman's grave. Again one can only wonder in silence. Who was she ? Why did she have to leave so young ? What happened ?
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Soldiers, so many soldiers. When will we ever learn ?
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I have never before seen a crucifixion figure attached to a cross with a screw through the chest.
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And this one was rusting away patiently.
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In Rust I Trust . . .

2011-10-28T05:08:00.000+02:00

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People trust in all sorts of things, but I trust in rust. What other process of transformation is so faithful, so relentless, so persistent, so natural, so honest, so powerful, and so inescapable for the iron and steel creations of man ? Creations that should have lasted centuries had their creators' dreams prevailed. But such architects and mechanical engineers, along with the miners and smelters and forgers and casters and welders who work with such materials, sculptors all, are barely in their graves, or even still breathing this earth's sweet air, when their works are brutally attacked by a simple chemical reaction occurring in the presence of oxygen and H²O, whereby a marvellously colorful form of cancerous seed is planted, which once started is fairly well irreversible in most cases.
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Some humans as they age or when they haven't practiced an art for some time may say, "I'm a little bit rusty..." as in, "oh dear, I haven't spoken French in too long, I'm getting rusty". As for me, as time goes by, I've been looking more and more often at rusty subjects, and am fairly often thoroughly amazed and mesmerized by what dramatic arts are being played out on rusting surfaces. What I would give to have time lapse photos of a rusting car over a period of several decades. Like watching lichens growing on a rock, one must be very patient to appreciate the progression of rust. But few such theatre of life type shows are more spectacular. So yes, as I said : In Rust I Trust, for rust has never failed me.
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In case you might have been wondering, these colorfully oxydized surfaces were once part of a large shipping container which had washed up long ago, no doubt in a storm, on the coast of a small island off the shore of north Brittany. There is something about salt water which adds another dimension to the rusting process, as these images attest. I'd like to blow some of these pictures up and see what they look like framed under glass in one meter by one meter size, for example. Might look nice on a wall in your living room, no ? :-) Part of the container number is still legible in this next one, and in the last one the rib cage of the defunct creature is visible.
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Hale & Hallow . . .

2011-10-24T02:44:00.001+02:00

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This afternoon I finally got around to watching Michael Moore's movie titled "Capitalism: A Love Story". A little late getting to see that, but it is just as timely now as when it came out a couple of years ago. Perhaps more so. His references in that film to the 99% and the 1% have been in the press rather a lot these last few weeks. Are the protests in NYC and elsewhere a sign that people have finally really started to have had enough of certain bankers' and corporations' massive greed ? Despite the government bailout of the banks after the disasters of 2008, the church of greed went right back to their poisonous pilfering and pillaging practices. The bankers trading in virtual (and virtually incomprehensible) derivative products are the worst of the lot. Shame to each and every one of them. When I look at how much interest I have paid on my mortgage over the past ten years, and look at how little money I have in the bank today to fend for the uncertain future with, it makes me see red. We've been getting robbed. Enough is enough. May they all choke on their caviar crackers.
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Speaking of New York City, my oldest daughter was there on vacation last summer, and when she spotted this skeletal window display, she thought of me, and took the below photo. She knows how much I love the music and artwork associated with that legendary band, the Grateful Dead, and sent this off by e-mail to me as fast as the internet could carry it. Given that we are getting close to Halloween (hallowen ?) now, this seemed like a good time to share this with all of you good people out there. (And many thanks to you, sweetheart, for thinking of your papa when taking this photo !)
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And even more recently, my youngest daughter was walking in Paris with la Grenouille when they saw this amazing piece of street art on a sidewalk. My youngest had the same reflex as her big sister, and took a photo for papa. Am I not the luckiest father in the world then ??? And what a visionary the artist was who saw a ribcage of a skeleton when seeing that grill there in the ground ! And then to do it in pink ! (Thanks honey !)
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And with these next three images I just wanted to give you a little Fall color from France, and hopefully slip in just in time before James' Weekend Reflections shuts up shop here tonight. There is still a little beauty left around us. All around us. When I mentionned above something about seeing red, this is the kind of red I'd rather be seeing.
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There Be Dragons . . . (or angels . . . ? )

2011-10-19T05:53:00.000+02:00

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I know some of you were simply dying to get a better idea of where the magic lantern pictured in the previous post fit in among the dragons also depicted, hopefully this first photo will make everything perfectly clear. Life is strange sometimes ; I've visited this charming site several times over the years, as it is rather close to home and makes for a pleasant stroll in the woods around the ponds. But not once had I ever noticed the lantern hanging there between the dragons. No doubt because it is a magic lantern and only reveals itself to those whom it wishes to have see it. But now equipped with a blog with a name like this one has, it couldn't very well refuse me any longer.
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Ah, dragons. Those mythical beasts. I confess, I was raised on a diet of Tolkien and Narnia, with a pinch of the Wind in the Willows. Smaug, the dragon in The Hobbit seemed very real indeed to me when I was little. I sometimes wonder whether such a diet at an early age was a good thing or not, for the real world we live in, as opposed to the realm of imagination, can seem a drab and dreary place in comparison, at times. Until one stumbles on a magic lantern flanked by dragons, and remembers that one must create one's own magic in this day and age, and seek one's own beauty, wherever it may be found.
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I admit as well, I commented to la Grenouille as we were walking along the pond after having seen these dragons, that I would like to see them leap from their stone perches and go thundering across the lake breathing fire. But no such show was forthcoming, so we made our way quietly home. But doesn't he look like he is just yearning to take to the skies for some wreaking of havoc, pillaging and plundering, as dragons are wont to do ?
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Yesterday I was out again with the camera, for a second day in a row, and spotted another form of winged creature which only comes to life in dreams and movies. Just as the dragon represents all that is evil, the angel speaks of sweet serenity and peace. I've been paying attention to angel images of late, after visiting a place this summer named the Abbaye des Anges, or Angels Abbey, out in Brittany. The owners of that lovely property had quite a collection of angels of one sort or another. And since then I've started to realize that there are angels hiding in many places, if one cares to see them. This one seemed particularly graceful, poised to take flight with the soul of a departed child here. Forever poised for flight. Some folks believe that angels exist. Literature about near death experiences is replete with angelic references. I'm skeptical about such assertions. For me, seeing is believing. Guess I'll have to wait until my time is up to find out.
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Yes, as I said, seeing is believing. Now, I honestly did not set out take a photo of any living angels when I composed this landscape on the Brittany coast in August. But such is the power of digital photography, and multi-million pixel images, that even very small sections of an original image can become a page filling size without losing any detail or becoming grainy as such a section of a film negative would have done. This is the original full size image, from a beach on a small island off the Brittany coast, which one can walk to at low tide:
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And here are the angels I realized I'd captured when I got home and looked more closely at the photos from that afternoon. Wings of course were folded up and stowed away for sunbathing purposes.
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Wait a second ! One of them turned over when I wasn't looking ! Will wonders never cease ?
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So, isn't life strange and wonderful ? I just noticed before publishing this post that up through the last one, I have done 1,111 blog posts here at the Magic Lantern Show. This is post # 1,112. We are getting into War and Peace length. Full of dragons and angels. And with two more who checked in yesterday, there are now 499 "followers" showing in the Followers gadget. Who is going to be number 500 ? And will that change anything in the greater scheme of things ? This remains about as obscure as a blog can be. No signs of going viral yet. But who knows, we are getting into flu season, so maybe it could get contagious yet, as dragons and angels interact and mutate, who knows what magic may yet be forthcoming.
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All of an Autumn Afternoon . . .

2011-10-17T01:20:00.000+02:00

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A quiet autumn Sunday afternoon in northern France, just starting to think about getting out and going for a walk along some ponds not far from here, when la Grenouille said, "Quick, come see, there are butterflies outside." So picking up the camera, out I went, and sure enough, the hedge along the side of the yard which had just put out some green flowers (talk about a late bloomer !) was crawling with butterflies of a variety I hadn't recalled seeing around here before. So, click, clack, Kodak, went the camera, and the following pictures are what resulted.
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Sometimes one doesn't have to go far afield to find captivating subject matter. In case you're curious, this is Vanessa atalanta, of the Nymphalinae family. It simply astounds me that such vivid colors can exist in nature. Orange on black like that; what evolutionary purpose did that serve ? Even if it is purely decorative, how on earth did these vibrant colors in such harmonious patterns come to be ? It boggles the mind. But then, my mind is easily boggled, as you might have come to conclude by now.
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Her (well, if she's named "Vanessa", it must be a "her", right?) antennae seemed to be lit up at the ends... I wonder what she does with them ?
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Vanessa wasn't the only one out there enjoying these Fall blooms... Mr. Bumblebee was out buzzing about as well, they were sharing the wealth.
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A closer look reveals subtle shadings that I would have never been able to even begin to create if I'd sat down and put pastel crayons to paper.
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And then we were off for our stroll by the ponds known as les Etangs de Commelles, where quiet paths go along the water for quite a good walking distance. Some autumn colors are starting to come out. Does the orange in the butterfly wings help it blend in against autumn leaves ? Or was Vanessa atalanta simply afraid that no one would look at her if she didn't put on some bright colors ?
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Reflections abound in the still water of the ponds, which have been there since the 13th century when they were constructed by monks from a nearby monastery.
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At one end of the stretch of water stands the Chateau de la Reine Blanche, whose origins date from around 1300. Columbus wouldn't "discover" America until nearly 200 years later. Visible history like this is what I love about France.
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The ponds were created along a small river by monks long ago to make a place for fish to breed. Even today people are still pulling fish out of those ponds. And no small fry either !!!
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These gentlemen watch over the water night and day, day and night, though one had turned his head to speak with a pigeon.
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Just under the balcony there were four most fearsome dragons perched there. Blurred by the rippling water in the reflected image above, this gives you a better idea.
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When they start stoking up their internal fires in preparation for taking off and soaring about the countryside to wreak havoc by burning down towns and hamlets, the light around them is transformed.
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Or perhaps it was the magic lantern hanging between the dragons that transformed the light ? One never knows what magic lanterns are capable of, their powers are strange and mysterious.
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Reflecting on Paris . . .

2011-10-15T04:34:00.000+02:00

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Whenever possible I do enjoy participating in James Weekend Reflections, simply because it is an enjoyable gathering of bloggers all focused on reflections the world over, and one never knows what one may find there. It is also enjoyable as I had the pleasure of meeting James nearly a year ago in Paris, and we were able to stroll in Père Lachaise Cemetery whilst getting acquainted. Still have many photos from that afternoon yet to post. But for today, just one photo from a more recent promenade in Paris, where the entire wall of a building was reflecting sharply in the late afternoon sun. Almost too easy. Well, maybe if one day James wins the lottery or something, he will invite us all to go visit the reflecting pool at the Taj Mahal. Now that would be a reflections outing to die for, or at least dream of just a little.
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Doors to Other Worlds . . .

2011-10-11T02:02:00.000+02:00

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Life is often composed as much by things that might have been, but were not, as by things that were. As each day slips into the irretrievable past, memories take on dream like qualities. Was I really there ? Do these photographs tell the truth, these stolen moments in time ?
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I often see doors I want to open, doors beyond which lie worlds to discover, the vast, infinite worlds of the other, he or she who we will never know. So many of those doors are locked, and no one is home. No key can be found. Rare is the door that opens into the warm kitchen of another, where a bowl of soup stands steaming on a rough hewn table. Where a story awaits the traveller.
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These virtual doors we call blogs, sometimes they open into the rich new universe of a perfect stranger. Sometimes doors that seemed to open swing shut again without warning. Some blogs just disappear, leaving no forwarding address. A light goes out. A voice goes silent. A door is shut and locked. A key is lost. I guess that's life, and trying to make sense of it may not always bring any satisfaction. My warmest wishes to the open doors out there, may your candles burn brightly in the night.
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I cannot help but wonder though sometimes, what treasures lie beyond these closed doors.
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A Most Beautiful Place . . .

2011-10-06T05:24:00.000+02:00

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I'm not sure that I will be able to find any words to express what I felt when I stumbled on this magical place. I had sought it out, it is true, having seen symbols on a map which suggested there might be something worth seeing there. Symbols of the slightest, vaguest sort, which simply indicated a handful of ruins. But oh, the distance between maps and reality can be infinite. No map could have prepared me for the sight of these ruins as we came over a crest of ground and beheld them there, where they stand in majestic silence, near the edge of a high cliff, overlooking a deep valley beyond.
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Hundreds of years ago men from the valley below climbed those cliffs, found a path to the plateau above, and built these rudimentary, rustic shelters where they could pass the summers peacefully alone with their small herds of sheep and goats, in an idyllic, remote, thoroughly secret place. Their women from the village in the valley would have made the hike up there as well to keep the men company, bringing food and other supplies. Who could imagine the summer nights under star filled skies there, a fire burning, the smell of sheep, their wool, milk for cheese-making. Who were these people ? Of what did they die, where are they buried ? And how did they live ? No electricity, no computers, no phones, just survival at hand. Work or starve.
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And yet they built with beauty and grace; arches that still stand when all the stones around have fallen, conquered by gravity. The sense of wonder I felt there, almost overwhelming, is unlike anything I've ever felt, anywhere. This was real. This was alive. Though no one lives there today, the place never died. It will haunt me for a long time to come, maybe forever. Already I want to go back there. To just sit quietly among those stones.
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An ancient iron hinge piece to hold up a shutter, long ago disintegrated.
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A butterfly on an acanthus bloom, looking as though he'd flown through a storm.
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Life In A Gritty City . . .

2011-10-02T02:49:00.001+02:00

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In the heart of the old Pennsylvania coal country, there stands a gritty town by the name of Mahanoy City. I must say at the outset that it is highly unlikely I would have ever visited Mahanoy City, were it not for the kind and generous counsel of TomB., who has been mentioned before in these pages, and will no doubt be mentioned again. It was exactly a year ago today that I went to Mahanoy City after Tom pointed the way by whispering that there was a large abandoned coal breaker factory there, a site which could be visited if one were to tip toe quietly and not make too much of a ruckus. And so I went, setting out early one Saturday morning, and it became clear very quickly that Mahanoy City was a place which one could sincerely say had . . . True Grit. If you click the link to visit TomB.'s page, please scroll down to his post on September 7th, where he published one of his photos from the Saint Nicholas coal breaker at Mahanoy City.
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It took me a little while to find the site, as in fact it is just outside Mahanoy City, but I caught a glimpse of it while going down a road out of town, and realized immediately that this must be the place.
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Years ago when the site was active this little red building must have been a sort gatehouse, keeping track of who came in and who left, carrying what. Today it just stands in red ruin.
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Heading into the larger buildings area, one very quickly finds oneself in the dark underbelly of the beast. The ground is still covered with the black dust and grit of Pennsylvania coal.
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Vandals had not yet stolen this handle, though rust is working on the job.
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A gaping hole in a wall, as though some structure had been ripped away by a frightfully angry dinosaur, leaving innards hanging out in the sun.
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A facade rising eleven floors up toward the sky, windows broken out on every level. Such is the fate of abandoned factories. Windows are easy targets for thrown stones. We live in a world where it is easier to simply walk away from a building, a factory, a living entity, leaving it to rust, rot, and ruin, rather than trying to invest in refurbishing it to prevent such scenes of total desolation. Note the structure which joins the main building high up at the upper right : the coal conveyor.
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Stepping back a bit to try to put it in perspective, the coal conveyor arrives about ten floors up from the ground level.
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Having walked a few hundred yards away from the main coal breaker building, the coal conveyor goes by high above this outlying shack.
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Even farther away, a small building still stands near the starting point of the coal conveyor, an ancient desk refuses to give in to gravity, standing, still standing.
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Here you get a better idea of the length and height of the coal conveyor, which carried raw coal ten floors up to fling it into the maw of the monstrous machines that would break it down into different sized grades.
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You may call me crazy, you may call me an idiot, you may wonder about my sanity, but the call of that conveyor tunnel was too strong for me to resist, I remember thinking : what better way to get up to the top floor of the factory ? I found a way in, and began the long, arduous climb up the entire length of that cramped shaft. It seemed to go on forever.
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From the conveyor shaft windows I could see people working at the still active coal mine on the hill across the way. I kept a low profile by the windows so as not to draw unwanted attention. The conveyor bed was still littered with crumbled bits of coal.
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Funny, from near the top there was a great view, and power generating wind turbines dotted the hills around, overlooking another abandoned coal building. The times they are a'changing.
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These gears give you some idea of the size of the motors required to drive such a conveyor belt, I can't imagine how many tons of coal it could carry at one time up to the top of the breaker, where it would work its way back down to ground level while undergoing considerable bashing and thrashing in all sorts of ungodly machines.
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The interior of the building was an incredible labyrinth of catwalks and stairs, platforms around the massive machinery required for the gritty work of breaking coal.
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Cryptic messages denoting some sense of past order, now meaningless, yet enchanting. Number eight, number eight, number eight. What dost thou mean, great yellow eight ?
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There were some machines it was obvious you would not want to fall into them while they were turning. They had a decidedly unfriendly air about them.
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The senseless sense of past order gone awry, the cone feeders are no longer needed, the sizing screens are no longer seen, the silence is overwhelming. I cannot imagine the awful din that must have reigned within those walls when the coal came thundering down the chutes into the brutal beating bars of the berserk breaking machines.
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The Agitator control. Turn the wheel and a gas is realeased causing all who breathe it to become extremely agitated, to the point where straight jackets may be required. I think someone left the valve open these past few years. A frightening thought.
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Bob Dylan wrote a song named, "Everything is Broken". The evidence was plain to see here.
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An office which had obviously seen better days. I guess the white marks all over the place were bird droppings. A final indignity, to finish its days covered deeper and deeper in bird excrement. Maybe someday someone will go and mine for guano there.
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I took one last look back as I drove off. Perhaps one day we shall return here, even if only virtually, these photos are just the tip of the iceberg (or should I say the tip of the slag heap) of what was taken there that day one year ago. Thanks again Tom for the tip that led to this trip !
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Wings . . .

2011-09-29T05:20:00.000+02:00

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After the last rather long, and perhaps a bit exhausting, installment in this ongoing menagerie of a blog, I thought I'd spare you and keep it simple this time. These two butterflies, or flutterbyes, have been waiting patiently since July to walk on stage here. You could say they've been waiting... in the wings.
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Misbehaving In Paris !

2011-09-24T04:34:00.000+02:00

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A twist of fate took me into Paris today, and I confess, I behaved very badly. I spent the entire afternoon walking hither and thither taking photographs wherever I could find them. Strangely enough, I found rather a lot of them, over three hundred if you must know. Given that this week marks the third birthday of this blog, and that it also marks the second birthday of James Weekend Reflections, I thought I would dare to share with you a rather large dose of today's photographic bounty, if you can bear it, from a day spent misbehaving in Paris, including rather a few photos containing reflections of various sorts. I hope you won't catch a bad case of sensory overload and bail out on me before the sunset. So, without further ado, the walk started (and ended) at the Place de la Concorde, as there is a convenient underground parking space there, almost immediately in front of the American Embassy. Ah, Paris. What is it about Paris that makes people from all over the world want to come here ? Is it because Paris may be among the most photogenic cities on earth ? I don't know how many hundreds of cameras I saw today, in all sizes and forms, but they were everywhere I looked. Collectively, I wonder how many photos are snapped in Paris on average every day ? Millions ? More ?
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I have to admit, and Grenouille please forgive me, I can't help but look at the ladies when walking around Paris. Along with cameras, there is an abundance of lovely ladies to admire in the City of Light.
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Couldn't help but stroll through the Tuilleries park, one of the highlights of which are the people who come out with sailboats to rent for sailing on the fountain ponds.
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For some reason these ancient sailboats always make me think of the book/film The Red Balloon. Paris from another age.
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A red headed boy set about launching his ship across the circular sea. Some forty years ago I too was a red headed boy in Paris. Funny how some things in life go full circle, returning to where they started. You may want to start counting the reflections from here forward.
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Another time-honored tradition in Paris parks . . . feeding the pigeons. Were it Wednesday I would have put this in for World Bird Wednesday. Anyway, not sure an ordinary Parisian pigeon would be suitable birdlife for that venerable venue.
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What walk in Paris would be complete if it didn't get to the Louvre at some point, that focalisation of fine arts from throughout history. One can feel the weight of culture in the air. Or is that just pyramid power ?
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Not far from the Louvre, I liked the looks of this bar, called Bar N'Importe Quoi... which I read as basically meaning "Anything Goes". They seemed to welcome hats, judging from the two in the window, and a third in a reflected form... who was that masked man ? (That's what the ladies looking out of the poster were asking.)
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Perhaps I will add angels to the list of abundant visual gastronomy in Paris, along with cameras and ladies. For unfathomable reasons, I saw quite a few angels today. At many angles. These two were beseeching me to deposit any loose coins I might be carrying in their treasure chest.
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In a church near the Louvre . . . Sainte Genevieve, patron saint of Paris . . .
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It being rather warm this afternoon, after a few hours of the incredibly hard work which is seeking out photographs waiting to be stolen from the greedy jaws of passing time, I took a break in a café, ordering a tall cold panaché. (that's half beer half citronnade for the un-initiated, very refreshing) The interior decoration of the place consisted nearly entirely of portraits of Native Americans. Someone went to a lot of trouble to collect all those portraits and have them nicely framed. My hat was off to whoever it was that cares enough to want to keep their memory alive, while so many would rather simply forget the whole tragic story.
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My path led me past the Paris stockmarket building, which is not open to the public, as I was informed by a perfectly nasty doorman. No wonder ; they wouldn't want any outsiders to see all the shenanigans and black dealings that go on inside those circular walls. Much better to be out sailing a sailboat in the Tuilleries than to try to make any sense of the convoluted chaos which worldwide stock markets have become. Bands of thieves and lairs of the larcenous, working with virtual derivative tools so complex that even the criminal minds which conceived them no longer control the monster they have created. Thumbs down on investment bankers and traders everywhere. Throw them to the lions, I say. The world would be better off without that breed of leeches who create nothing of value, they just suck the life blood of others. (sorry for ranting, but it really infuriates me that the very small holding in stock I have - err, had - is worth ZERO today, thanks to irresponsible market forces, driven by speculation, managed by people with six or seven digit salaries and bonuses) Outside the stockmarket building I saw this stack of road signs, and figured these must be the directions the traders are following. No wonder we are in such a MESS today.
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Putting that behind me, I wandered on, and stumbled on two damsels with their heads in the clouds, dreaming, dreaming of a better world. This may be the most ethereal reflection photo I've ever taken. I'm not one for patting myself on the back, far from it, but I am rather pleased with this one. Perhaps also because there is almost a glimpse of décolleté here.
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A building is being torn down outside and above the Forum des Halles, the old market of central Paris. Fortunately, they hadn't torn off all the reflecting panels on the outside yet, leaving a vast array of reflections shining just a little bit longer there.
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One sees the strangest sights on side streets in Paris. Lions . . .
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And bears . . . (I was keeping my eyes peeled for tigers)
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Funny, apparently I am not the only one out there with strong feelings about banks and traders ! Yo !
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Urban street art appears in many forms all over Paris. Rarely fails to capture my full attention.
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I mentioned angels earlier. This sidewalk chalk artist was well along in an angelic rendering in the square by the Centre Pompidou.
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Adjacent to the angels, another artist was busy on a large mural.
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He was accepting alms from passersby to put food on the table. I tossed a coin in the tin. I hope he makes enough to survive on for some years to come. Producing art on Paris promenades seems a worthy calling, imho. An honest undertaking.
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"Je suis an Artiste" he proclaimed. "I am an Artist"
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The famous fountains by the Pomidou Center. One of the most photographed sites in Paris no doubt, up there with the Eiffel Tower and Jim Morrison's grave.
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There she was again, that cryptic messenger . . . It's a bit hard to read, but the bubble says , "Things Got Out of Control".
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This enigmatic face was in the Eglise St Merry, or Saint Merry's Church, a block from the Pompidou Center. Which just happens to be where la Grenouille and I got married 19 years ago come December.
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Another trip in reflections. And there is that guy in the hat again. He seems to be everywhere I go.
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On the footbridge across the Seine between the Ile Saint Louis and the Ile de la Cité, behind Notre Dame Cathedral, a gentleman was creating large soapbubbles, using two sticks with strings between them. What better way to entrance all those people passing by who may still be children at heart ? (Like me ?) I won't tell you how many pictures of giant bubbles I took.
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Crazy undulating forms in irridescence.
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At the far end of the bubbling bridge, a strangely decorated form of locomotion awaited me. A rebel on a mission. He didn't like traders either.
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An unbelievable assortment of objects adorned his most original vehicle.
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The Memory Factory... err, the Souvenir Factory... so this is where they all come from.
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Did you ever see a tree with legs ? Well, there's a first time for everything.
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By the time I got to the far end of the Ile de la Cité, the sun was already going down behind the Eiffel Tower in the distance.
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And by the time I got back to the Place de la Concorde, night was falling fast. With that I bid you good night ; for traipsing about Paris making hundreds of photographs is exhausting work, errr, fun, and I'm ready for my beauty sleep. I hope you enjoyed an extra long installment on this continuing creation, and that it didn't prevent you from doing anything important you needed to get done today.
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Chic Chick . . .

2011-09-22T08:02:00.002+02:00

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The Italian politician Berlusconi has been in the press a lot lately because it is alleged that various people provided young women to serve the role of escorts for him at his lavish parties. They chased up chicks for him, apparently. I hope I won't be accused of anything similar for having offered up this sexy and fashionable most chic chick for the rightly revered Mr Springman's perusal at his World Bird Wednesday party, going on right now. May have to get myself a red leather jacket and some big necklace type jewelry. As for this chick, I had to go all the way to the south of France to find her. And though she may not be a spring chicken, she could now be considered a Springman chicken. Enjoy ! Just imagine how good she'd taste after a spell in your oven and laid out all saucy like on your lap ? Errrr, on your plate, I meant. (sorry, guess I'll just pluck off now...)(please don't henpeck me too much for this momentary lapse of reason)(and don't call me a turkey either !)
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Exploring Dark Places . . .

2011-09-19T04:29:00.000+02:00

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Where to start ?
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Work kept me more than busy into the wee hours of every morning last week, then Saturday rolled around and daughter needed to go shopping for school things, papa had to open up the wallet at the store. Then all night long la grenouille and I were rocking and rolling, dancing, sipping wine and nibbling cheese (what else is there to do in France ???), and conversing in very, very good company. Sunday morning rolled around and I rolled out of bed, headed right back out to go visit an abandoned sugar factory, for the second time, and it was as sweet as it sounds. More on that soon.
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The only trouble is that the "more on that soon" topics have been accumulating for years now, and I still have simply tons of photos to share with you from all over, the old black and white film days, Haiti, la Réunion island, abandoned factories in the USA, Brittany, and odds and ends from all over. I'm beginning to think another two or three lifetimes will be necessary to do all that I want to do. Sigh. Well, we do what we can, while we can, and that's it.
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I would like to mention a continuing source of inspiration, and that is the Tumblr site of TomB... he continues to post very tasty samples of his simply delicious work. And I couldn't help but think of Tom this afternoon when I spied an old stone house with bare rafters way out in the middle of a rainy farm field. There was only one thing to be done, and that was to go take a closer look. The photos that follow show what I saw. (oh, and please do tell ten or twenty friends to go take a look at Tom's pages, his photos are sublime. Just imagine, if all ten thousand people who visit here every day were to tell just ten other people to go visit Tom's page, why, that would give Tom's site a hundred thousand page hits... wouldn't that be way cool ???)
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So, who lived here in this small stone home long ago ? Where did they go ? Will anyone ever live here again ? I'm willing to bet there may a few souls out there who would love to take this on as a fixer-upper project. Just look, those roof beams are still standing strong, just need to slap a new roof on them.

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I have to admit, we may want to find a new interior decorator, I have some doubts about the last one whose work is visible here.
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The roof on the farm shed behind the house may also need a bit of freshening up.
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And now for something completely different. I'd like to add that for quite some time I have been keeping an eye on Rima's blog The Hermitage, and am simply in awe of her artwork and down to earth approach to life on our planet. Several weeks ago she did a beautifully long post about a painting she did which has become the cover art for a book called Dark Mountain, which is a recent production of the Dark Mountain Project. After reading Rima's post, and taking a look at their website, I ordered a copy of the book, both to have one of Rima's paintings in the house, and to discover the writing from the Dark Mountain, which imho, is well worth discovering. Do take a look if you're curious, and if hooked like I was, then order the book. It is perhaps the most thought provoking work I've come across in quite some time. This is the cover, by Rima.
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Wheel of Fortune and Other Signs of Our Times . . .

2011-09-14T06:00:00.001+02:00

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This strange little numbered disk was on a door in an abandoned sugar factory "visited" recently early one Sunday morning. I cannot fathom what its purpose was, other than to remind us that the wheels of fortune are turning, turning, and not much we can do to slow them down. Something oddly beautiful in its numbered simplicity, or so it seemed to my simple mind.
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The next one says entry is forbidden to anyone foreign to this service. That does not apply to you. For you, entry is free, absolutely free here, as often as you like, as often as you can put up with my flights of fancy.
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Although very hard to read for all the rust on it, the below sign also says entry is forbidden. That didn't stop me, I couldn't read the sign. Anyway, I didn't practice "entry", I just "slipped" in. It didn't say slipping was forbidden.
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This last one was the strangest of all. Spotted on the door to a farm courtyard, it has apparently been there for at least the past 46 years or more. It proclaims boldly in red that these stables are free from tuberculosis. I wonder if they got a new disk every year or every two years ? Tuberculosis in Europe was a fearsome disease until not so long ago, but I hadn't realized until seeing this sign that animals could catch it too. Their letter slot amused me, a bit of a hatchet job.
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What's On Her Mind ?

2011-09-12T01:42:00.000+02:00

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Sometimes you see a pretty face, or even a picture of a pretty face, and just feel compelled to turn it into a photograph. This young lady was encountered while strolling the streets of the small Brittany city of Morlaix one day in August. I was wondering what was on her mind, when the sun came out, and all became perfectly clear. She was thinking about the colorful old houses across the way, and how much she'd like to live in one of them someday. Her reflections on the subject were rather brilliant I thought. And speaking of reflections, am just nipping in here at the tail end of James Reflections Weekend. Better late than never.
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Don't Let the Sun . . .

2011-09-08T05:28:00.000+02:00

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Straight out of the camera. I don't even have Photoshop....
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Epiphany Long Time In the Making . . .

2011-09-05T03:31:00.000+02:00

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Was up bright and early today, off to go visit an abandonned sugar factory not too far off (more on that later), and as I had a little time to kill before meeting a friend there, I found myself back in one of my favorite haunts, after stepping into a local cemetery just to look around for a few minutes. As usual, I was very quickly captivated by various works of art. In this first one, and I had no idea such a thing could be, I discovered that fake plastic flowers can wilt just like real ones. I had never observed this phenomenon before. Was it the heavy rain the night before that did them in ?
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Some other plasic flowers were looking fresh and vibrant . . .
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Angels were out in force . . . (and a song for them...)
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Across the top of one grave were scattered hundreds of small ceramic tiles, as though someone was getting ready to do a mosaic there, but never got around to it.
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One reason I feel it is important to make photographs in cemeteries is that many of the fine examples of decorative and memorial artworks are dispearing. The ravages of time. In the previous post there is a photo of a piece of ceramic decoration, a cross adorned with colorful flowers. This is what happens to such pieces after a season or two too many subjected to the elements.
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Old photographs also tend to fade away into oblivion after a while, often passing through transitional phases of decay before disappearing entirely, lost forever.
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With this next one, I had an epiphany, one of those miraculous moments of discovery ; never in a hundred thousand years could I have possibly managed to create an effect like the one produced by the weathering of this photograph which was printed on a slim ceramic plaque. You could fairly say I was awestruck.
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Ruins From the Past . . .

2011-09-02T04:43:00.000+02:00

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September is upon us, I hardly saw it coming
This month then marks three years spent at this table blogging
Seems like yesterday the first tentative steps were taken
Upon this path, this trail, this road, this highway, this byway
I had no great expectations of causing any sensation
It was simply a way to break a bond of silence
To throw open a door and unleash a minor flood
Of photographs, thoughts, and poems penned in blood
That were languishing forgotten in drawers and books
Hiding in dark corners where no one ever looked
Who can say if this time is worth the trouble
A few kindred souls have found their way to this place
Since the doors to mr. toad's trove were thrown open
That alone is good, but then where to from here
Shall we continue this late night typing yet another year ?
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What does it take to unlock the potential for transmission
From one mouth to another's ear and so on and so forth
Until the chain of mouth to ear has spanned the earth ?
Where is the key to open a rusted lock ?
Are some locks better left unopened ?
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If we could open the locks and open the doors
Could we ever get back to places we remember from long before
Where children played in the street under grandpa's watchful eye
Narrow streets with cobbled stones lined by stone houses
Where magic lanterns hang to light the evening shadows
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Could we ever return to our ancient farms of piled stones ?
Where a cow waiting to be milked softly lowed
And a fire in the hearth quietly burned
Life had other rhythms then, music from another age
I'm not certain we could even hear it any more
For we have turned a page.

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Would we even know how to build a stone house like this today ?
Or would it be but a pale imitation ?
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Is it too late to resurrect the ruins from our past ?
Is there anyone alive who would want to ?
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Out Wandering Around...

2011-08-29T20:00:00.001+02:00

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Yesterday afternoon I was out wandering around
I set out specifically to go photograph a poster of a clown
Seen the day before on the way to work
For if not photographed, things like this tend to disappear... forever
A red traffic light in a small town had forced me to stop
Right next to the clown, with time to see it out the side window
With time to make a mental note to return with the camera soon
And somehow despite all the distractions of the ensuing day
On the way home I remembered, so yesterday on waking up I went
Out to wander around, to photograph a clown
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Sometimes I wonder whether a given photo is better in black and white . . . what do you think ?
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Here is the full scene as seen along a local road . . .
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On the way back home from the clown town, I couldn't resist the temptation to stop at a nearby cemetery, which I've stopped in before, but I wanted to take another look. As is almost always the case when going back to a place already visited, I saw details there yesterday that I hadn't noticed before; a few of them follow here.
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A decorative ceramic cross from years ago, decorations made these days seem decidedly lacking in heart and soul when compared to the crafts of yesterday.
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For some reason these fake plastic flowers really grabbed me . . .
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This next one made me think of Bob Dylan's "Everything is Broken" . . .
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If you've been following these pages for any length of time, you may recall seeing some other fading faces from graveyard photographs. Old photographs like this one that were printed on a ceramic oval, and then which have faded over the years in the sun and rain and frost and fog, never fail to captivate me entirely, to entrance, to enchant, and to inspire me to take the photograph, so as to remember this face before it is entirely gone. Will my photographs also fade away into oblivion one day ?
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To quote from the Dylan song mentioned above :
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"Broken cutters, broken saws
Broken buckles, broken laws
Broken bodies, broken bones
Broken voices on broken phones
Take a deep breath, feel like you're chokin'
Everything is broken"
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More plastic flowers. We live in an increasingly plastic world. Even some cemetery memories are left in plastic.
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Rust eats away slowly but surely . . .
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Even angels are not left untouched by rust . . ..

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Flowers, real and plastic alike, end up in the detritus bin. I always liked that word : "detritus". I wonder what detritus I will leave behind when I go, before I too end up in the detritus bin ? A pile of photographs, a few poems, an echo of a song played on an acoustic guitar ? .

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Footnote added to this post Tuesday night : ... my gut instinct to go back quickly on Sunday and do the above photos of the clown poster with hip hop rappers coming out of his head was justified, as when I went by this afternoon on the way to work, the rapper poster had already been torn off to make room for a new ad poster for the Club, leaving the clown with half his head torn off. After taking this photo on my cell phone I tore off the rest of the remaining clown face, brought it home as a souvenir of this post. It just goes to show, you should always photograph something when you see it if you think it is worth a photo, because it may not be there tomorrow.
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Learning the Ropes . . .

2011-08-27T04:47:00.001+02:00

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It seems that some of you appreciated the knots in the previous photo, so here are a few more ropes for you to contemplate, the possibilities for tangles here are endless, yet someone seems to be keeping them all in order. Must take a long time to learn the ropes though.
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What is it about sailboats with colorful sails that send us quickly off into dreams of secret coves on distant islands ? I can hear the mermaids calling...

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And of course the sails reflected on the water here should qualify for inclusion at James' Weekend Reflections...
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Slipknots and Slipstreams . . .

2011-08-25T04:23:00.000+02:00

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Have you ever felt all tied up in knots ?
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May you slip free of them . . .
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Just A Glimpse . . .

2011-08-21T22:15:00.013+02:00

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.After six hours on the road today returning to the real world, after a few glorious weeks in the land that time forgot (as well as the bar that time forgot in previous two posts here) I'm not in much shape to pick up the blog at the usual full speed ahead setting, but just to give you a little tiny glimpse of things to come, to start getting warmed up for a return to blogland, to whet your appetites as it were, I thought I'd share this slice of life from out in Britanny, about 1/250th of a second's worth from a sunny afternoon by the water the other day, climbing around in the rocks, searching for lost treasures.
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As the above image contains just a hint of a reflection in it, that reminded me that I might still have time, barely, to slip this in to James' Weekend Reflections page, a fine corner of the blogging universe where people from all over the planet have been contributing their reflections every weekend for quite some time now. Bravo to James for his hard work and perseverance for keeping so many balls in the air all at once, to use a juggling metaphor. These next two may qualify more squarely as Weekend Reflections material, or more spherically as the case may be. If you gaze into the depths of the crystal ball here, perhaps you can see into the future, and if not into the future, into the pasture ?
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