If I could find the print, I could confirm the year at least. It’s possible the processing date is on the back of the print. The photograph was taken with an Olympus OM10 which is still in the room here beside me, on what was almost certainly some sort of Fuji [...]]]> This was taken ca 2003.

If I could find the print, I could confirm the year at least. It’s possible the processing date is on the back of the print. The photograph was taken with an Olympus OM10 which is still in the room here beside me, on what was almost certainly some sort of Fuji film, 200 ISO. I know this because that’s what I used nearly all the freaking time apart from using a black and white C41 once. That being said, the level of grain involved here suggests it *might* be ISO400. I’ll leave it to others who are more film nerdy than me to figure it out. Because of the vignetting – which is characteristic to one lens I own – I’m almost certain it was taken with a 35-105mm zoom which I think was made by Tokina. I could check I suppose – it’s not so far away.

The photograph is one of a series which is special to me, three of which I scanned years ago and lost on a drive. As in I knew where the drive was but the powerlead was missing. It turned up during a house move, confused with the powerlead of the scanner, and today I had cause to go looking for something else (a font, of all things) so while I was in there, I dug out the scanned photographs too. I’m relieved that most of them were actually reasonably decent sized scans done on my older scanner.

They were all done before I knew anything much about digital processing too.

I took a lot of photographs that day because I like waves breaking on rocks, I like reasonably decent skies and for all it looks in the black and white, the sky was actually blue that day. I went through whatever film I had – in the days when I might, if I were really lucky, have 3 36 shot rolls to hand, that was a lot of film to go through. Now of course I can take 4000 photographs in a day and the only one to complain is myself when I have to process them afterwards.

I love this photograph. It lacks the crispness of the digital shots, admittedly, and the highlights in the white water are blown out. I did some dodging and burning to try and fix the worst of that but it’s never going to be perfect without a raw file. This photograph was taken on the day that I discovered that Doolin was my soulfood place in Ireland. It was also taken a few days before I learned – or started attempting to learn – to surf. In a way, without this photograph, I’d never have taken the series of photographs I took down there in May.

When I am giving photography lessons, I do heavily emphasise that for every one photograph you take, every other photograph you may have taken to that point in time will contribute to what makes that photograph great. This was taken on a film camera, in the days when I flatly refused to take photographs of human beings but it is a basic building block of every single kitesurfing photograph I have ever taken.

I was planning on going to New York to the ASP surf championship but circumstances outside my control dictate that I can’t be in New York for it until Friday at the earliest and they expect to be finished by then. So I am tossing up heading to the west coast to try and get some more of these things instead. That, or France back to the Verdon. I don’t know.

Another one of my soul food places is standing on the bridge you can’t see, looking at the bridge you can see in Lyon, France.

Lyon is one of my favourite cities in the world. I’ve just always been very happy there for whatever reason…it’s a city that just fits me. Also there are so [...]]]>

Another one of my soul food places is standing on the bridge you can’t see, looking at the bridge you can see in Lyon, France.

Lyon is one of my favourite cities in the world. I’ve just always been very happy there for whatever reason…it’s a city that just fits me. Also there are so many cute/gimicky little shops in the old quarter including the one which sells little music boxes…

To celebrate my 5000th twitter. I think this is probably one of the best photographs I have ever and will ever take.

In 2004 – I think it was – that’s the date in the album anyway – I flew into Nice and hired a [...]]]> Before I found religion I mean kitesurfing, my holidays consisted of driving around France taking photographs. With an OM10 film camera and a few lenses that I’d scraped the money together to buy.

In 2004 – I think it was – that’s the date in the album anyway – I flew into Nice and hired a car and drove around Provence. Most people when they think of Provence; I don’t know what they think of. Peter Mayle possibly. Fields of lavender. I went to go to the Gorges du Verdon. I’d seen photographs of them years before but crucially did not know where or what they were so it was only by accident I saw them in an airline travel magazine and had a Eureka moment.

Anyway, today for other unrelated reasons I have been scanning old family photographs onto a computer, and when I had them done, I sneaked a few of my older landscape shots into the scanner. I fell on the album that had the pictures from Provence in them.

The cliffs are very high.

I can’t remember how high but I think 700 feet may have been mentioned. Anyway, when I arrived in Nice, the nice people in Hertz insisted on giving me a Mercedes A Class which I can tell you for nothing is hard to hill start on an Alp.

The first climbing photographs I ever took, I took the day I drove around the local route around the Gorges du Verdon. It’s a tiny road that has something in common with the scenic route from Camp to Dingle in Kerry; it’s terrifying. Along the route, however, I stopped because I saw lots of people looking over the edge.

This was why. There are things I shouldn’t admit about that scene so I won’t but it does involve the word abseiling. I now realise how utterly misguided I was.

At the farthest end of the drive, there’s this bridge across the gorge. When I first saw the picture in the guidebook, I thought it was wooden and pedestrian. I was wrong.

It’s concrete and you can drive across it. In fact, you have to if you want to continue around the route. Oh you can walk across it as well if you want – people insisted on doing so and therefore ruining my photographs. As it was film, you just waited. It was expensive to take photographs you knew for certain you didn’t want.

All of the photographs were taken with an Olympus OM10 and – judging by the pictures – Zuiko 50mm 1.8. I didn’t know a whole lot about photography at the time so a lot of the photographs are ever so slightly washed out.

I had issues with the scanner. It’s a Xerox that I have a few years, which was bought in XP days and the last time I tried, I couldn’t track down Vista drivers for it. Today I found them however, and the scanner is working now. This is good because I probably have about 3000 photographs in albums, some of which I’d like to scan.