What troubles me most is that I don’t miss street photography. On the rare occasions when I found myself in the city, I happily took out my camera, but when I stayed at home, I had no desire to go out and take pictures. No desire to go wandering around tirelessly doing what I thought was such an important duty of documentation. I am now wondering if I was wrong all along. Had I not thrown myself wholeheartedly into Street Photography for the wrong reasons? If I thought it was so important, like breathing, how come I’ve become so detached from it?

There is one thing I must confess. For a long time I tried to convince myself that it was because I loved people, that I empathised with them and their situations, that I did Street Photography. This is a lie. I never argue in the street. I never interact with anyone. I started that way because it was a way to give myself some legitimacy and to overcome my fear of photographing people. By interacting with them, I sort of got their consent. But for several years now. I only consider people as compositional elements in my photographs. Of course I am on the lookout because I know people’s reactions. I can anticipate what is going to happen and that is essential to capture gestures. This is what makes me doubt my real motivation in the street. I realise that what I do is very selfish. Everything I do is because I think it’s beautiful and it’s because I enjoy it that I do Street Photography.

The last time I was in the car, I was listening to a programme about old age. And there were some interesting things. For example, “At what age are we considered old”? In the world of high-level sport, it’s 25 years old. In the professional world, it’s 45… And in Street Photography? When are we old? I feel like I’m already old personally… Well, I’m 49 and I’ve already got 6 years of Street Photography behind me. I wonder if I haven’t grown up too fast in Street Photography. So much so that I’m getting tired of it today. I sincerely hope that this is just a temporary condition…

I’m even old in the way I approach the practice. Who nowadays still shoots in RAW? Who has absolutely no presence on social networks? I’m even thinking that it was better before with the Photo Clubs where we exchanged and discussed photos face to face without the filter of social networks, hidden behind our screen. With that, I said everything. It’s an old man’s reflex to say: “it was better before…”. I feel like I’m not living in the right era. Even the way I see Street Photography takes me back years. I hate all these new fashions in Street Photography that make all these insipid photo festivals happy. I like the banality of the street, I just like to capture insignificant moments in the street.

I don’t know what I mean by writing this Blog. What I do know is that there are lots of different reasons to do street photography. And also a lot of reasons not to do it or not to want to do it anymore. I wonder a lot about what would make me keep walking the same streets with my Ricoh on my wrist. I’ll leave you with a slideshow of the photos I haven’t shown in the last few months. Very uneven work. Hard to be consistent when you spend so little time in the street…

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These choices can be questionable, and some people have even found the music distracting. I am sorry. I will continue to share my photos, but also songs that particularly affect me. Among the artists you may have heard were Sufjan Stevens, Snail Mail, The National, Cat Power, Asgeir, Massive Attack, Mutual Benefit… I’m sure I’m forgetting some. Stuck in a moment … is the title of a U2 song that was covered by Scarlett Johansson for the animated film Sing 2. It pretty much sums up my state of mind at the start of 2022.

It’s been 2 years since we’ve been caught in this pandemic that keeps turning our lives upside down. 2 years that we’ve been careful not to catch this crap. We waited for the vaccines hoping that this would be the solution or at least that it would allow us to get out of this situation, but the vaccine has been here for more than a year and as U2 would say, the prevailing feeling is that we still can’t get out of it… We dodged the virus for more than 2 years by restricting our social interactions as much as possible. We’ve been in Reunion for 2 years and it’s not tomorrow the day before that we’ll rebuild a group of friends like we had in our life before…

We always go out masked when we make our rare trips to the cinema or to the restaurant. But we have to believe that we will not escape it. We were at La Saline for a week for the summer holidays with my sister. I don’t know how we got infected, but all in all, we went to 2 restaurants, a cinema (to go hear Scarlett sing…) and we went to the aquarium. Otherwise we stayed at the beach right in front of our house with very few people. We once went to Boucan Canot and it was clear that it was swarming with people to get into the water… Same thing for a restaurant in Saint-Gilles where all the terraces were crowded. We were a little scared, but we were masked, so we thought it would pass. You have to believe that it would be ok with Delta, but Omicron is much more contagious and this kind of behavior no longer forgives.

So my nephew Pierre was patient 0 for us. He was tested positive last Tuesday. We all got tested the same day and we were negative. On D+2, Joachim and Ronan had symptoms and we tested them. Both positive. My sister, who is immunosuppressed, started to have symptoms but was still negative on D+2 and found herself positive on D+4… Her husband is still negative. On our side, our protocol starts from scratch with the infection of our children and on D+2, we are negative. We take a lot of precautions with children, but will that be enough? Does the vaccine protect us? Until when ?

What is certain is that Omicron is more virulent with children. Ronan and Joachim had a lot of fever on the 1st day, stomach aches, vomiting, headaches… In short, no more asymptomatic children. On D+2, things are better, they still have sore throats, but apart from Ronan who still has stomach aches, they seem to be out of it. Finally, they remain contagious, so we have to be extra vigilant for us…

So yes Stuck in a moment…I’ve been on a buying fever lately. After my Nikon 50mm f1.8, I bought myself a brand new Ricoh GRD IV to replace the one I was currently using. But I didn’t stop there! Taking more and more pleasure in using my Fuji xE2 manually with the Nikon 50 mm, I bought a 35 mm f0.95 lens more suitable for portraits, but also more versatile. Yes I know Gear doesn’t matter! But hey, in these somewhat complicated moments, it feels good.

Aside from the 50mm, I haven’t had a chance to use my other purchases too much yet. It’s already mid-January and I haven’t set foot in Saint-Denis yet. The Ricoh GRD IV will wait until February to take its first photos. The 35 mm f0.95, I intend to start using it as soon as the situation at home allows it… In principle the kids, my wife and I should be OK next Tuesday. We cross our fingers (and we are especially careful!), so that we are not contaminated by the fucking Covid…

I wanted to buy this 35mm f0.95 to put on my poor man’s Leica (aka Fuji XE2). I invite you to reread John Harper’s article about the Noctilux 50mm f0.95 and also to look at his sumptuous photos taken with this lens. One thing is certain, you have to know how to handle it and it’s tricky to focus. I will ask him for tips when I have used it a little more. What I started to realize was that for maximum effect, you had to not be too close to the subjects being photographed, but you also needed the background to be full of detail for the bokeh to be surreal. I still have to do some tests, but for 1 week, it has been raining heavily at our place. Torrential rains like only tropical islands can have. So not great for taking pictures. Anyway we’re confined to our house with the kids…

I put you here, the December slideshow. These are the last street photos I took with the Ricoh GRD IV. The January slideshow will be very thin…

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I do this because I have the impression of giving added value to those who will watch my slideshows on YouTube. I find it interesting to see a slideshow with only original photos. Finally it is for those who follow my work a little … The problem is that my own site which I use to convey my work is getting poorer because my best photos do not even appear there. There is indeed a moment during the year-end review when these photos appear, but by acting like that, I kind of abandon my site.

I’m not going to change the way I operate, but I will nevertheless write a post every month to let you know that you can watch my selection via YouTube or go to the SLIDESHOWS section of my site to watch the short video. I will also share in the Blog one or two highlights of this month and say a little more about them.

One of the rare photos published in color for this month of November. So to speak, for several weeks, I gave up color for monochrome. It coincides with my return to the streets with the Ricoh GRD IV. And yet, I have already written about it. The GRD IV is very good in color and this photo is there to demonstrate it. I attribute this return to B&W to my state of mind. This photo was taken on a site where an old building had been razed to the ground. Street artists have come to illuminate this place with this mural which I find fantastic. We have a lot of artists who roam the streets of Saint-Denis, but very few offer such beautiful things. This fresco is ephemeral. Since access to the site was prohibited and soon it will disappear with the construction of a new building. I do street photography for that. Witness the changes taking place in the streets of the city.

This second photo that I wanted to share with you in this blog is this time in Black & White! You don’t have to be a diviner to see that this is a homeless person. I have no censorship in the street. I photograph the homeless, children, altercations … I have no censorship not because I am a voyeur, but because, deep down, I have this need to document what is happening in the Street. Things are very often beautiful, but you know it as well as I do, the streets are tough with some too. This is the case with the homeless. Not photographing them would mean excluding them from this vision of the street that we have. I always try to show these people in the context of the street. This is not unhealthy voyeurism, but documentation.

You can see all 20 photos in the slideshow below. All the photos were taken in Saint-Denis with the Ricoh GRD IV.

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These slideshows are available in the site menu (here). I will update every month, to include the latest one. Moreover for this month of May, I decided to change things again. There will still be 20 photos taken during the previous month, but you will be entitled to my sweet voice as a bonus ! The idea was to do it like a portfolio reading. Scan the 20 photos by giving some details about the shooting, a little anecdote or even quite simply to say why I had chosen this photo in the selection.

Some people had trouble with the music that accompanied my slideshows. It is not likely to work out with me speaking on the photos ! The first major consequence, if I may say so, is that we go from 2 minutes of video to more than 11 minutes ! Clearly, this is the big drawback because I know for a fact that a lot of people will not get to the end of the video. I set up on the video, the YouTube index system which allows you to go to the photo you want to know a little more about, without having to go through the entire slideshow. Everything will be available in the video description. The easiest way would be to reduce the number of photos. We’ll see for the June slideshow …

Anyway, this kind of slideshow is not for everyone. Personally, I love this kind of video where I can learn a little more about the photo. Why does it work, what caught the photographer’s attention … Making this kind of video was also a challenge for me. Tim Huynh told me I needed to interact more with my audience. So Tim, you’re responsible for this … I’ve always been reluctant to do anything other than stack photos in a slideshow until now. I thought for a moment to put a thumbnail of myself commenting on the photos but I saw no interest … Lucky for you, you will only have my voice. It will be bad enough like that and I was not going to impose on you recurring nightmares after seeing me ! Ask John Harper or Elizabeth Char. Since then they only sleep with a night light …

A choice was made to use English for the video. I’m not bragging saying that I speak excellent English. This is not the case, you will realize it quite quickly. But it seemed more appropriate for the audience that follows me. If I refer to the comments I receive on YouTube, over 99% of my audience speaks English. It was just a practical choice to reach as many people as possible. And I must say that it is not necessarily obvious because English is not my native language. I had to write first what I had to say about the photos to have a guiding line. I have surely made many mistakes in pronunciation syntax … But the main thing is there. I think it’s not a big deal in an informal video. I hope to improve with the next slideshows and be more comfortable.

For those who would still be reluctant to watch this 11-minute video, I have put all of the 20 photos from this May selection below. And if one of them appeals to you, you can always use the index in the video description to go directly to it without going through the entire video !

All the photographs were made with the Fujifilm XF10.

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The second reason is much simpler. I am hopelessly drawn to people on the street. I like to observe my peers, to see them interact with each other. See little scenes unfold in front of me. We sometimes encounter quite hallucinating or even funny situations, but very often these are quite mundane moments, but that does not prevent them from being beautiful ! When I look at a photo, my gaze is also drawn to people. I think it’s quite natural to be attracted to our fellow human beings. Obviously that is not enough. There has to be something else, that’s why I always try to capture gestures, attitudes, emotions. There has to be action to not end up with a boring static photo. This is one of the great difficulties of Street Photography. It’s not just taking pictures in the street …

For those who have followed my work me since my beginnings, you know that my style has evolved a lot since 2016. I have been an apostle of “the closer, the better”. I took a lot of it to take photos with that little Wow effect, of the guy who has a hell of a pair of bollocks by allowing himself to go into contact with people to bring back photos made 50 cms from their faces. I’m not saying that I don’t act like that anymore sometimes, but I have matured and I no longer have this need to show that I can be fearless, besides this style no longer interests me. For a few years now, I have preferred to step back to capture a scene or to integrate more context into my photos.

The city, the urban elements, the cars, the buildings started to take up more space in my photos. I started to integrate them as elements of composition that I added in my frame. I found it a lot more fun and realized that was what I liked. Little by little, the city itself was self-sufficient in photos. This is where I started to take more and more photos with no one in the frame.

What interested me the most was to suggest the human presence. We didn’t see a soul in the frame, but they weren’t still lifes. Nor were they hyper graphic photos like some do. I find these photos interesting from a graphic point of view, but so empty and souless !. Some are ecstatic in front of this kind of photos, me that leaves me perplexed. I want to keep this raw side of the street. I don’t want to turn what I see into something arty.

I went to search more or less recent files for a number of photos. I still have plenty more backing up, but I didn’t really want to look for more in my archives. Most of the photos were taken a maximum of 2 years ago. I have grouped them together in a little slideshow.

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You must tell yourself that I have nothing more to show you to go dig through photos almost 5 years old to write a Blog. I wanted to rework these photos as I will do today. Besides, there are photos that I had not even deigned to post-process at the time and that I find interesting today. Tastes change over the years. I also decided to work them only in color and it’s true that it changes a lot of things.

What do I have left of this week in Liverpool ? An impression of not having taken advantage as I would have of this city. It’s easy to tell in hindsight, but there was a lot more to do than what I did. We do not have the same perspective on things with 6 months or 6 years of practice ! At the time I didn’t really know what interested me in the street. Today, I have a lot more certainties and of course I have a keener eye to see or anticipate certain things.

It’s not tomorrow the day before that I’m going back to Liverpool and revisiting these photos is a good way to travel during this complicated period. One of my big projects would be to revisit all the cities where I was able to do Street Photography. I want to see if my vision of the city has changed. See if these are the same things that will catch my eye. So I would have to remake myself, Aix-en-Provence, Bristol, Paris, Rome, Marseille, Toulouse and therefore also Liverpool! Strongly hope that vaccination progresses for a return to normality …

All the photographs were made with the Fuji XE2 | 18 mm f2. Here’s the slideshow.

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Seems normal to us from here and we don’t realize how lucky we are to be able to have so many freedoms. In Mainland France, they have been deprived of everything for many months ! They go to work, stay there all day, get home at 6:00 p.m., have dinner and go to bed before doing it again for the next few days. Those who live outside the cities with a piece of garden do better than those who live between 4 walls in a building. All this to tell you that I feel like I am very lucky in this troubled period that we are going through. We live 20 mins from Saint-Denis on a mountain. Besides, the area is called La Montagne (the mountain). We have a reasonable sized garden with the forest in front of us. It is very calm and the chirping of birds punctuates our days. Beyond that, we continue to live normally apart from this new curfew which forces us to return home before 6:00 p.m. Anyway, we never go out at night. Our life is punctuated by school and children and therefore no outings during the week. Weekends are different but we always favor daytime outings. So this curfew won’t change much for us …

I also feel very lucky because unlike many photographer friends, I can still walk the streets of Saint-Denis to take pictures. I already have the possibility to do it, but the streets are not deserted as in a lot of places. There are still so many people and I even suspect that there are more because a number of oversized shopping malls have had to close. It is also in the streets of Saint-Denis that I spent this Friday, March 5th. I had already told you about a certain weariness of always going through the same places in the city. This day will have shown me that everything happens in the head. When the mindset is not right, the grass will always appear greener elsewhere. I refer you to the Blog that I published recently where Olivier DUONG explains all this very well.

This Friday I had finished working at the end of the morning and I had decided to stay and take pictures until I pick up the children from school. Basically I had almost 4 hours to kill in the streets of Saint-Denis. I have never spoken to you about the climate in Reunion before. Through the photos, you must suspect that it is hot there. It is a tropical island. Nothing abnormal. In fact in summer, that is to say since last November (until April / May), it is very (very) hot ! You have to be pretty motivated to walk under a blazing sun. It is often said that the street photographer should wear dark clothes to go unnoticed in a crowd and wear good shoes for walking. Well first of all, there are no crowds here in Saint-Denis and then, most of the time I’m in Bermuda shorts, t-shirts and flip flop. Note I am doing local and in the end it is the most important to blend in with the crowd.

Yesterday I nevertheless put on my shoes because I was at work in the morning and it’s smarter (…) . Bermuda, t-shirt and shoes … I did well because my pedometer showed 9.66 kms at the end of the day !!! Yes, yes, I walked it all in the sun ! I had to drink more than two liters of water in the afternoon to rehydrate myself ! We forget it a bit, but doing Street Photography is sport ! I had decided to go for a walk to the fairground market. Be careful, it is called a fairground market, but it is the vegetable market. No attractions or rides here. I know this place well because my parents go there every Friday morning and I accompanied them when I was a kid. It is a colorful place. Good thing, I had to buy onions (local ones). In front of the stalls, the fruits made me want to buy them, but I could not because I did not go straight home. It will be for next time … I then went to roam in the Vauban district next door. Again, this place is very familiar to me because I went to the local elementary school for 5 years. I really like this neighborhood which is very popular. It has changed a lot since the 80s. New ethnic groups have settled down, giving it a more African color.

I do not linger and I go downtown because I also take the opportunity to go to lunch with Gwen who works a stone’s throw from the rue Maréchal Leclerc, THE frequented street of Saint-Denis. It is a pedestrian street not very well developed, but which nevertheless drains a lot of people. I prefer the lower part of the street which brings me to the small covered market. This corner is more colorful and offers great photo opportunities. But you still have to be discreet because it is a more popular area and people are quick to misinterpret your intentions. Taking pictures is suspicious and as there are also petty trafficking and street vendors, we quickly assimilate you to the police who would come stealthily to spy on what is being done here. In short, I take a thousand precautions to remain discreet.

3:30 p.m. sounds the death knell. It’s time to go back upstairs to pick up the children from school. My pedometer displays the figure of 9.66 kms ! It’s been a lot and I’m washed out. I just want to go home and cool off. It was a good Friday. When the mindset is right, all is well. I took lots of different photos, I saw some interesting scenes. These moments are rare. Most of the time, frustration takes over. Every day will not be like that, you have to know how to take advantage of these moments. I put in a slideshow the photos made this Friday March 5th , 2021.

All the photographs were made with the Ricoh GRD4.

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I always take the holidays to document the life of my little family, but I also take every opportunity to do Street Photography. Personally, I also like this change of scenery and since I am also on vacation, it is natural to walk everywhere with my wife and my children with my camera at my wrist. As I told you in my previous Blog, I took the Ricoh GR3 and the GRD4 with me and it is the Ricoh GRD4 that I used during these 4 days. This camera can be forgotten because it is so light. And in terms of photos, it does the job and more ! I don’t focus on Street Photography while on vacation. Very often, I photograph the scenes that happen next to us. I will show you some examples from these 4 days to show you that the photos often come to me.

• #1

We are here in Grand Anse, which I believe is ranked among the 10 most beautiful beaches in France. So yes, pretty beach but not swimmable because there is a risk of leaving a leg (or more …) to the sharks which prowl in the area … However, a large swimming area has been built with riprap for safe swimming. Here I just followed Ronan who had gone looking for seashells. We walked the entire length of the beach and I took the opportunity to take pictures.

• #2

We spent most of our time on this spot of the Beach in Saint-Pierre. It was not the main beach which is more crowded. We preferred the calm of this place. These photos were taken a few meters away. It was late afternoon and the kids were drying off before we got home and I went for a walk along the beach and I ran into this guy in a colorful outfit doing some stretching.

• #3

Same place the next day. Children who have seen a young person jump in the sand also try this exercise with varying degrees of success. Again I stayed where I was to do Street Photography.

• #4

Always on the same spot. Photo taken of my two boys on the sea side and I just had to turn around to the other side to photograph the people passing by the street side. The setting sun offered great opportunities to play with grazing light.

• #5

Change of scenery for this small series. We went here to see the sea on the side of the Etang-Salé. It is an incredible sight especially on the days of strong swell. The sea is literally raging and the waves crash with force on the jagged coast. The children had fun in the sand defying the waves.

Let us return to the two photos taken in this example 5. My wife was heading towards the seaside when I saw this gentleman on the dune also looking at the sea. There was also this very damaged fence which I used for my general composition. I clicked a photo of my wife and of course one without her for my Street collection.

• #6

Here, as the weather was not very nice where we were staying, we went to seek the sun on the west coast of the island. Head to the Saint-Gilles aquarium. There aren’t many pools but the children are always amazed when you go there. The photo of the children is cliché, but I have nothing against clichés ! It will make great memories. Have you ever seen masked divers ? For the Street photo, I had seen this man from afar and I hastened to quickly take a photo. I had the sun in front, but that’s okay, I could play with the silhouettes that stood out against the sky. Again, I was not looking for anything and this opportunity presented itself while we were going to the ticket office of the aquarium.

• #7

After leaving the aquarium, on the way back to where we were parked, we passed a temporary exhibition that aroused my wife’s interest. She took a look and it’s true that the interior courtyard where the exhibition was taking place was very photogenic. The curtains offered nice contrasts conducive to light/shadow and the colors were just sublime. I took the opportunity to take some pictures. The kids were bored and they were with huge lollipops so I went out with them on the sidewalk to avoid any unfortunate accidents … This is where I took this photo of them on the sidewalk.

• #8

Here we were on a lunch break at the ZAT restaurant in Saint-Leu. It is a place that we know well and I find the small terrace on the beach with its deckchairs, its small tables and its guinguette-type garland superb. It is a dream place for parents because children can have fun on the beach under the supervision of parents who can continue to sip their apero at the table ! A souvenir photo of my two boys and a Street Photo where I tried to work the layers, while sitting down to drink my beer.

I take lots of pictures of my family when I’m on vacation. As you can see in the slideshow below, I rarely have them pose. I take the photos as I will in the street : Street like as one might say. I prefer spontaneous photos of them than posed photos. I also take advantage of the slightest opportunity to take street photos. Like going shopping, at a restaurant, while waiting for orders at the snack bar … In short, I have the impression that the opportunities are endless even if in the end I devote relatively little time to Street Photography. Note I will be spending even less time on this in the next few weeks. My little boy Ronan had a scooter accident (frontal impact with his brother) on his return from vacation and he had a double fracture of the tibia/fibula. It hurt damn good but it’s been better for a few days and now you have to wait for the bones to come together. It still for a little over 4 weeks. I might as well tell you that I will do very little street photography during this period … I prefer to spend my time with him.

All photos were taken with the Ricoh GRD4. I remain impressed with the quality of the shots (I am talking about the image quality of the IQ). Of course the Ricoh GR or GR3 offer more MP and it shows. But the GRD4 gives more organic and in my opinion more beautiful images. Very often I managed to be at ISO 80 to have more crispy pictures. I have the impression that in 4 days spent with the GRD4, I had better results than with the GR3 in 4 weeks … I’ll leave you with the two associated slideshows. Going South (family slideshow) and 4 Days with the Ricoh GRD 4 (Street slideshow)

All the pictures were made with the Ricoh GRD4.

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When I knew that I had my transfer to Reunion, I did not jump for joy. It was expected, not really a surprise. Gwen even asked me if I was happy to go there or if I had any regrets. Frankly, staying in Jouques would not have displeased me. I had my friends there, my habits, my routines. Everything was set up like music paper. We knew that the children were going to go to college in the neighboring village and to Aix-en-Provence for high school. So yes now we are on Reunion Island and it will not happen as I had planned, but I have no regrets. I would have stayed in my Aix countryside, but we will also be good here. My children and my wife are happy on Reunion Island and that is enough for me.

Photographically speaking (because it is still a Photo Blog …), when I knew that I was going to move, I told myself that I only had 2019 to document the streets of Aix -in Provence. I thought until now that I had all the time in front of me. There was no hurry, the next 50 years I was going to hang around the Place de la Mairie, in the small pedestrian streets or on the Cours Mirabeau … The prospect of leaving put a little pressure on me. Each time I went out, I remembered that my days were counted in Aix-en-Provence. Besides, I took advantage of every moment to go hang out in town. What I hadn’t foreseen is, who says transfer, says move. There were a thousand things to do to prepare for our departure. Starting with the sale of the house. It was important to me to sell it myself. Not for the sake of money, but I didn’t want to delegate the sale of the house to a real estate agent. We did well because in the end, we sold it at the price we wanted in just 1 month.

When I look at my photos between January and October 2019, the date of my arrival in Saint-Denis de la Réunion, I realize that in the end I made quite a few photos in Aix-en-Provence. I have done many in Paris, Bristol, Toulouse, Marseille and even in Reunion. During this first half of 2019, we have moved a lot. Our long-planned holidays in Reunion, our week in Paris and for me short stays in Toulouse, Marseille, Bristol and Rome.

My stay this year in Bristol had a special flavor. I had already come to this city in 1998. I have almost no memory of this city apart from the pub which served as a meeting spot. I still spent 3 weeks there … I wanted to go back to find out what I had missed during my student youth. This city exceeded all my expectations. I loved hanging out on its streets. From a street photography perspective, Bristol is a hell of a city. A very heterogeneous population and neighborhoods. Bristol was also not far from Bath where John Harper roams. I wanted to visit him before leaving Jouques. It’s always intimidating to meet people you’ve known through social media. Do we really know people by chatting with them on the internet? And if it was a finished idiot? We create an image of the person with whom we are talking and then comes the moment of confrontation with this person. My fears evaporated as soon as we met. You remember from the Blog that I wrote John Harper: Gentleman Photographer. Well, that’s exactly him ! A person full of humor, very intelligent. I hope only one thing, that we have the opportunity to meet again in the future, here, elsewhere, whatever.

When the sales agreement was signed, I granted myself a little Parisian weekend with the blessing of my wife as a reward. I was very stressed by the sale of the house because it was an essential point to settle before leaving. Before the sale, there was some work to do in the house to present it in its best profile. Lots of paperwork too. These 3 days spent in Paris were a reward for all the work done. It was also an opportunity to visit Elizabeth Char had a solo exhibition. It is not at his first show, but it was close to my heart to be present for this still very special moment for photographers. It was also an opportunity to see her one last time before flying to Reunion. This was my second visit to Paris in a few months, except for this great weekend, I was alone in Paris with my Ricoh GR!

I also gave myself two little escapades to Rome and Marseille after my wife and my children went to settle in Reunion at the beginning of August to make the kids school start on August 17th. The house was sold, the move made, I was squatting with friends with a few boxes and bags while waiting to leave too. I can say that the last two months spent alone, I lived and breathed Street Photography H24. I don’t think I will experience another period like this. Besides, I came out of this leached period because I benefited a lot from it. I made a first selection of about 100 photos. This first sorting allowed me to see that in the end just 1/3 rd of the photos had been taken in Aix-en-Provence. Quite paradoxical in the sense that I told myself that I was going to make the most of Aix for this past year and in the end, I end up with more photos elsewhere.

I was very prolific during these getaways because I was solo and that changes everything ! It’s difficult to do Street Photography when you’re traveling with your family. So those moments I selfishly took advantage of. There was also this urgency to take a lot of photos because I knew that I was not going to come back to these cities soon. 2019 was not over, however, because I also spent the last two months in Reunion. I can’t say that I really started documenting the streets here. I think it will take time to get something consistent. I have time, we plan to stay the rest of our days in Reunion. Finally it must also be the case in Jouques …

Ah yes I was supposed to present to you in this Blog my selection of 12 photos to summarize 2019. As every year, it is an almost compulsory exercise, a little like the blooper of December 31 … This selection is very personal and therefore subjective. I went out of curiosity to review my end of year selections for 2016, 2017 and 2018. Through these selections, it is my evolution as a photographer that I see. Less aggressive post-processing, more shades of gray in my Black & White work, more complex compositions, better color management. When I started in 2016, I didn’t think I could take this kind of photo.

My best 12

2019 is also an important year for me because I have definitely given up on social media. I had already deleted my Facebook and 2018 account and at the start of the year, I did the same with Instagram. These photos were nevertheless shared on my YouTube channel that I created this year. I found with this support, the possibility of sharing more photos in the form of slideshows. Speaking of a slideshow, you will not escape my selection for 2019. The selection of the Best Twelve was made on this basis.

This Blog concludes this year 2019 which was rich in every way. I wish you a very happy holiday season and I look forward to seeing you next year for new adventures in the tropics !

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