Le Haut Boulay /​ Fomapan 400 review

Some photos of a place called Le Haut Boulay in North­ern France near where my mum lives. I have never seen a soul in the hamlet. There’s a hand­ful of houses and the road­side shrine, and that’s it.

It was really a test roll for the film. Fomapan 400- a very cheap black and white film from the Czech Repub­lic.

Fanzine Ynfytyn 26

This one is about the exper­i­ence of grow­ing up holi­day­ing in a cara­van at French camp­sites. A typic­al holi­day for Brit­ish people, but prob­ably weird and exot­ic for those from further away. Avail­able for £2 from my shop (includes UK post­age- inter­na­tion­al extra)

Published
Categorised as Zines

Bienv­en­ue à Lassay-les-Châteaux

My moth­er lives in a small town in North­ern France called Lassay-les-Châteaux. For a few years she’s had a holi­day cara­van in a park nearby, and at Christ­mas she bought a house in the town. The English version of wiki­pe­dia has prac­tic­ally noth­ing to say about Lassay-les-Châteaux other than show­ing photos of two of the three local castles- one in the town centre, the other two just outside. (The town’s name also sounds like it means “leave the castles” in French). The French entry doesn’t tell you much more, except that a lot of people were guil­lotined there in the Revolu­tion, the local mayor doesn’t belong to a polit­ic­al party (after a long line of right-wing­ers), and that Victor Hugo visited once. It’s just not a place where things happen. If you want the quiet life, you can find it in Lassay.

Mont St Michel

I went to Mont St Michel last week for the first time in years. It’s a medi­ev­al abbey on an island on the border between Normandy and Brit­tany, about an hour’s drive from my mum’s house in France. We went there a few times when I was a kid, and the last time I was there was in the late 90s on a school trip. It has dramat­ic­ally changed since then.

There was some­thing a bit seedy and cynic­al about the place in the 90s despite the spec­tac­u­lar town itself. Buses and cars drove over the cause­way to the island, and parked in a decrep­it carpark on the shore, which had a tend­ency to flood. As you made your way up through the snak­ing medi­ev­al street to the abbey at the top of the peak, there were endless shops selling cheap replica hunt­ing knives, saucy post­cards and boxes of fire­crack­ers. It must have been a night­mare for teach­ers super­vising school groups.

Microbe et Gasoil

I saw this recent Michel Gondry the other day. The Science of Sleep is one of my favour­ite films. Microbe et Gasoil is a lot more natur­al­ist­ic than a lot of his other films, but it still has a lot of the same little touches. Two misfit 14 year old boys decide to build their own car. When it turns out to not be road legal, they turn it into a shed on wheels and go on a very slow road-trip round rural France, in the spir­it of a Jacques Tati film. Lots of fun.

Published
Categorised as Films

Kerguelen Islands Prints

I’ve done some prints of this picture I drew of the Kerguëlen Islands off the coast of Antarc­tica. Noth­ing there but penguins, cabbages and the odd french scient­ist. What could be more delight­ful? They are avail­able in two sizes- A4 for £7 + post­age and A3 for £20 + post­age (the small ones will be sent flat, the large rolled into a tube), and are prin­ted on 250 gsm semi-gloss paper with a white border. Avail­able now from the shop.

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