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Alphabet Soup (2)
Faux Ralph Gibson images... 2
Today I avoided such embarrassments and with my coffee sat in listening rather than talking mode... for I was observing with my camera at my side. Sometimes, often actually, you know when the curious thoughts you have about taking a few quick and perhaps unnoticed candid photographs are not going to be reciprocated with anything memorable... perhaps there's a tiredness or a sadness in the air, or maybe it was the end of the working week and everyone wanted Sunday to go unnoticed rather than be caught on camera... so I just listened, smiled, offered a few comments now and again when a question was directed towards me.
Most customers drifted through to the dining tables at the rear of the bar to have lunch... the price and menu, as is so common throughout France in smaller towns and villages, is fixed... here for only 10 euros you get plenty of food spread over several courses with bottles of wine brought to the table without having to ask... and at no extra charge for whatever you consume. Weekdays see a mélange of builders, decorators, businessmen, shopkeepers, a Notaire perhaps... seated comfortably around round tables with no class barriers, and enjoying their tales, problems, jokes and other conversation. Whoever enters the room sits at the table with a chair to spare... and when that table's seating arrangement is complete another table starts to be occupied. Another day produces another mix.
I wasn't eating - as I said just watching - but today the starter looked like Alphabet Soup (it couldn't have been... nothing comes out of a tin in this establishment) and it reminded me of the shadows of the sign-written lettering on the hôtel window being cast onto the curtains which had been drawn to cut out the sun's glare. The breeze rippled the curtains now and again as the bar door opened and closed... and the letters became mixed up like I thought those in the imaginary soup could have been... as if it was an animated Alphabet Soup.
This was one of those times when you know the light is so good you have to make a statement of some sort - not simply a representative one - and I wanted to create one more like the shapes and tones and graphics of a Ralph Gibson image. And it was there, staring me in the face... pure Gibson... well, faux Gibson.
A few clicks of the shutter release, the odd quizzical look from a half-interested diner... but I was left to my own amusement - for that is what it was. Amusement and pleasure too because there was a feeling of "I hope it comes out" in my mind! My meter-less Nikon F2 was fitted with a mint, 30-year old, standard 50mm f/2 Nikkor lens bought recently for 40 euros (about $50 or £25) in a shop a few doors away up the street... plus I was using the East-European / French repackaged Bergger 200, a new film for me. So a new lens, a new film, contrasty light from inside looking out and outside looking in, and no meter... the name of the location Hôtel l'Espérance was apt... and I enjoyed my own purely visual photographic alphabet soup at the “Hope Hôtel”... I have to say the experience came out better than expected.
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