Is Bigger Better

It is over 20 years since I worked professionally as a photographer. I worked in most formats, from minuture (35mm) for reportage, to some work on a twenty inch plate camera. Most of my work was in medium format, (6 by 6), but whatever I used the weight of the equipment was imortant – I loved working with Leica and Hasselblad equipment, quiet, light and efficient.

I had assumd that the development of lens design and computer chips woyld make photographic equipment today much simpler and lighter – but my oberservations this week confirm the opposite. I am helping a friend who is working on a project for the city of Cannes – the equivalent to my old Leica is a monster, a beast of a camera weighing (it seems) several times the amount of my old brass and iron clockwork machine.

To be fair she can take several thousand snaps to my 36 – I am only here for fun and using an Olympus “Trip” I got in a car boot sale for one euro – but the Canon camera she is using cost over one thousant times more – both our lenses are basically the same quality, but I have to use my feet as my telephoto so it i completely unfair to compare as this is not like-for-like.

What I do find odd is the number of tourists with the same enormous lump of plastic slung around their necks that my friend is working with as a professional tool. I have always taught my first rule of photography is that “cameras do not ever take photographs”, people do. I have many reservqtions about “digital” photography and, as this week progesses, I am developing more (reservations).

This may be one reason that many tourists are themselves much larger than I remember – they have to carry much more equipment with them.

Life From a French Island

The island is only connected by a ferry during the day – I don’t know all the times yet, but the last ferry leaves for the mainland about 5:30 this afternoon, it is a proteced place and there is no development, in fact the few buildings are shabby and “lived in” in a charming way. The people working here, the guides for the fort, waiters and a handful working in a boat repair yard seem happy , perhaps it is the pace of place with no cars and you have to wear practical clothes to walk everywhere – 1000 euro shoes would last oly a few minutes.

I am here recovering from the intensive work I have been doing for the last 12 months rebuilding our home in Montblanc VillaRoquette  - once upon a time I was a commercial photographer so a friend who has a commission to record the life of Cannes for an exhibition and asked me to help for  few days – mostly carrying equipement for her – so I am a “photo-caddy” – for me it is the perfect break – simple food, beautiful weather, scenery people pay millions for and an atmosphere unique in the world.

I am sitting outside one of the 17th century buildings, probably housing for one of the officers garrisoned on th Fort – I do’t know if it was build for a Spanish officer or French – I can smell coq au vin being cooked for lunch and as I am writing this on my Macbook in the courtyard, the tourists to the fort assume I am one of the staff and frequently stop to asl me questions – I can only grin and give a gallic “shrug” although I sometimes point to a remote building and state with authority that that must be what they are looking for – as yet no one has returned to complain.