RoadWrites on film

Phew, finally found some time to get the 120 rolls developed for my RoadWrites project. You know, it can be tough finding a lab that does that kind of stuff these days! I found one not too far from me called Menor (they even do cross processing, lawks a laudy!) in Harlow so I get to savour a little slice of Essex life when I visit. And that. Anyway, I am pleased with the quality of the contacts and pleased that the SAS style day in day out approach paid off. I got lots of punchy stuff which, when blown up , should look impressive. For the techy I shot these on a Bronica SQ with a 150mm f3.5 lens. The film was a hot potch of what I could find in various bags and four rolls of Fuji Superior that I bought from my local camera shop before I left for the aiport. Do you think I could find 120 film in Gatwick duty free? Fageddaboutit!

Road Writes

This is an interesting piece of graffiti I spotted in the tree section on the lower slopes of Mont Ventoux. I read it as 'Chance Last Lance' which made me, and a rider who was descending from Chalet Reynard and had stopped for a chat, chuckle outwardly. But then when I was processing the shot I thought, perhaps it was written for Lance as he climbed towards that familiar summit. ' Lance Last Chance'. In which case does it need a comma 'Lance, Last Chance' or a hyphen in that newspaper way: 'Lance - Last Chance'. I don't know but taken on face value it looks like a literal translation into English from another language. Anyway, I shot the writing as part of my RoadWrites photo story for Rouleur magazine. I have put a small slideshow up here that was captured on a 35mm DSLR, but the finished article was shot on 6x6 film so the crop and the feel will be a very different animal, with no riders. More abstract and graphic as it was intended (I took the digi set up because it's been a long time since I used medium format and I didn't want to come away with nothing! Ed's note: honestly is the best policy). I'm off to Morzine tomorrow on a family holiday, but I know that the Avoriaz climb and the Col du Joux Plane are very close by and have old graffiti on them. Time to sneak the MF in amongst the undercrackers and jars of Branston pickle....