Mois : avril 2019

What’s this? I hear you say…another lens to test…could be.

The 14-30 f/4.0 has arrived and… how can I say this…. well, it’s everything I expected, and more. It’s small, light, and makes incredibly sharp (edge to edge) images. I had to go somewhere special to test its abilities…so off I went to the cathedral. (At least we’ve still got a roof on ours…)

The flare (sunspots looking directly or indirectly into the sun) is very well corrected, and the 14mm ultra-wide angle is made for me! This is also an unusual ultra-wide angle lens because as a general rule lenses of this focal length have a large bulbous front element which prevents the use of filters. Nikon have gone back to basics with this design and we now have an 82mm filter thread which means, for example, that we can now use a circular polarizer filter – something unheard-of before. Yes, the lens is ‘only’ an f/4.0 but I don’t think this will really cause anyone serious problems – the WEB is already alight with the ‘know-alls’ predicting the downfall of Nikon (and the rest of the civilised world…) because it’s not an f/2.8 (which, as it happens, will be coming out next year) but I’ll be happier to A: pay less than the f/2.8 and B: have a more compact (and lighter) lens, and finally C: enjoy using a polarizing filter! The difference in depth of field, particularly at the 14mm ‘end’ of the zoom range will be practically invisible. Yes, this means one ‘stop’ less light, but we also have camera bodies with excellent hi-iso treatment.

What is remarkable about these interior shots is that, even wide open at f/4.0 the quality is really there – edge to edge. Click on the image to enlarge it.

I will have to do a series of comparisons with the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 and also the IRIX 11mm f/4.0 – these two will obviously be needing the FTZ adaptor, which is another reason why this new lens is so interesting.

I’m firmly convinced that this lens will fast become my ‘standard’ lens, combined with the NIKON Z 6 body with it’s in-body stabilisation, this is a superb combination!

My next testing series will be with a polarizer…this is going to be fun!

Right well that’s over for another year then. It was strangely quite a lot less stressful than I imagined it was going to be…and not staying until the bitter end each night/morning was a good move too.

The first evening, Friday, the headliners were a group I’ve photographed before at the Cri’Art in Auch – « La Caravane Passe » – the nice thing about this group of musiciens is that it’s a dynamic set right from the start, which makes it a whole lot more interesting to photograph.

Olivier actually remembered me from their concert at the Cri’Art – possibly because we spent most of our time talking about his home town Perpignan!

Saturday was unusually dry – I can’t remember a « Welcome » weekend where it hasn’t rained – the irony of the situation was that the town of Seissan, where the festival was held, have recently invested a lot of money in covering the otherwise unprotected concrete seating – don’t worry, I feel sure it’ll rain next year…

The headliner forSaturday was the virtuoso guitarist Titi Robin. He had contacted me before arriving to find out if I could do some publicity shots for him and his (3) bands….of course, Mr Robbin!

On stage, it was a different story – much more colourful!

Sunday was THE day – the rather well known headliner arrived very discretely and gave no interviews…but when he arrived on stage, everyone knew who he was…

In the ‘pit’ where the photographers were, we were all asking ourselves if the Kalashnikov bullets were real…

So all in all a lot less tiring than usual, the food was excellent as usual, and I met up with a great crowd of people that I meet up with every year, as usual. This was my 7th…I wonder if I get a chocolate when I get to ten…

PS With over 5000 images I hd a lot to sort through…and this one popped up after I’d processed the others – I love it, but understand if I’m in a minority…

Once upon a time a nice salesman working for ORANGE (France Telecom) knocked at the door and asked up if we wanted to get connected to the recently installed fibre-optic cable available in our neighborhood. We said yes as our bandwidth/Internet is excruciatingly slow here, despite not being that far from Auch, and we arranged a date for the work to be done.

The ‘boxes’ (which the technicians connect to the cable once it is installed in our house) arrived and we waited for the ‘fatal’ day when the work would be done. In the meantime, our neighbour told us that her rdv was a few days before ours and so we were keen to see how it all went.

I came home on the day her installation was due to have been completed, only to find that the technicien hadn’t been able to find the original telephone cable that led from a pylon outside the house, and arrived inside the living room – and had left, saying he’d come back another day.

This, frankly, was totally expected of ORANGE who seem to employ people who are a little thick. Anyway, we waited until TODAY, when we had been told the technician would arrive between 8 and 10am.

At 10h15 a van arrived – a man in a lovely yellow hi-visibility vest jumped out and introduced himself. He asked how I was, and I replied that it rather largely depended on his installation of our fibre. He replied that we had a problem, due to the fact that part of the cable the runs to our house from the road, was attached to an EDF (Electricity) pylon, and that he didn’t have the right to touch this. This was the same technician who had visited my neighbour the week before, had closely inspected the same pylon (where her cable is also attached) and hadn’t bothered to do anything about it.

Now we must wait until someone, somewhere decides that this idiot can lean his ladder on the pylon and attach our fibre-optic cable.

I wonder who pays for all the days I have to take off to organise all this?

These people are idiots – if you want a professional job, PLEASE find someone else.

UPDATE 8 days later and we’re still waiting to be contacted to arrange a new date.

UPDATE We’ve now been told we’ll be contacted around the 8th of May. Only just another month to wait… The text message telling us this said « Please be patient » – Do we actually have any choice?

Yes, it’s April, so it must be Welcome in Tziganie – and it is.

This is the next event I’ll be cleaning my cameras for – I’ll be spending three days, from the Friday to Sunday the 28th of April in Seissan – it’ll probably rain, but we’re used to it now.

This is the 4th year in Seissan, a village about 20 minutes South of Auch – initially the villagers were somewhat concerned about the arrival of these « hippies » who don’t seem to wash much, live in tents and eat vegetarian food (In the Gers???). But after a very successful first festival there in 2016, they welcome each new festival with open arms – and the municipality go to great lengths to modernise/build/adjust things to help accommodate both the artists and the visitors.

As you can see from the poster above, this year the rather well known film director (and guitarist) Emir Kusturica will be closing the festival on the Sunday evening. His « No Smoking Orchestra » will be interesting to photograph.

I’ve been asked to take some photographs of Titi Robin’s set on the Saturday as he’ll be playing with a new group of musiciens and his publicist doesn’t have any recent shots of him, or them. I’ll do my best – but I hope they realize that publicity shots have to be paid for?

On the Friday there’s a group that I’ve already met and photographed when they played the Cri’Art in Auch in 2016 – La Caravan Passe – great group of guys, so it’ll be nice to meet up with them again. (Thomas, the singer, also appears in a band called Soviet Supreme under the stage name of John Lennin!!)

Sadly my favorite dancer Nuria Rovira Salat won’t be there this year – fingers crossed she’ll be back next year!

Recently received a mail from the Tangram in Evreux (somewhere up in the north of France, between Rouen and Paris) Anyway, they wanted to know if they could use one of my images, taken during a performance of « Les Princesses » (Cheptel Aleïkoum) at the CiRCa festival in 2017. Well of course I said « Yes – if you pay me »

They did – so here’s their poster

The Cheptel are old friends of mine, and if anyone reading this is in the area, « Les Princesses » is well worth the effort!

I’ve redesigned my expo posters – the first to benefit is my next expo at the Cant’Auch here in Auch.