One of the commonly mentioned dings against 35mm is that you can't or shouldn't attempt to make large prints with it. Well, I'm hoping to debunk that myth in this blog post. What I will provide for you is my workflow from beginning to end for getting beautiful, 13" x 19" archival inkjet black & white prints from 35mm negatives. First, a list of the gear and software I will use along the way. Equipment/Software:
Workflow Steps: The first step is to place the negative in the scanning tray and get it cleaned. I find it helps me to see the borders clearly by putting the tray and negative on an LED light table (these are super affordable). Once I get the negative placed and locked in, I give it a good blowing with a Rocket Blower front and back. Next I'll walk through the settings in SilverFast. The first thing I do when I open SilverFast is conduct a Prescan. Once I have that, I make sure that the red selection box is sized properly. All of the settings are shown on the left panel. I won't go over all of those, but a couple are of special importance. First, I select 16 Bit HDR RAW for my scan type. I only use this scan type when I'm planning on making a large print. This will create a digital negative of the image. I select DNG for file type. You could probably use TIFF as well. This next setting is the one where I go outside accepted bounds. I set the scan resolution to the greatest allowed by the 8200i, which is 7200 ppi. Reviews will tell you that the effective resolution of this scanner is closer to half that, so the argument is that you shouldn't scan at a resolution greater than 3600 ppi because all you're getting is a bigger file with no more detail. I've tried up-sizing files scanned at 3600 ppi to the print size needed, and the results aren't nearly as good. What I found is that the shadows get super dirty, for lack of a better term. So believe me, while you are not gaining effective resolution scanning at 7200, you are getting a cleaner file to work with downstream. I use SilverFast's NegaFix option on all my scans. I find it does a fabulous job rendering the negatives. I don't use any of the auto color correction options. Once I've named my file and told SilverFast where to store it I hit the Scan button and let the Plustek do its thing. Once you import the file into Lightroom (I'm using CC) you will see a digital negative on the screen. At this point I don't do anything with the image other than choose Edit in Photoshop. When the file opens in Photoshop it will still look like a negative. At this point I use Photoshop for just two processes. First I choose Image>>Adjustments>>Invert. Now the image looks like an extremely flat positive. Don't worry about that. We'll fix that in Lightroom. The next step I do in Photoshop is to resize the image by choosing Image>>Image Size and then make the settings shown below. To get a 13" x 19" print at 360 ppi, which is optimal for my Epson, I need to downsize the file to 6840 pixels on the long side. For the resampling choice, I use Bicubic Sharper (reduction). To be honest, I haven't tried the other options. This one just works for me. Once I execute the image size command I'm all done with Photoshop. I save the file in Photoshop and then quit Photoshop to go back to Lightroom. Now I am back in Lightroom, and here is where we start to bring the image to life. The first thing I do is set the white and black points to taste. This alone makes a huge difference in the tonalities. Next I adjust the tone curve. I added a bit of an S-curve to this image. I also added a bit of Clarity. Finally, I set sharpening to the Lightroom default level of 40. Other than some minor use of the healing brush, this image is ready to print. Because I'm using Lightroom CC, and because Adobe for some unknown reason didn't think printing was important enough to include in CC yet, I have to go back into Photoshop to print. Annoying, yes, but it is doable. Now I am back in Photoshop in the Print dialog. The settings here are super critical. Besides selecting my printer, I tell Photoshop that it should manage colors and I select the proper icc printer profile. I select 16-bit data and black-point compensation. In the Layout section I choose landscape orientation. Down in the Position and Size section I input the width and let Photoshop auto calculate everything else. You'll see that the image isn't exactly 360 ppi because I did a wee bit of a crop. I'm not going to worry about that. In Rendering Intent, I've found Relative Colorimetric to be my preferred method, so I just leave it at that. I doubt that has much impact on a black and white image anyway. And then all that's left is to hit the Print button. I've shown the resulting print at the beginning of the blog post, so I won't repeat that here, but what I will do is include a slideshow of a series of closeup photos from the print made on my iPhone 12 Pro. Now I'll be the first to admit that I am not a pixel peeper. When I'm making a large print, I keep in mind the typical viewing distance. To be honest, I could probably be printing at a resolution much lower than 360 ppi for such a large print as 13" x 19", but 360 ppi is what makes my Epson happiest, so that's what I stick with. Certainly looked at close up you're going to see the film grain, especially on a 400 speed classic grain film like Tri-X. But frankly, I like grain. Maybe not big chunks of it, but salt and peppery grain I'm more than happy with. And that's the way the grain looks to me on this print.
A caveat...the scanner is the critical element of this workflow. I don't think you'd get nearly as good of results with a flatbed scanner. This is where a dedicated film scanner really comes in handy. The Plustek film scanners are a terrific value and a great choice if you're looking for a dedicated 35mm film scanner. I hope this has been helpful. As always, if you've got a question just send me a note or post a comment.
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In these days of social distancing and now a stay at home order in Minnesota, daily walks have been my little sanity pill. I'm thankful that the snow has melted now and the trails are free of ice. Priscilla and I have been getting out for a two-mile walk pretty much every day. I'm also taking longer walks on my own, with a camera in hand. When out on our walks we can't help but notice the sounds of the birds. We can hear them so much better now that the traffic noise is reduced. The woodpecker drumming in the neighborhood sounds like an entire percussion section. I'm shooting black and white film to document our lives during this pandemic. I'd like to move to color film as things green up, but the color development chemistry is sold out everywhere I've looked. At least with black and white I can continue to develop at home. Somehow black and white seems to fit the times anyway. I've got enough black and white chemistry to last me several months, plus I just took delivery of ten rolls of black and white film. That ought to last me a while. I'm finding this time of forced isolation is a good opportunity to check out the functioning of my camera gear. I have amassed a bit of a collection of film SLRs (12 at this counting). A few of them are in need of a CLA (Clean, Lubricate, Adjust). I just got my Olympus OM-2n back from a CLA. A few other cameras are in need as well, but that'll have to wait until after the dust settles on COVID-19. One project I just finished up is a Blurb photo book of our Paris 2019 trip. I included favorite film photos from that trip. Looking at those photos brings back such wonderful memories of our time there. Priscilla and I have decided that we're going back to Paris in the spring of 2021. It’s hard to believe that this is our last full day in Paris, day 57 of 58. I suppose I shouldn’t really count tomorrow, since we’ll only be in Paris until our ten-something takeoff time, but I chose to count it way back when, so 58 days it will stay! Speaking of “way back when,” last night I got a bit nostalgic thinking about when it was that we first hatched this idea. I checked in the VRBO app and found that we had reserved this flat on March 24, 2018, exactly one year to the day prior to when we arrived in Paris to begin our adventure. On March 24, 2018, Priscilla was in the middle of her first cycle of chemotherapy, the AC cycle, which was tough going. By March 24th she had gone through two of the AC chemo infusions, which were basically like going through a bad bout of the flu each time. I remember sitting in the living room with a fire burning in the fireplace, talking about needing something to look forward to on the other side of cancer treatment. That was when we came up with the idea to spend two months in Paris in 2019. I suppose that explains the melancholy I felt last night, knowing that this dream that was conceived of during a deeply difficult time in our lives was coming to a close. The biggest surprise for both of us has been the number of connections we’ve made here in Paris. We never expected that in just two short months. In fact, I remember thinking before we left on our trip how it would be different spending two months in a place where you don’t know a soul. I needn’t have worried. Our last week in Paris has been a series of goodbyes mixed in with some hellos to new friends. Friday we had lunch at Mokonuts and said our goodbyes to Moko. Saturday we said a long goodbye to our friends Claudia, Charles, Eileen, and Anaïs at Miss Lunch. We got there at one and didn’t head out until around four o’clock. It feels so strange to be saying goodbye to these friends. We have had many wonderful times with them. This afternoon we will be saying our goodbyes to Rasmus and Elissa, the owners of the store right below us. We’ve had to say our goodbyes to Ellen and Jean-Pierre via email, as they are back home in Brittany. Thursday and Friday night we walked down to the Seine to say goodbye to this beautiful river, which we will surely miss. Friday night we joined a party of three at their table for drinks and live jazz. Fabrice and Annie and their friend Inno welcomed us to their table for what became a lively night filled with much conversation and laughter. It was one of those magical nights. We stayed until 11 pm. Saturday night the packing began in earnest. You know we’re at the end of a trip when I pack my camera gear. The flat hardly looks lived in now that all our stuff is put away. Besides the people, there are other things we will miss about Paris, like the fabulous public Metro system and the ability to walk a block and find fabulous cheeses, meats, vegetables, fruits, baguettes, pain chocolat, and wines. The Marais has been the perfect home base for us in Paris. We are within a half-mile walk to three different Metro stations that give us access to a broad swath of the city in thirty minutes or less. Plus, we are walking distance from world-class museums such as the Picasso Museum and the Henri Cartier-Bresson Institute. I will definitely miss the fabulous street photography opportunities and the little tucked away spaces that are photographically rich. I’m sure Priscilla will miss the shopping opportunities, although with the amount of things she’s having to pack right now, perhaps not. Regardless of how much we will miss Paris and the friends we have made here, we are more than ready to come home. As I’ve said many times, we are died-in-the-wool Minnesotans. That is home and always will be. This much looked forward to trip has been everything we could have hoped for and more. We have absolutely no regrets coming home from Paris. There is nothing we would have done differently. That our family and friends could join us during this adventure made it even better. For those of you who traveled with us virtually through this blog, we hope you’ve enjoyed the journey.
Soon we will be stateside and I’ll be able to put my “grocery-store French” to pasture until the next time. Hmmm, did I just write “next time.” Let’s see, we’d best review our list of things to do in Paris. Visit the Jardin de Rosiers—Check! Go on a Champagne Tour—Check! Get the flu—wait just a minute, how did that get on our list. Yes, I’m sorry to report in that Priscilla has picked up the flu this week. And the week started out so promising. Sunday was Mother’s Day, with fresh pain chocolat from our favorite spot, Blé Sucré, fresh brewed coffee, and roses from the Bastille Market. Monday we met our new friend Eileen for coffee and then a walk around her favorite gardens in the Marais. Eileen lives six months of the year in Paris and six in Philly. We visited three gardens with Eileen, but I’m only going to remember the name of the first, the Jardin de Rosiers. This garden has a community garden feel to it, with vegetable plots mixed in with beautiful flowers. Priscilla was our resident flora expert on our walk. Eileen soon learned to just ask Priscilla if she wanted to know the name of a plant. The weather has turned sunnier and a bit warmer this week, so it was a great day for a walk in the gardens. Tuesday was to have been our Champagne Tour, but the photo below gives you a hint of what happened with that. While the vehicle we were to take on our tour was in for regular maintenance a day or so prior, the mechanic at the shop broke something to do with the oil filter, which is never a good thing. The shop didn’t have the part in stock, so they glued it and told our guide it should be just fine. It was not. They showed up to pick us up at Place d’Italie but their vehicle died and would not be resucitated. They were planning to line up two replacement vehicles for our group of ten, including the guide and his colleague. This meant our tour would be delayed by at least two hours. Apparently you need weeks to be able rent such a van, so two smaller cars it was going to be. Our guide gave us the option to bow out with a full refund. Since our flat was only 20 minutes away by Metro, we decided to head back there and think through what we were going to do. It didn’t take us too long to make up our mind. Priscilla was already starting to feel achy, and the thought of being crammed three to a row in a smaller vehicle with four-plus hours of driving didn’t sound appealing to us, so we texted our guide that we wouldn’t be going. Shortly after that, Priscilla’s seemingly cold-related aching turned into full-blown shivers. She crawled into bed and slept much of the rest of the day. It became quite clear to us that what Priscilla had was the flu, not a cold. Today has been much of the same, lots of resting and not much eating. Our friend Claudia gave me a piece of fresh ginger when I was up at the Aligre Market this morning, and she instructed me to make hot ginger tea for Priscilla. I have dutifully followed Claudia’s orders, as has Priscilla. She seems to be getting a bit more spunk tonight, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that she will start to be on the mend tomorrow, and that I will not pick up the same darned flu, just before getting on our flight home. Wouldn’t that be just lovely! Last night, Priscilla went to bed quite early, so I took advantage of the longer days and took my Nikon F3 film camera down to the Seine to see if there were any images to be had down there. I was not disappointed. It seems every single millennial in the 3rd and 4th arondisements was down at the river last night. People were so into their thing that they really didn’t pay attention to one largish old fart with an antiquated camera. If you’re wondering how I was able to get the film scans below turned around so quickly, the photo shop that I’ve been frequenting on rue Saint-Antoine provides same-day turnaround on film development and scanning if you drop the film off in the morning, which I did today. I just have to throw one more photograph in this post, although it doesn’t really fit the theme. I captured the photo below when Priscilla and I were with Eileen touring gardens of the Marais. It’s not often you come upon someone sticking half out of a manhole, so I moved into the street and made this image. I have to say that I think this guy is the most handsome man to emerge from a manhole in pretty much all of recorded history. I can’t tell if he’s pissed with me for making his photo or just curious. I surely don’t believe this photograph is disrespectful. He looks great, and the incongruity of this GQ looking man emerging from a manhole makes it work in my mind. But if enough folks told me it was disrespectful or made fun of the man, then I’d bury the photo in a heartbeat. I always intend to treat my subjects with respect and dignity. Just to finish up, it’s hard to believe we are down to just five more days in Paris. I’ve been journaling over here in a little Moleskin notebook. Each entry starts with the day and date, followed by the phrase “Day XX of 58 in Paris.” When we were in our first couple weeks, I tried to imagine how I’d feel when we got down to the “Day 53 of 58 in Paris” days. Back then those days seemed way far off. Now they are right in front of us. While we are getting ready in our minds to come home, I do want to savor these last several days. It’s just such a shame that Priscilla is having to spend some of them down for the count with the crud. That just ain’t fair in my book!
Today we are heading out on a two-day excursion to the Burgundy wine country. Right now we are on the train that takes us to Dijon, where we catch a smaller regional train to our destination of Beaune in the heart of the Burgundy, or Bourgogne, region. Tomorrow we are taking a wine tour with Burgundy Discovery. I am super excited for this tour. Some of our favorite wines are from Bourgogne. I will write of that experience in a later post. Last week we took in a free concert at the American Church in Paris. A touring ensemble from the U.S., the Atlantic Ensemble, was performing. They performed piano quartets from Mozart and Saint-Saëns along with a piano/violin duet rag from Bolcom. The performances were world class. I was particularly impressed with the Saint-Saëns. The young pianist was phenomenal. The American Church has a running series of these free Atelier (i.e. studio) Concerts. A free will offering was taken after the concert. We were happy to give. It’s hard to believe we are only 12 days away from our return. I have a feeling these last days are going to fly by. Next week we are doing a champagne tour. We will also be saying our farewells to the new friends we’ve made here and stopping one last time at some of our favorite dining spots. I thought I’d conclude this post with some recent photos in a slideshow so you can see what we’ve been up to. In preparing for our time in Paris, we compiled a list of things we might like to see or do. This list is more like an à la carte menu rather than a schedule. When we wake to an unplanned day, we ask ourselves “what’s on the list?” Today was one of those unplanned days. In fact, most weekend days are unplanned days. We tend to do our planned events on weekdays when lines are shorter and crowds lighter. Today was looking to be cool and possibly wet. What better day to go to a garden! The item on our list that earned our votes today was the Jardin de Plantes. This garden dates back to 1635 and Louis XIII. Originally it started as a place to study medicinal plants. The gardens are huge and quite varied. It was fascinating to see Swiss chard and fennel planted among the poppies. The color of the Swiss chard was coordinated with the poppies, the red-stemmed Swiss chard in with the red poppies and the yellow-stemmed in with the yellow poppies. Some of the trees in this garden were planted in the 17th century. They have grown to a magnificent size, as shown in the photo below. Just for a frame of reference, my wingspan is 6 feet 6 inches. I know, your wingspan is supposed to be how tall you are. My height genes never got that memo. The alpine garden section, accessed by a tunnel under a road, was a particular favorite of ours. While the Tuileries tends to get all the press, our vote goes to the Jardin de Plantes. Its gardens are much more beautiful and the crowds are significantly smaller. That’s a winner in my book. One of the pleasant surprises about life in Paris has been the gardens and parks. This city has done an incredible job creating green spaces in the midst of the city that everyday folk can enjoy. It’s a common occurrence to come upon a small public garden tucked into a corner or courtyard while we’re out walking in Paris. Invariably, these gardens are well kept. On our way to the Jardin de Plantes we got our first sighting of the Yellow Vests. When we came up from the Metro station we saw folks milling about wearing yellow vests and police officers and emergency vehicles in the area. We wondered if we shouldn’t ought to turn around and head home, but we decided to press ahead. We’re glad we did. The march turned out to have been a peaceful one, with a police escort. The marchers carried a banner that read “no hate, no arms, no violence.” With all the bad press coming out of France with the Yellow Vest protests, this was a breath of fresh and peaceful air. Another activity we had teed up for our time in Paris was the Marais Food Tour put on by Paris by Mouth. Thursday was our day for this tour. Our guide, Andres, really knew his stuff, although neither of us is quite sure what he said that prompted the reaction from Priscilla in the photo below. We started at an award-winning boulangerie, and then moved on to a chocolatier, a charcuterie, a fromagerie (cheese shop) and a pastry shop, before winding up at a wine shop for a tasting of the foods that we’d collected along the way with three different French wines. It was all delicious and was a memorable time. Andres did a great job in explaining the importance of quality ingredients and careful preparation in French foods. The French take their baguettes seriously!
There were three other couples besides us on the tour, all Americans. Now we have more food shops to return to. In fact, we’ve already been back to the boulangerie to pick up Priscilla’s pain chocolat and a baguette. It’s nice that they are a short walk from our flat. By the time we got back to our flat, it was around 7:30 p.m. We both agreed that dinner was not necessary. Here I am again, writing a “getting caught up” post. We’ve done quite a bit these past several days, so fasten your seat belts folks! We’ll start with last Thursday, April 25th. That was the day we decided to take in the art exhibit of Constance Hirsch, the woman we met Palm Sunday at the Metro station. Her exhibit was showing at the Paul Brousse Hospital in the southern suburbs of Paris. We hopped on the #7 Metro at the Sully-Murland Metro station, which is close to our flat, and took it almost to its southern terminus. Getting into the hospital was an interesting experience, in a “you can’t get there from here” kind of way. The hospital grounds are right next to the Metro station, but due to security concerns, there is only one way in or out of the hospital grounds, and as luck would have it, that entrance is on the complete opposite side of the grounds from where we were. After a walk through the town we came to that single entrance. After consulting the map of the hospital grounds and asking around, we learned that the building we needed to get to was, you guessed it, on the complete farthest side of the hospital grounds from where we were, practically at the Metro station we arrive at. The hospital campus was the fascinating combination of pre-WWI buildings combined with 1960s and 70s vintage stark modern architecture. Constance told us that it was not the kind of place people were happy to have to go, so her art was installed to help bring some happiness and joy to the patients and their families. While none of us are likely to be happy having to go to the hospital, I could imagine being especially unhappy having to go to this Hospital. We eventually found our way to her small exhibit in the main lobby of the primary building. We enjoyed her artwork of wireframe figurines, made with fabric scraps and other bits. I did not take pictures inside the building for privacy reasons. While we had hoped to find a shorter way back to our Metro station for the return trip, we were unlucky and had to retrace the steps we’d taken on the walk in. New FriendsFriday night we joined our new friends, Jean-Pierre and Ellen, for drinks and appetizers at their Paris flat, followed by dinner afterward at their favorite restaurant across the street. We met Jean-Pierre and Ellen at the American Church in Paris at an Easter Sunday breakfast the church was hosting after the sunrise service. Ellen is a Wisconsin native from Green Bay and Jean-Pierre is a French native from Brittany, where they live now in retirement. We brought a nice bottle of rosé from Provence to share and they provided the snacks. The conversation flowed naturally, and eventually touched on the place music plays in our lives. Ellen is a pianist who loves nothing more than playing and singing the old tunes. Once she found out Priscilla is a singer, she quickly jumped up and moved over to their upright piano and asked us if we would sing along on some songs. We knew this was going to be a magical evening. After our singalong, we went across the street to their favorite restaurant, Le Murmure. We had a wonderful dinner, and again, the conversation just kept on naturally flowing, even after leaving the restaurant and standing at the top of the stairs down to our Metro station. We have vowed to keep in touch and I’m certain we will. Long-time FriendsOn Sunday, our good friends Peter and Karla Myers joined us on the last leg of their European travels. Our first outing together was the D-Day Tour in Normandy. We caught the 7:05 a.m. train to Bayeux at the Saint-Lazare train station. Our tour guide, Lloyd, who worked for the Bayeux Shuttle tour company, would pick us up at the Bayeux train station. Lloyd is a native of Wales and is extremely knowledgeable about World War II and D-Day. He is licensed to search for WWII relics, something he does in his free time. We all agreed that Lloyd was a top-notch tour guide. The sheer scale and human cost of the entire operation was mind boggling. When you see how great that expanse of sand is at Omaha Beach and how commanding the German positions were, it’s a wonder that the Americans were able to ever accomplish their objective at Omaha beach. After visiting Utah Beach, Pointe du Hoc, and Omaha Beach, the D-Day Tour finished at the American Military Cemetery at Omaha Beach. Seeing all those grave markers lined up in seemingly endless numbers, it’s clear how great is the price that was paid for freedom. When I think of the neo-Nazis in the news nowadays, I want to bring them to a place like this cemetery or a concentration camp like Dachau or Auschwitz and force them to come face-to-face with the horrible logical extension of the hateful and repugnant words they spew. Our time at the cemetery finished with the lowering of the U.S. flag to the sound of a lone bugle playing Taps. My eyes welled up with tears. I thought of my Dad hearing that same Taps each night at the lowering of the flag when he was a young Staff Sargent in the U.S. Army in North Africa and Italy during WWII. The next day was another early morning, meeting our Giverny driver in front of our flat for our ride to Giverny and Monet’s estate there. The gardens and home on Monet’s Giverny estate are every bit as amazing as we had heard. The gardens are of an almost overwhelming scale. I can’t imagine how many gardeners are employed keeping them up. Our timing to visit Giverny couldn’t have been better. The weather was beautiful and the flowers were abundantly in bloom. Priscilla was wondering how the gardeners tended the flower beds in the famous Water Lillies gardens, since the flowers go all the way out to the edge of the pond. There didn’t seem to be any way for the gardeners to get to the flowers. A photo in the slideshow provides the answer to that question...they do it by boat. The photos likely don’t give you a sense of the number of people visiting Giverny. Our driver got us to the grounds early in the day. We were practically first in line to get into the house when the door was opened. The opening was delayed a bit due to some filming that was going on inside with great-great grandson of Claude Monet, Philippe Piguet. Priscilla actually got to meet him, having commented to him that he “must be famous” to be getting filmed at Giverny. He replied that he wasn’t famous, but then fessed up as to who he really is. If you plan to go to Giverny, we highly recommend that you arrive at the opening as we did, since by midday when we were wrapping up our visit the place was crawling with people and the line to get in was lengthening down the small street of the village. We are happy that we booked with a private tour company so that we got in early and did not have to stand in that long line.
We had a marvelous time with Peter and Karla. It was so much fun showing them around Paris, or at least the wee bit of it we were able to show them in the time we had. We were sad to see them leave this morning for their return flight to the States. We wish them a safe journey. Priscilla insisted that I warn you that this was going to be a “geeking out on photography” post, hence the title for this post. I’m going to do my best to make this non-techie, so I ask your indulgence in allowing me at least one photography related post. Every once in awhile you’ve got to throw a dog a bone! I’ve been doing quite a bit of photography on this trip, much of it on 30+ year-old manual focus film cameras. In the process, I’ve come to a fascinating and counter intuitive observation regarding street photography. The old manual focus film cameras have an advantage over modern, auto-focus digital cameras when it comes to street photography. I’m going to do my best to explain this in layperson terms, so please hang in there. Zone FocusingThe first three photos in this blog post were all made using a technique called zone focusing. Here’s where the geeking out part starts. On the older manual focus film cameras, there is a scale on the lenses that shows you how much is going to be in focus, from front to back, depending on how wide you set the aperture on the camera. The aperture is the opening in the lens that allows light in. The smaller that opening is, the more will be in focus from front to back. All cameras have an aperture, even the camera in your smartphone. With the two photos above, I was coming up out of a Metro station and had preset my camera for zone focusing. I set my aperture based on the lighting conditions and preset my focus point so that I knew that anything from 5 feet to 12 - 15 feet would be in focus. When I came up the stairs and saw these subjects, I simply raised the camera to my eye, framed up my composition, and pressed the shutter release. There was no need to focus. If I had needed to focus, the moment would have been lost. Modern digital cameras, like my Nikon D850, are not geared toward using this technique. True, the autofocus systems on most modern cameras are lighting fast, but they’re not faster than instantaneous. That’s how fast zone focusing is. Don’t worry, I’m not giving up my digital gear. By most any objective measure, my Nikon D850 is the better image-making machine. It certainly is more convenient than using a manual focus film camera. And when it comes to dealing with low light, the D850 is far superior to film. So no, I’m not giving up my digital gear, but I am happy to have rekindled a love of film and the beautifully built cameras from decades ago on this trip. I’m also pleased to know that the old man still has the photographic chops to handle manual focus film cameras.
One thing we’ve figured out during our first month in Paris is that if you’re going to eat out, do it at lunchtime. Most restaurants have what they call the formule, which is a set price menu with a choice of starter (the French call this course the entrée) and main meal (the French call this course the plat), or a choice of either entrée or plat and dessert. So basically you get two courses for one set price, which is usually around 16 Euros. Typically there are two entrées and plats to choose from and one dessert for the formule. Priscilla and I prefer cozy restaurants that offer imaginative and quirky fare. We have found two favorites, Miss Lunch and Mokonuts. I’ve written before about Miss Lunch, but today was our first lunch at Mokonuts. This restaurant is run by Moko and Omar. Moko is Japanese born and U.S. raised and Omar is a Parisian of Lebanese descent. They met in NYC. A long trail that started in the corporate and legal world led them both to starting up their own restaurant in Paris. If you’re in Paris and decide to go, make a reservation. They only have 24 seats, and since they’ve been written up in The NY Times and other places, those seats fill quickly. It’s not a long wait though. We made our reservation yesterday. After making our reservation we decided to sample the baked goods Mokonuts is known for. We had coffee drinks and shared a piece of the apricot fennel tart. It was without a doubt the best dessert we’ve had so far in Paris. I’m not going to give a complete rundown on our lunch today, but I will show a photo of the delicious white asparagus starter that Priscilla and I shared. I’d make a lousy food writer. I love enjoying good food, but I don’t care to write about it. I’d rather write about the experience. Lunch out is taken at a leisurely pace here. Our reservation today was for 12:30 p.m. We didn’t leave the restaurant until around 2. That is pretty typical. You’d best plan for a couple hours. And the good news is that no one is pressuring you to be done and gone. You’ve got your table for the lunch seating, that’s all there is to it. In fact, it’s best not to be in a hurry to pay either. They won’t hurry you, and they’d rather you not hurry them to get you your check. It’s just the way things are done around here. I quite like it. At dinnertime, Paris restaurants move away from the formule or anything resembling prix fixe. Instead you’re ordering off the open menu, and the prices go up significantly. At lunch you might pay 16 Euros for two courses, while at dinner you’ll pay that much and more per course. So now you see why I say that eating lunch out in Paris is the best deal going. While we don’t eat lunch out every day, when we do eat out, it’s usually for lunch. We will most likely go out for lunch weekly to Miss Lunch and Mokonuts, since most restaurants change up their formule weekly. The other major thing we did today was visit the Bibliothèque Nationale. The primary exhibit we went to see is called Manuscripts of the Extreme. The four categories in this exhibit are prison, passion, peril, and possession. The basic concept is to show writings from people who were at some extreme point in their life. Some of the scripts were written in the writer’s own blood, since they were in prison and were not afforded anything to write with. This is an incredibly powerful exhibit. None of the descriptions were written in English and there was no English guide, so Google Translate saved the day for us. We were able to translate each sign so that we had a good idea of what was being shown. For as much as I get on Google’s case, I have to hand it to them this time. Google Translate is an amazing piece of software. By far the most moving works displayed were the movie storyboard books drawn by Jewish youth who were about to be deported to Auschwitz, where they all perished. Those booklets are so beautiful, poetic, lively, and yes, sad. They were written accordion style, so stretched out they covered the length of one entire long wall. I will leave you today with a happier image of youth, this photo of a Parisian school group on an outing of some sort. It is surprising how many schools we come upon during our wanderings in the city. We often see groups of students out on some sort of adventure. I can’t say exactly why, but seeing groups of young students excitedly going about their days always makes me feel happy and hopeful. I guess that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
This morning we attended the riverfront Easter sunrise service of the American Church in Paris (ACP). The spire in the photo above to the left of the Eiffel Tower is that church. After the service we had breakfast at the church. During breakfast we got to know a couple who now live in Brittany since retiring, but lived in Paris for decades and attended the ACP. Ellen is originally from Green Bay and Jean-Pierre is from Brittany. They first met as pen pals back in junior high. Their lives took them different directions, but eventually they got together and were married thirty-some years ago. We really enjoyed getting to know them and hope we can get together while they are in Paris for several days. They still keep a small flat here. After the breakfast we attended the 9 o’clock service in the sanctuary. It was a beautiful service and was definitely in the Protestant tradition. While we’ve enjoyed the services we’ve attended at the French Catholic churches here, it was nice on Easter Sunday to be able to understand everything that was being said and done. We were thrilled to have a congregation singalong of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus close out the service and Widor’s thrilling organ Tocatta as the postlude, just like back home at Westminster Presbyterian Church. On our way back to the Metro station after the church service, we stopped to check out the beautiful park, Jardin de la Nouvelle France. This park dates back to 1859. The plantings and landscaping are so beautiful. It is a magical space. We basically had the place to ourselves at ten-thirty in the morning. Later in the day we attended the one-year anniversary celebration of Babbaluscio, the Aligre Market stall run by our new friend, Claudia (aka Miss Lunch). We had a delicious lunch of spring rolls, egg bake, sweet potato pancakes, and baklava, along with delicious Mimosas made with fresh-squeezed orange juice and Italian Prosecco. Everything Claudia serves at Babbaluscio is vegetarian. While at the party we got to chat with Claudia’s brother-in-law, Charles, who was volunteering behind the counter, and their mutual friend from NYC, Gary, who can be seen behind Priscilla in the photo below. All in all, it’s been a beautiful Easter Sunday and weekend. The weather here has turned warm and sunny, reaching into the mid- to upper-seventies during the day, and cooling into the fifties overnight. Perfect weather in my book. One of the delights of living in Europe is that we can leave our windows wide open on beautiful days, as you’ll see in the photo below. We’ve been fortunate to have no days of solid rain since arriving here a month ago. That’s right, today is our one-month anniversary of arriving in Paris. It’s hard to believe that our time is half done here. We are looking forward to the coming month. I hope you stay with us for the remainder of the ride.
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AuthorTom Northenscold Archives
December 2022
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Tom Northenscold Photography
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