Look what I did!

More of my pictures from Paris.








There was such a long period of time between me taking these and then actually scanning them in to my computer. I quite like all of these photos, they remind me of the fun time I had. I must have used about 4 rolls of film that week I was in Paris but there were two problems that arose:

I don't know shit about how to a camera correctly, much less a camera that didn't come with instructions and another that didn't really have a correct way to be used. I had a real hard time winding up the rolls when I finished with them and ended up scratching and exposing at least half of two rolls of films. I also had no idea who to use the focus or whatever properly so there were a lot of pictures that looked as though I had just smeared Vaseline over the lenses.

The second problem was that I spent about two or three days taking pictures with a camera that had no film in it at all, I just assumed I'd put some in there before I'd left London and it wasn't until about I was about done checking one of the galleries near the Eiffel that I finally realized my mistake.

Ha, what an unlucky pup!

Anyway, that was my first real experience using a camera (film or otherwise) as anything more than a means of taking pictures of myself, and to be frank, I was quite impressed with the outcome. I have about three film cameras in my possession and I'm going to try and make a point to use them more.

It's always nice to document all that fun I'm supposed to be having.

I changed the layout and look of the blog and deleted a lot of posts, I'm going to try and actually post things of interest on it as opposed to just whining about things.

Lets see how that goes!

Long over due.

I got back from Paris on Saturday night I think.
I had a great time out there and saw some pretty awesome things, places and people. Obviously I was only there for a week so there was only so much I could do but I think I made the most of it as best as I could.

I checked out this really awesome place near the Eiffel called the Palais de Tokyo, which is where the pictures from the entry I made last week are from.

There was this one installation that was basically a room with some copper sheets and wires above you and a generator in the middle of the room or something (memory is mad cloudy), you have to sign some sort of release form when you enter the room or something which made it pretty scary. So anyway, you're in this room and suddenly you can literally feel the static electricity all over you, the person I was with's hair started to stand on end and my jaw really really really hurt. It was absolutely intense and I couldn't stop thinking about it all day.

Later on that night I went to a place called Pigalle to watch Jeremy Warmsley and some band from Canada play at a house, I thought it was going to be your typical warehouse/squat type set up and that it would just be some run down place some people rented out to musicians or whatever, but it was this absoloutely gorgeous flat in some swanky gated residence. Django Reindhart had lived in the residence and Jean Paul Gautier lived across the way from the flat I was in. Fucking nuts!

The performances were actually being recorded by http://www.blogotheque.net/ as part of their Take Away Shows thing, so that was really awesome to be a part of. I spoke to one of the main directors/cameraman/sound guy and he was a really awesome guy. Everyone was really, it was like some sort of dinner party/house show thing, I was loving the whole thing.

I developed a bunch of pictures today and a bunch whilst I was out there and to be fair they're mostly pretty shitty, and over half of them were exposed by accident (twice), but there's a few gems up in there I'd say, so I'm gonna get a couple scanned and put them somewhere.

I went to uni today, for the first time in maybe a month or maybe two months, it was actually really good. Really intense lecture and a really intense lecturer. Sort of makes me wish I hadn't pissed away the last months sitting in bed all day doing nothing, but not enough to actually stop me from sitting in bed all day doing nothing.

there is a world waiting for us to live in it

Today was fucking boss. A bunch of cool shit went down. Too tired to summarise it all, so I'm just gonna go to sleep.

Here's a funny thing though, I brought two cameras with me, didn't realise until today that one of them didn't have any film in and I'd been taking pictures with it since I got here.

Ha ha. x

Hello everybody

I didn't really do much today, or yesterday for that matter but I had some really nice, long and satisfying walks around the city.

Checked out an exhibition at the fondation cartier that was really great. Upstairs were these pieces by this Brazilian artist called Beatriz Milhazes. I don't pretend to know much about art but what I liked a lot about them was that at times the pieces seemed to be really quite abstract explosions of simple circular shapes and bright colours, but the circular shapes and paterns would start to instersect like a ven diagram and the overlaps of colour would look like flowers or something. Sort of like a kalidescope maybe?

That's what it looked like to me anyway! The pieces were huge and really quite awesome to look at but also quite easy to take in and easy to relate to. The gallery commisioned two installations from her which covered two seperate walls of the glass building, its a shame the weather was so horendously muggy, I would have liked to have seen what they would have looked like from the inside of the gallery with the sun hitting the glass walls (the paintings on the walls were semi transparent)

Downstairs were these photographs by this American guy named William Eggleston. Jack highly recomended it to me and it was really awesome. William Eggleston was commisioned by the gallery to do a series of photographs of Paris, and I think the commision is still on going. There were three years worth of photographs, and a quite a few abstract sketches and paintings to accompany many of them.

The photos were excellent, I thought he really manged to create/capture something that was alluring, romantic and at times quite dark about Paris, and I guess cities in general. What I liked espescially was that each of the photographs looked like they could be a little snippet of a short story or a still from a film. Sort of inspiring in the way that everyday city life inspires people to create something out of nothing.

Whatever, enough navel gazing.

I spent a lot of time drinking outside the Pompidou and walking around St. Paul, took a peak in a couple of vintage shops and boutiques as well. It rained a lot but I didn't really mind, places always look nice just after its rained and the sun shines off of the pavements and buildings. And paris has some fucking gorgeous pavements (ha) and buildings.

Tomorrow I'll see a band and maybe check out the eifel. xx

Boom, there she was

Ah! So here I am at Cleo's house just outside of Paris, chilling for the moment as I had to get up at eight or something this morning because Cleo had to give me directions and junk before she went to school.

Plans for today are to meet a friend later on in the evening at Chatelet station, but in the mean time I'm gonna head over the Oberkampf, which is where I stayed last summer, check out the Pompideu(?) for a bit, relax a little, check out some vintage shop I heard was near by and then if I've got time before meeting the aformentioned friend check out this awesome sounding exhibition at the Fondation Cartier.

Should be pretty fucking cash.

Yesterday I didn't do much at all, got a little tour around Cleo's town, Créteil. Hung out near the Orsay with a friend of her's and checked out this pretty cool second hand shop which had loads of records, video tapes and old books. Found a letter in one of them actually, but once translated from french it was one of the dullest corresponances I'd read in a while.

Find of the day was a really fucking old (1926!) copy of The Tempest. Only 80 cents.

Gotta go easy on the money actually.

And just like that a millipide walks across my bedroom floor.

Beatniks were the only good hipsters.

I'm up now and have been for hours, I went out yesterday with a friend for drinks in the sun and all that summer time malarkey, it was good, great even, but spending the day solidly drinking had tuckered me about a real treat and as soon as I got home, I immediately hit the big grey sack.

Up and refreshed now though and like I say, have been up for a while doing absolutely nothing actually. Barely even packed, barely even thought about any of this little trip, and every time I tried to devote a little bit of grey matter to the endeavour I felt a little sick and a little nervous...but I guess that's the nature of unaffordable, romantic excursions for one. The more you think about it, the closer you find yourself to heart palpitations and the Big Bad Breakdowns.

Probably best for everyone involved if I don't think about it until I get there.

I'm staying with a friend Cleo, who we met when we went to Paris last year, right before we climbed the Bercy fucking stadium. Hoo boy.
My plan is to hang out a little, walk around, bike around, take in the sights, maybe hit a night spot or two and definitely take as many pictures as I can, write as much as I can and get as soused as possible whenever possible.

I'll be another guy for a week, walk around with a cigerette in the corner of my mouth at all times, maybe improve my posture and breathe better too. Let my booze do the talking for me and forget about embarrased walks home at three o'clock in the morning, rat traps, rent payments and the world in general. For a week.

But that's a whole other story.

Paris

Tomorrow/