Departure

Finally I've sat down to give this post an attempted writing. I've been back home now for 2 whole days, and the question begs what next? This may be the last blog post for some time, as I need to look for a job and figure out my next moves. I', hoping to maybe get to a point where I can sell and exhibit some prints of my recent work, as well as join a band in some form. Anyway, this might be a long post....

Firstly, Paris was great, and really reignited my sense of discovery. I was dreading the city in some ways after being in Chamonix for so long, but I loved it. I'm not a person who loves either city or country, I like the discovery either way and both have their wonders.

My highlights of Paris weren't anything as arbitrary as the Eiffel tower, the Arc de Triomphe or even the Louvre, impressive as they were... I found the wandering about alone wonderful, exploring small streets and people watching. I could go on for paragraphs on all the little interesting things I noticed or saw, but instead for now here are a few of my favourite shots..

More can be found on my Facebook page, and soon hopefully a portfolio website.

After a nice time in Paris (Thanks again for letting me stay Alyce!), I headed first to Fontainebleau to meet Sam, then straight back up north in the car to Dunkirk to spend the next day there and catch the ferry the day after.

Perhaps not the most visually stunning or charming of the towns I've walked in France, Dunkirk still interested me in a lot of ways. Watching the obvious travellers, immigrants and businessmen going both ways makes your mind wander. On top of that, the history of the Battle of Dunkirk is impossible to avoid and must be thought on. We visited the small museum at the former French HQ of 1939. As I found in the Army Museum in Paris, the artefacts and sometimes everyday items still have a profound effect. Seeing things from cannons, guns, knives and weapons to soldiers personal rations, razors and clothing in the flesh from the seemingly distant past really make you consider what these men and by extension their families and countries went through. 

After the museum a quick visit to some of the old Atlantic Wall bunkers yielded some interesting shots. I felt strange both staring out at the now decaying fortifications and looking out at them to the sea. It may sound contrived but it was a very clear visual contrast between the world of men and the natural world. A decaying bunker made for only hateful purposes now vandalised itself, and the timeless scene of the sea and shore carrying on as always, as if the bunkers might as well never have been there... On the way back to camp the night I was struck by the strange assortment of different buildings and no seemingly real pattern to them, and knowing why this is again makes you imagine how the city looked in 1940.

The following day we headed back on the Ferry to Dover. I found my self almost enraged to see a gang of Dutch skinheads on the ferry sporting swastikas.

The drive home was long thanks to accidents near Dover, roadworks, and of course the M6. The past 2 days I've done a lot of nothing, and only now via this post as a kind of catharsis am I reflecting on the past 7 weeks and what they might mean. I don't have an answer. It seems clear I don't want to settle back to old patterns, I want to carry on doing 'my own thing' and being creative when I can - but money will be needed sooner rather than later, if anyone can suggest ideas drop me a message! Perhaps I should reject the Northern mindset that has been absorbed from a life of growing up in Manchester and try and become more Bohemian like some of the Parisians I met!