pavement stories

Over a year I had couple of expired Agfa Vista’s ISO 200 & 400 all in boxed. These film came as 24+3 exposures and were placed in batches of 3 each. ISO 200 were my preference for sometime but each time I had a problem with the cameras I have tried. For example last summer when I got my 35mm reflex Carena, I encountered the rookie mistake of tearing down the film. This year it happened to be a problem with rewinding back. Well finally my last ISO 200 film was in place and I was enjoying rather a cold but sunny Brussels Sunday afternoon mainly in the unknown surroundings of Brussels. A walk that started in Place Rogier (in the center of Brussels) and followed a path along the canal Brussels-Charleroi in Molenbeek to reach Place Louise area which is close to my home.

I was in love with this film stock and I regret not buying more of the ISO 200 (I have 7 roll of ISO 400′s) as this was my last roll. The grain and tones with sun were amazing. By the way I have tried to use a polarizer cokin filter with my Carena and applied mainly the sunny-16 rule for calculating my exposures. Results were satisfying in general with few shots underexposed.

Molenbeek region of Brussels is rather poor and also a bit dirty. I never go there except for a concert venue Vk*. I was happy to walk around in streets I have never been. I have not consulted my mobile navigation but always took the Palais du Justice, the largest courthouse in Europe, as a reference point for my direction.

In this set I have included the architecture related shots. I have few street-art and also candid people shots. During the walk while trying to capture a corner building with a 70s style giant building advertising of the Spanish flag-carrier Iberia in painting I had a chat with someone. Actually it was not a pleasant dialogue. I tried to shoot the building several times but the exposure mechanism of my Carena was stubborn and I could not succeed so I gave it up and continued to walk. Suddenly someone was running behind me and calling me Monseur! I thought he is going to ask for some money or sell me something so did not paid attention. Apparently he run out of the cafe which was placed under the building I was trying to capture. He demanded me to show him the photos I took and asked why I am doing photography there. I got the situation, he was not happy with the possibility that his face is recorded. With my humble French I tried to explain him that I can not show any photo as I was holding a film camera not a digital one and at I was just doing architecture photography not people portraits. I also tired to explain that the lens I use was not a zoom-one and at the end I could not even managed to make the photo of the building! In short I was able to convince the guy that I am not a secret police or anything like that… Anyway I thought it was time to go home, I did not felt very safe in Molenbeek as expected.

It was a nice walk in the dirty streets of sad and yet beautiful Brussels.

Carena SRH-1000
Agfa Vista 200
Expired
Process&Scan by Technophoto

October 2011 Brussels