Chez Yvonne, New years eve

Xmas sun, the farm

Musée Guimet, paris

Mind blowing collection of ancient Asian art.

Miami Beach, Florida

Miami right now

Nyc

Indian summer, Park Avenue Brooklyn

Loam, fields behind village of Mons

 

There are hunters everywhere.

Old men in fluorescent vests stand on little platforms circling a tiny wood.
They outnumber everything, there are only men, it is seedy like a peepshow.
I run on, I am on a plateau.

In this region the farmers fields have no hedgerow or border. The field comes right up to the road. I pass a freshly tilled field, great slabs of rich fertile soil.
It feels good, I half remember being a child in a portable cabin classroom. (Someone had burnt down the school the summer before) I am drawing a diagram in science, the word I am looking for, the word for this is Loam.

Halloween diaporama, bleaker street, New York

Ingle wood , Los Angeles

Yesterday the Spielberg archivist brought ET from his vault.

And i photographed him. 

He was treated as a holy relic, the body of a saint, and this was the effect he had on everyone who saw him.

Grand Canyon, Arizona

 I am on a too long flight (5000 dollars cheaper to transfer in chicago) I to go photograph movie stars.

Bleary eyed and confused open the cabin shutter.

And there is the Grand Canyon and i remember again that sometimes you just don't know how lucky you are.

Paradis Latin, Paris fashion week

There is a giant golden shoe.

All the dancers are dressed as Anna dello Russo.

Anna dello Russo enters the party on a cable that flies above out heads.

Azealia Banks comes.
I love Azealia Banks, her hair is long and possibly blue. She bounces around swearing, rapping and grinning, no one can resist.

The farm, BESCHERELLES

The paper on the wall is old.

The New Look, Donnemarie-Dontilly

View from Tate modern, london

View from royal barriere, Deauville, Northern France

Basilica, Liseux, Northern France

On the hill, in the wood the Basilica is strange and impressive. Crouching above the Normandy town like some beast without mercy.

Incident menagerie, Jardin des plantes 4eme

A group of deadly poisonous frogs shun another deadly poisonous frog. Subject of dispute unknown but very likely something to do with women(frogs).

Garde republicaine, Celestine; 4eme

The General has invited me.

His men with brilliant swords wheel their mounts.

Rue Condame, 18eme

A while since I have been to this part of the city.

It takes too long to reach here.

Chanel show, Chateau de Versailles

For just one single day in the month of May the sun is shining. This has probably been agreed personally between God and Karl.

We are in the gardens of Versailles where the house of Chanel seems to have amassed an army of staff. I estimate there are over 400 of them in total. They easily outnumber the very select (and  charmingly eccentric) guests.

I guess this was how things used to be done.

Tilda Swinton quietly enters the garden.
Her presence changes the very air. The garden, is totally awash with Champagne.

It feels like I have fallen into a short story by Scott Fitzgerald.

Home, Paris

The girl draws pictures of Eagle heads.

Over and over perfecting the curve of an ever sharper beak.

The black cat watches.

Spring storm, Bescherelles

Acid burn yellow black sky.

Shelter soon, but not yet.

JFK again, NYC, Presidents day

Today is Presidents day.
The Aeroport is overloaded 2 hours to pass immigration.
My cab driver is a happy Sikh he has 5 children. He tells me is a needy man and so must work all the time.

But now his eyes are drooping with fatigue.

Everytime we pick up speed I watch him carefully in the mirror.

Aux follies, 19eme

The night is burning in Bellvilles.
Francesca always makes the best pasta.
The terrace vibrates with the new spring.
Life is almost perfect just a few loose ends to tie up, one last bit of bad business that needs seeing to.

Rue de opera, 1ere

On a foggy night the tower is a beacon.

I am in a snug/warm attic apartment with the beautiful girl. All the ceilings slope and you can only stand in the centre of the room.

Long ago,  this would have been the servants quarters.

You can see out all across the rooftops of Paris.
Only monuments protude above the haussmanian skyline.

You can hear the rain falling close against the roof.

It is perfect.

Leaving New York

Sunday. Slip quietly back into the city then straight back out to JFK.
I get the seat next to the craziest person on the plane.
A tiny woman who radiates stress, screams a lot into her phone before we take off.
"just listen to me, im tellin ya you don't have a fucking ulcer"
The plane banks softly left and the city swells up beneath the wing. Incredible sea of light that stretches all the way to the enchanted blue dusk horizon.
The crazy woman is saying something trying to pull me into her madness.
We will have 7 hours together
I tell her in french that i dont speak english and pull the drawstrings to close my hood and i am gone.

Macedonia Brook State Park, Connecticut

I go to Grand Central.
After all these years i take my first train to leave New York.
I go to Plamens' house far upstate, the train smells of escape.

The train stops at the end of the line. The night is black and icey, not sure what to think as the taxi weaves through darklands.

But the next day I realise I have accidentally come somewhere extraordinary.

Time Square, NYC

Finish another meeting.
Time square is all blade runner electric.
Night falling, getting colder, getting tired of all the running around.

Diner west 43rd street, NYC

Waiting for a meeting with the Mother agency across the road in a fantastic diner.
All the staff look like friendly gangsters.
Their hair swept up in greasy quiffs, reminds me of photos I saw of my father when he was much younger than me.

La grande Roue, 1ere

I help the school on a surprise outing.
We will ride the giant ferris wheel.
We will see out across all of paris.

The Tuilleries is winter frozen empty and beautiful. It is still too early for tourists we break the calm with our screaming horde.

Now all the children are waiting directly under the wheel but they don't yet know that this is the surprise. They start to vibrate with excitement. A hundred heated disputes break out, predictions, devinations offered and rejected.

And then like a magician their mistress reveals the magic tickets.

Night shoot, Angelinas Cafe, Rue de Rivoli 1ere

I finally took my broken boot to the menders.
I saw a man on the boulevard with an axe.
I called up the beautiful girl.

The cobbler made shoes for clowns in the circus across the road and when i paid him I realised he was crippled.
And all the rest didn't go as it should either.

Jean Paul Goude exposition Musée arts decoratives 1ere.

A robot Grace Jones head revolves slowly in a far off desert.
Her robot eyes flip open shooting lasers.
I am with the beautiful girl, this is our first date, but im not sure she knows we are on a date,  I try to impress her with the manner in which I look at the exhibition (but I just look ridiculous.)
In the atrium there is a full size locomotive engine and a real Russian princess (who moves on hidden wheels) spinning around the visitors offering gifts.

You would have to be dead not to love all this.

Landing Aberdeen, Scotland

A raw Xmas.
But my father unbreakable.

We say goodbye and I kiss him, we both think the same thing.
I leave.
But then he walks (with great effort) out onto the drive to wave properly goodbye, the furthest he has moved for weeks.

If I am lucky he has probably made me unbreakable too.
We live in a soft time of talking and forget there was once another way.
I drive to meet the boat we both think the same thing.