French Stream

Waking up to the chilling Spring cold of a Normandy manor house without modern heating and finding the Crème Fraîche frozen on the kitchen table I went off in the only heated space around, a borrowed Fiat, to find fresh croissants in a nearby village. My preloaded homemade pin hole camera sat ready on the back seat in case a glimmer of light shone through the thick grey Normandy sky. A small bridge crossing before the village Sainte-Beuve-en-Rivière revealed this refreshing spring stream. Forget the coffee and croissants, out with the 12″ x 25″ cardboard box pinhole. Made with only a fine hole (#9 needle) and 16″ x 20″ film inside, it had none of the convenient components of today’s cameras like a lens, view finder, or aperture settings. It was just a box with a hole in it and a piece of film inside! I placed it on the bridge wall facing the stream and held it down to brace it from the cold wind the duration of the exposure time; a half and hour. Remembering the excitement of the possibility of capturing this scene with the most primitive of cameras, my freezing hands and afterwards the café and authentic croissants in a charming ancient French village, makes this one of my favorite images in our collection. I also see this photograph as a symbolic of our collection. Quirky, difficult alternative photography combined with a personal journey through the natural world.   Archival print on 100% rag 300 gsm watercolor paper.

Signed and numbered by Madeline and Robert Longstreet.

36 x 42"