The Pink Episode
With France still under its third lockdown and the good amount of work and life events that have bombarded us recently, we didn’t really find the time to take the car or bike and go somewhere to enjoy some fresh air. Today, I wanted to roll things back a little bit and share a trip we did last summer right before the second lockdown. At the same time, I thought it would be nice to show you all some of my favorite shots even if they’re not all cycling-related. Film photography is just a nice experience and challenge for me, perhaps because of the rewarding feeling of scanning and printing my shots or the “I could probably do that a different way next time” that keeps me doing what I do and sharing some of my work.
It all started out with the furious desire to get out of Paris, grab the bikes, and have some fun in the south of France. Rather than a “bike trip”, it was more of a “trip with the bikes”. We got on the road on a Monday afternoon, heading southwest to soon find ourselves under miserable weather for a few dozen kilometers. We made some stops along the way and camped at various places before finally arriving in Biarritz a few days later.
Biarritz is undoubtedly the French capital of surfing and we were lucky to arrive at one of the biggest tidal coefficients they had this year. The waves were incredibly impressive as they rose many meters into the air. Although they were mesmerizing to watch, I wouldn’t like to face them on any board, to be honest. Overall it's a beautiful city with interesting museums, nice food and where one can have fun cycling around. Unfortunately, it’s also full of tourists and very crowded during the high season. This led us to eventually leaving for Guetary which is even further south.
Guetary is a pretty little town that used to be a whaling port and is now an awesome surfing spot in a superb location. There is also a great viewing point called the “terrasse” where one can have an impressive panorama of the spot and its surroundings. After a well-deserved pizza (best one in town in my opinion) and few pictures, we had a good idea to place the van on the dike for the night… Remember the high tidal coefficient? What a nice surprise waking up to the waves literally knocking at our door at 3 AM. We decided to move for the night and to come back the next morning for breakfast, however, little did we know, how the tides would absolutely destroy everything on the dike that night. Boats were turned upside down, the motorcycle parked there was destroyed and sand and various debris covered the entire dike. This scene of destruction let us know that moving everything in the middle of the night was 100% the right call to make. But the price we paid was so small, because we had, in my opinion, the best morning ever! We just had a nice coffee while watching the monster-sized waves and listening to the brutal yet mesmerizing sound of the ocean.
But enough of mother nature flexing on us, what about something...calmer? Well if you’re looking for a place right next to the ocean and nearly empty in September, don’t worry, I have just the right spot for you. We stayed overnight at ”La Plage De La Lagune” and had a great time parking the van in the perfect spot to have the most bang-on view the next morning. Having another outdoor morning coffee with the entire beach just to ourselves can only be a good way to start the day. Just be careful because it looks like the type of place that becomes incredibly crowded during summer.
In the end, if you have the opportunity to visit the southwest of France, down to the Spanish border, you should absolutely stay for a few days and chill along the coast. If you’re here to hunt some KOMs, there are also some great roads in the area and some cool spots to cycle to.
Speaking of bikes, you can probably already tell I was with my usual Mash Work and Ella was riding her trusty yet naked Soma Rush. Based on what happened to us, I would not recommend taking your raw steel frame to the seafront for two weeks or more. You might end up with your bike back as tanned as you if not completely orange...On the other hand, it can give your bike extra street cred extra fast…you decide! Traveling from place to place and camping when you have two bikes or more can also be quite challenging, especially while knowing you have a few thousand worth of equipment on the top of your vehicle or outside for the night. My simple technique was to find a nearby tree or pole, attach the bikes to it, put a cheap waterproof tarp on top and tighten it all together with some tensioners. I have two Kryptonite locks and three cables, so I can secure the four wheels, two frames, and the anchor point to lock everything together. If nothing is available, I just use one of the van’s wheels to secure at least the first cable. This reasonably protects the bikes from theft as one would be sleeping next to them, either in a van or in a tent, which would give a thief a very difficult time to silently break through all the locks.
During this blog post, you might have seen that most of my pictures have a really pink hue to them and I have a lot of people asking me why. I shoot mostly on Fujifilm Superia 200 that I pull two stops. In film photography, by “pulling film”, I make my camera believe that the film needs more light than it should, thus overexposing my pictures and creating pastel colors. The problem is that Fuji Superia doesn’t create any pink effect when overexposed. Rather, it tends to go the opposite way and create a green hue. Scanning and digitizing everything myself, I just inverted the hue to make it pink. If you’re already writing an email to tell me film shots shouldn’t be edited and I have no right to post my pictures online, just wait a sec. Editing has always been part of the photography process, whether it’s done digitally or during the analog film development and printing process. I know how my film is gonna react to a certain amount of light and how I want my final shot to turn out. I take all these settings into consideration before I press the shutter and this results in a final product that will mostly be as I pictured it in my mind. This technique tends to work pretty well on overcast days like the few we had on this trip. Bear in mind that all film stocks are different and you might have a completely different result. (I triedPortra 400 on a really sunny day and basically wasted an entire roll...). If you’d like to buy one of the available prints, you can check out the shop page where I put some of my work up for sale.
Any idea for my next trip? Let me know by sending me a DM on Instagram or an email ;)
