galette des rois

Throughout January in French bakeries you'll find epiphany cakes. They come in 2 sorts - either a flakey pastry filled with frangipane version or my preference, a brioche covered with candied fruit royaume. There's always a trinket or une fève (traditionally a broad bean) inside and the lucky finder gets to wear a crown which comes with every galette.

lumière

We gave F's grandfather's Lumière twin lens from the 50s, an overhaul. I like the fact that his grandfather decided on a French camera. Perhaps back then it was a popular camera to have.
After some ok results from a test roll, on va sortir avec lui quelque part.

chez bebelle

Chez Bebelle is a café / bistro in the midst of Les halles in Narboone. We breakfasted there a few Sundays ago and liked it so much decided to go back for lunch as well.
What at 10am had been a quiet Sunday morning café, had at midday turned into a mass of people, with groups of families & friends drinking wine and eating plates of charcuterie or fruits de mer brought over from neighbouring stalls.
We shared a table with a couple who'd come up from Beziers for the day.
It was very good fun and I ran out of film. Problem solved by nippng across the road to the tabac for a couple of rolls of kodak gold.

fuji superia 200

l'hiver

fuji superia 200

old school

On Sunday morning we ventured out on a trip to Narboone, about an hour's drive west of Montpellier.
We were aiming for the covered market but we walked through this brilliant old fashioned bits & bobs market first.
Those slippers look as though they've been put out every weekend since the 70s!

kodak gold 200

potatoes • potatoes • potatoes

The weather has been so wet & grey here recently that we've been exploring the covered markets in our area. On Sunday mornings in France about the only places open are covered markets!
These shots are from Les halles in the old centre of Nîmes. It's a superb market, full of lots of old fashioned stalls. Something we'd not seen before were the potatoe, onion & garlic stalls. There were at least 3 of them in the market. We wondered if all French markets used to have such stalls?

What are your favourite market food stalls?

fuji pro400

au marché

I was given a new-old Canon film camera for Christmas. I'd been wanting a film camera with which I could use my EF lens. The EOS 30 isn't the most beautiful of cameras it must be said, being one of the last film cameras before canon went digital. The idea was to try and combine the effects of film with the sharpness of my canon lens. These are some shots from the test roll taken during the holidays.

I'm looking forward to 2011 being a year of much film experimentation.

We didn't go far over the Christmas break so most of the roll were photos taken at various markets we went to. These are from our local organic market at Les Arceaux.

fuji pro400

les douceurs

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
May 2011 be full of sweetness for you all.
Thank you for all your comments & encouragement during 2010.

Speaking of which, if any of you feel like voting for a food photo of mine on the Nowness site, ça sera vraiment sympa.
In any case Nowness is worth checking out. It's a site featuring daily snippets from the cultural world.