Tag Archives: photography

Places, Postcards

The other city of light

Story and photo by Malcolm Taylor

I discovered my love for photography when my dad put his Canon F1 film camera in my 2-year-old hands. Coming to Arles, France, considered by some to be the photography capital of the world, is nothing short of a dream come true for me. 

To me, photography means a love for life and an expression of creativity. I consider my camera to be an extension of myself and a fundamental tool of my daily life. 

You can only imagine my excitement when this program in Arles was announced. I had found a chance to study and learn French, work with industry professionals, and meet other creatives – all in the capital of my passion.

Now in Arles, I understand why it is truly a photographer’s playground. Everywhere I look, I am surrounded by deep history, elaborate architecture and beautiful faces. Being in a new country for the first time, I feel a buzz of creativity that I wasn’t anticipating. 

When I delved deeper, I realized what had truly caught my eye—along with the eyes of centuries of artists. At the right hour of the day, an abundance of divine light washes over this former Roman provincial capital. Be it a gleaming drop, or a river of luminescence, this town is positively inundated with light. Light is the photographer’s water of life. Photo-graphy literally means light pictures. Without light, there are no pictures.

One day, I decided to try my hand at exploring street photography. After allowing myself to capture some intimate frames of Arles life bathed in the city’s distinctive light, I wandered into a quaint little shop by the name of La Valise Arlésienne.

Immediately, I was hit with the unique odor of old metal and brass equipment. The dry scent of old paper tickled my nose, and my stomach began to flutter out of pure joy. I had just walked into the most beautiful photography store I had even seen. For me, this was equivalent to stepping foot into a dream. Old photographs lined the walls, ancient camera equipment stared back at me with meticulously handcrafted glass. I felt at home. 

Patrick Gagey, the owner of the store, said that this is the biggest collection of old photographs for purchase in the world. The son of a photographer, he said that everyone in Arles is either a photographer or becomes a photographer.

Living in Arles has been a transformative experience for me. The light and vibrance of these streets have opened my mind to my beloved craft and have given depth to my perception of my field. I am thankful for this step forward in my creative journey.

Bruce Strong, one of my professors from Syracuse University, is teaching photography as part of this program. While we traversed Arles together one day, he imparted a new ability upon me. He asked me to focus my eyes on him, all while describing my surroundings. I slipped into a flow-like state as I described my surroundings:

A kid brushes past me from shadow into sunlight. A woman takes off her red hat and soaks in the blinding sun. A man picks up a bag from under a table and moves it into the light, showing its vibrant yellow color. A woman opens the blinds on a cafe window. Beautifully soft light pours over the cafe residents. 

With this new ability, I’m able to not just see light, but see how the world interacts with light.

Arts, Postcards

What Photography Taught a Fiction Writer

Text and photos by McCade Hayes

When I first arrived in Arles, I was not greeted by the sun. Rather, when I stepped off the train and into the small formerly Roman city, it was in the early night. I walked to my hostel, exhausted from the full day of travel and sweaty from carrying all of my belongings split between two backpacks. The walk through the night carried with it a mystique in the shadowy corners of the streets that my mind’s imagination began to fill in.

I came to Arles with the intention of making a first attempt at photography, in hopes that it would help to improve my primary craft, writing. After a conversation with Malcolm Taylor, my housemate and a photographer, I decided to take my photos in black and white. This is because taking photos in this style can help to exemplify the form and lighting of a scene. So in the city of Arles, home of the renowned Les Rencontres photography festival, and day-long amazing natural light, I set out to take photos. Here are some of the results.

This amplification of shadows and the form or silhouettes in my pictures, revealed something that I could apply in my writing craft. I found that by changing the camera exposure to darken the lighting while shooting in black and white, the photo’s tone flipped on its head. In the more exposed photos, the walls feel open and welcoming as the city of Arles actually feels.

In the under-exposed photo, the aesthetics changed to a more gothic and slightly unsettling photo that leaves the viewer feeling almost as though the walls close in around them and brings their eyes more towards the sky, or towards escape.

The lighter tones of this photo give a more open feeling to the walls of Arles. Photo by McCade Hayes.
In contrast to the image above, the less exposed photo of the same scene creates a feeling of oppression.

This idea has led me to a conclusion that light as part of setting should be used and exemplified at points within creative written works as well. For example, when setting a scene I can apply this knowledge by considering where in the setting I decide to place the reader’s point of view with considerations of form included. To expand on what I mean by form, the importance of objects, characters and other concepts in a scene is often dictated by the amount of words or space a description of that thing takes up on the page. This also can be applied in a less figurative way, where I describe the lighting in scenes to convey tone, importance, or meaning to the readers.

I was pushed far outside of my comfort zone in the first few weeks of working in this program. By changing my environment completely, down to the language that I am speaking, and the work that I am producing. I have been able to learn a lot about the common ground of creative writing and photography, especially in regards to establishing setting and tone, lessons that I can continue to practice and learn from even after this program.