War Cemetary

January 2013, I am driving back from a meeting in Paris. I am not in a hurry, so I leave the péage and take the smaller roads. RN17, small village after small village, and then all of a sudden a war cemetary with a Dutch flag near Orry-la-Ville. Just over one hundred graves. Most of these boys died in Dunkirk in 1940. I walk around for a few minutes, take some pictures.

There is something disturbing about these war cemetaries in France and Belgium. Loneliness.

Currently I am scanning slides. It is a massive undertaking, I have around 7000 slides, three minutes per slide, that is eh... two months full time. Maybe I should buy a batch scanner to speed it up. At the moment I am scanning slides that I made during a bike trip to France around 1980. I must have taken the RN17 back then because here is ... a slide of the exact same war cemetary.

In 1980 clearly my film camera was better than my latest digital camera. Better lense, no chromatic abberation, better dynamic range, no blown sky. Even the grass looked greener, and the tombstones were cleaner.