Three months ago I found in a suitcase I left in Liège (Belgium) a dozen of films from 2014. For this forgotten essay I used rolls of Ilford Pan 100 and a point-and-shoot film camera: the Leica Mini-Zoom. I wanted to make my photographic process easier. It was reminding me when I started photographing with a point-and-shoot camera I borrowed from my girlfriend 12 years before. At this time I didn’t even know
who Cartier-Bresson or Winogrand were ! Here’s the story about Ruins From The Old Wood.

Using a point-and-shoot camera is really not the same to me than shooting with a rangefinder camera. I just have to frame and to click the button, no need to think about settings or results. The only problem is that a lot of photos were totally failed because of that low-speed film I had chosen. Northern France where I come from and Belgium are known to be cloudy yet!

The project’s name is from one of the first photo I shot: a chalk graffiti on Saint-Lambert Square in Liège. It was written “Les Ruines du Vieux-Monde”: Ruins of the Old World. I didn’t say “Yeah, let’s make a project called Ruins of …”. These words stayed on my mind for months and I remembered them when I edited more than 400 pictures. Choice was easy: there was a lot of blurry and totally failed pictures and a lot with friends and party people.

These photos with friends looked like staged portraits and didn’t fit the project. It was about street-photography and wandering, it was about myself and the people, it was about loneliness and modern world. Unfortunately this project ends when I broke my camera.

Nowadays I’m still wandering and I’m shooting in color. You can see that on my tumblr portfolio.

About Nathanaël:

I’m a 34 year old photographer from France. Walking around France, Corsica and Belgium with only one little bag and my dog and my film cameras, I catch moments of everyday life and street scenes. Photography allows me to wander all the day, to meet people in any place, to have a talk with anyone. to loose myself in big cities. It’s my best reason for not having a full-time job. I’m living in Wanderland… 

To know more about Nathanaël, please visit his official website and follow him on Facebook and Tumblr

Leica Compact Cameras

Small in stature, high in performance