Emile Zola - The Project

[clarion]

So I've got Jurek's book of photographs taken by Emile Zola while he was in exile during the Dreyfuss Affair.  It's really interesting, and I got the mad idea of wanting to recreate the photos as far as possible, in order to note the changes.  I don't know the area, I'm not particularly familiar with my camera, it's up a very steep hill from home, and I shall have very few weekends free - what could possibly go wrong?

Anyway, I unexpectedly got an opportunity to have a quick go as a test today, so I snapped the first photo in the book - of the Queen's Hotel on Church Road.  Not a bad place to start, since it's pretty prominent and still there.  Here's Zola's:



And here are mine.  I was somewhat hampered by the silver MPV being in the way, so getting the right position was hard, but I think it's a good proof of concept.

[Jurek]

There's a Butterfly in the first picture but not in any of the others.

[clarion]

Sadly, i didn't have an elegant lady cyclist available, but I stuck my bike in a rough position.  The final shot will almost certainly have the radiantly beautiful Butterfly in it

[clarion]

Here's a pic of Zola himself with a camera (not in the book).  Sadly, I have no way of knowing if that is the camera he had in London with him



And, just to prove that this isn't completely OT for our forum:









Hey - how did that last one get in there?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Nice idea. I have to say that so far I prefer Zola's photographs to yours - but mine would have been nowhere near as good. This first location also demonstrates how terribly much a building is affected by its neighbours.

[clarion]

I have literally only just realised that I should use my Zeiss Ikon Nettar for this project.  I will do the test shots with the G11, but the Nettar should capture the proper shots.  I'm torn between shooting in monochrome, and using slide film scans desaturated.