A French Holiday with Lomography Film and the LomoApparat

Summertime is usually filled with adventure and travel. With many having plans to go abroad or do exciting activities, taking your analogue camera along to capture your journey is always a must!

With summer in South East Asia starting in March, my experience of summer might be earlier than most of you reading this. I recently took a vacation to France and Spain to visit my brother who was on a student exchange in Dijon, France. Meeting up with him in Paris would be my second time in the French capital but it would be a different experience as I would be seeing the streets as an adult for the first time. Bringing along my trusty Yashica T5, a few rolls of Lomography Color Negative 800, and the new street photography beast the LomoApparat, I was able to capture the experience fully on film. Here are some pictures and stories from the first leg of my European vacation in France.

Since this was my second time in Paris, prioritizing other tourist destinations was on the agenda as there really is too much to see in Paris. Montmarte was a memorable place to visit, perched on a tall hill in the middle of the city. Seeing the giant Sacré-Cœur basilica as the centerpiece overlooking the whole city was a breathtaking scene that will live in my memory for many years. Known for still having that small village charm in the heart of the city, Montmartre was home to many artists who would spend their afternoons sketching the quaint town and its many visitors. While I was there the journey upwards was tiring with the many steps but seeing the houses and side streets was always intriguing as I tried to imagine myself living in this historic area.

Traveling out of Paris, another tourist destination we went to was Lourdes, located in the Southern West part of France. As Catholics, making the trip to Lourdes was very important to my family. Visiting for a day we caught a mass in one of the smaller churches and explored the rest of The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes. I kept making jokes saying it felt like I was in Hogwarts due to how massive the complex was and how grand the architecture and murals of the different churches were. Praying in front of the place where Mother Mary appeared, it was a change of pace from the fast-paced vacation and it made me reflect on how the year had been so far and what was next to come.

On the other days in Paris, I mostly went around with my brothers and walked different areas, checking out restaurants, cafes, and stores. Le Marais was a great place to walk around because of the many fashionable people that are great to try and capture and all the cool stores like Brut Archives, Little Dover Street Market, Fred Perry, Arket, Uniqlo, Tom Greyhound, and Supreme that are cool places to check out. Going a bit further away, I also checked out Republique and Canal Saint-Martin since these are also areas that are frequented by a much younger crowd. My favorite thing to see was the use of public spaces which you don't get much in Manila. It was exciting to see skateboarders come together in the middle of Republique.

Besides these areas, I also took time to explore the left bank of Paris with the quieter areas like Sorbonne, and Saint-Germain. Comparing it to the right bank I found my time in this area of Paris more relaxing. I could take my time strolling the streets and getting immersed in the seemingly more "residential" part of the city.

My trip wouldn't be complete without checking out the nightlife in Paris as it has some of the best clubs and bars in the world. I was lucky enough to be in the city at the same time as one of my best friends so we were able to check out a few places. First would be Bambino which is a listening bar located near the Saint-Sébastien–Froissart metro station. This area is known to have many bars, and walking the streets I could see many people out for a drink. I really enjoyed this bar because music was the main focus and you could see there was proper care for having a good sound system and music. Another place we went to was Little Red Door which was voted fifth on a list of the world's best bars in 2022. It took around 30 minutes to get into the quaint but lively bar but the drinks they served were some of the most unique I tasted, with the highlight being a drink based around the citrus fruit.

Lastly, I was able to go to the legendary Paris Club, Djoon, which mainly caters to disco and house music. I was able to catch one of the best DJs in house, Terrence Parker. Compared to dancefloors in Manila, the party starts late as doors open at midnight and last until the wee hours of the morning. Parisians truly know how to party as everyone was moving non-stop to his selections ranging from underground dance classics to a mix of emotional disco and new wave favorites.

Looking back at these photos I realized most of these were more on the realm of street photography as compared to my usual nightlife photography. Compared to Manila, being in a place like Paris gave me much more of an opportunity to be shooting on the fly since it is a very walkable city with an easy commute. The LomoApparat and Yashica T5 were great cameras for the street since the LomoApparat could fit everything with its wide lens and the stealthy waist-level "Super Scope" finder of the T5 allowed me to get sneaky shots of the people without much fuss. My photos of these places are a really good mix of some of the more famous and touristy destinations as well as showing the mini adventures I took by myself discovering neighborhoods and places that I will hopefully come back to one day.

Despite the amount of activities I managed to cram into my time in Paris there were still so many things I wish I could've done. At the end of the day, it just means I have something to look forward to the next time I get the chance to be on that side of the world.

Nowadays, it is easy to capture everything through our phones and make sure we record every piece of our trip, but using these film cameras made each moment more memorable and made me more conservative and wary with the things I shot. With summer in full swing don't forget to keep your analogue cameras close by as you make new memories in 2023's summer sun.

With summer in full swing, share with us your holiday plans down below and message me @rocket_fries0036 if you want your summer holiday photos featured.

written by rocket_fries0036 on 2023-07-16 #gear #culture #places #music #street #tourism #summer #paris #france #lourdes #yashica-t5 #lomoapparat #lomocolor-800