Subtle

You haven't got anything to say but you just can't keep quiet, can you?

The other day, Vivian asked me if I preferred reading in french or in english and it did not take me long to reply I preferred to read in english as I like the flow, the rhythm, the shortness of a lot of words, the intrusion of latin and greek radicals among all the celtic and germanic words, the fact that a lot of english literature is still written in good english when  the french books I have read recently, but for translations, all had this familiar tone, this dumbing down of language that is easy on the brain but not something I look for in literature. Honestly, I hardly ever read in french anymore, which is interesting because when I moved to England in 1995, I could hardly speak english. So, I will read Das Kapital in english as I believe it must translate better from german than french would. I have not smoked for 3 weeks. I feel increasingly that taking photographs is possibly not the adequate language to express myself and that words would have me stop insinuating and just spit it out. The only problem is that looking in  the dictionary every 30 words takes up much more time than pressing on a button. I'm going to
shoot those 40 water testing plastic tubes that I've got and see from there.

Oh by the way, now is the time to look at the program of the always brilliant Les Rencontres d"Arles. Going to the Ambika P3 exhibition space for the Photographer's Gallery annual show of the Deutsche Börse photography prize, awarded this year to the most deserving Jim Goldberg, reminded me of being in the old SNCF depot in Arles. I love photography exhibitions in industrial spaces, may be the acoustic of warehouses provides a good background to immerse oneself in an imaginary world. Or is it the power of old stones and crumbling plaster echoing the power of past event and heartfelt instants of the images?

Go to Arles before Frank Gehry turns Les Ateliers SNCF in to another luxury compound.