Freelance Photography : Bertrand Celce

Anonymous Shrines

Anonymous shrine near Wawa, western Ontario

Travellers driving on the Trans-Canadian Highway may have noticed these anonymous shrines placed on the rocky formations on the side of the road, and consisting of several stones piled together.
I think I began to notice these tiny constructions in the mountainous part of British Columbia and Alberta, but only stopped to check them in Western Ontario.
Someone climbed here and disposed the stones as a sentry in the wind and the rain...

View from above

This is worth to stop and make a short meditation along the nearly empty highway. The beauty of these clusters of stones, standing in the silence of the uninhabited vastness of forests and tiny lakes of western Ontario, help you appreciate the mystery of the place. Who did that ? For what purpose ?

A small arch-type shrine near Bonfield, Ontario

I see these stones as a tribute to Nature. Someone spent time here, left his mark anonymously as a reminder of his day and meditation, and for years thereafter, the sharp-edged stones will stand through the seasons untouched....

Faces of America

Marshal - Humboldt Redwoods S.P., California

We were walking on a trail at the Avenue of Giants in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park (California), when we met Marshal. He was enjoying his lone walk and had picked up a 4-leaf clover for good luck. We chatted a couple of minutes, he was from Florida and the last time he came here was 15 years ago...

Linda - Marbleton, Wyoming

When we arrived in Marbleton, Wyoming, we immediately felt something was going on in this tiny community along highway 189. Everyone seemed busy fixing a newly opened business and it looked like a gold-rush mushroom town. Take notice, investors : highway 189 is being widened south of Marbleton for the increasing influx of traffic from Utah and California. Linda served us great hamburgers in Marbleton WY. She works at The Food Factory Drive In. Go eat there if you drive through !

Steve - Wells, Nevada

Steve Wright is the man behind the shiny new Angel Lake RV Park in Wells, Nevada. We camped under the tent among 5th-wheellers and trailers and he was eager to help with anything he could (even gave us access to his computer). Steve wright is a former rancher, he had 1800 cattle before he retired and started this new business. He and his wife came in the evening to say good night.

Rebecca & Jessica - Stinson Beach, California

Stinson Beach is a small-community beach north of San Francisco. Real family-friendly place with nice people just a few miles north of the Golden Gate bridge and Sausalito, on winding highway 1. We walked across Rebecca and Jessica along the shore. I could'nt miss this picture...

Western Light

This post is a tribute to the light and magic of the West...

This picture was shot on highway 28 east, south of Dubois, Wyoming. We are driving along Wind river, leaving the plains of Fremont county to the Teton mountains. We went through a big temperature-drop that day : from 39° C (in the plains of Nebraska) to 0°c (Union pass, Wyoming) in 24 hours (6pm to 6pm). The Wind river is getting smaller and the ranches and cattle are followed by thick fir forests.

Leaving Seattle on the Bremerton Ferry. Seagulls take advantage of the air currents and glide along the boat, looking on the way at this strange passenger with his third bulky eye...

The rainiest night of the trip. This is British Columbia and it pours every day. The Maple Leaf Motel near Oliver, B.C. will be our home tonight. Like often in British Columbia, the fog covers beautifully the upper half of the mountains.

As we pulled into a gas station for a refill in Utah, I stretched out my legs to the back of the place and saw this gem: a rusted tank with "no parking" on it, and the desert landscape in the back. This was somewhere near Delle, Utah (on the south side). This is a region with vast expanses of desert with military zones where service areas are not always on the map.

Random Pictures for 2006

Off-coast ship near Rouen, Normandy

Here are a few pictures shot in 2005 as a sort of well-wishing for this new year. These random pictures are some of the ones I like and which have'nt been posted yet.
This one illustrates our boat heading into the uncharted waters ahead, with both dark and luminous elements around. This will be another rough-sea year, but that's what makes great journeys...

This is about a different sort of journey, through the Paris underground world. This view on the stairs to the subway was shot in the very early hours of a summer day, at Opera station. The Metro has just opened and this is a rare glimpse on an empty mouth ("bouche de metro") that usually swallows thousands of commuters every day into its smelly otherworld.
This one looks like the votive pictures sold near pilgrimage places or in catholic paraphernalia shops. But this is just a picture I shot in northern Burgundy as B. and I were cycling along a canal. No post-processing here, and the colours, the clouds and their timing, everything waited for us to pass by. Two minutes later, the magic was gone...

Paris Artists' Ateliers

In "la Miroiterie", a collective artist studio in Menilmontant

There is something you should not miss if you are interested in Art and stay in Paris at this time of the year . Every year at the end of summer, a group of artists working in the Menilmontant neighbourhood organizes three days of "portes ouvertes" (open doors) with visitors welcomed in the ateliers, to see the works , the places , and chat with the artists . The event is very well planned, with massive printing of a detailed map of the neighbourhood with exact locations of the studios . The event takes place in the vicinity of Menilmontant street , in the 20th arrondissenent, a district wich still retains today its popular parisian touch and was immortalized through famous photographers works like the ones by Willy Ronis . Even today, when you walk across this part of Paris , you can often feel the ghosts of this bygone era, wich most of us know only through the photographs .

Frederick Holmes, who is from New YorkThe first artist I spoke to was Frederick Holmes . It was at "la Miroiterie" a defunct mirror factory transformed into a collection of ateliers . I was taking pictures and we talked together , that's when I asked where he was from . He was leaving soon for a few days in N.Y. before coming back here .

I love these "portes ouvertes" because you can not only speak with artists, but also visualize living and working spaces in the back alleys of this old Paris neighbourhood that you can't even imagine when you walk in the street . And it is quite refreshing to look at the decors and the details in the different studios ( the view on the right was taken in another studio a few blocks away ).
A pochoir work at la Miroiterie, by artiste-ouvrier, is bach , and 6lexThis pochoir work was also at la miroiterie , but the artists who made it were not present . The three authors, known under their artist names, are is bach , 6lex and artiste ouvrier. They created here a composition made of individual pochoirs crafted into a multifaceted mosaic .
By the way , this area in Paris is where you can see very interesting pochoirs and murals . Here is a link to some of them .
Pic , in front of his recent workPic was a few years ago into an ultra-realism phase, with paintings inspired by french and hollywoodian movies . He nows paints figurative works at the limit of abstraction, where movies and photography still play an important role .

Back from Budapest

View on the city

Back from Budapest , where I stayed a few days for a job . I also visited several places across Hungary . I had not been in the country since a few years , and on my first two visits I had not really stayed in Budapest . Time to correct that : The city has great architecture and provide the most welcome respite from living in Paris . Its pace is more gentle , less stressed . I stayed in a place near the National Museum , at walking distance from main sites of interest.

The first day, I bought a transportation pass : The best way to enjoy freely the city with its subway, tram , bus and trolleybus system . The weather in september was quite warm and people in Budapest were relaxed , and there was this vacation feeling in the mood . If you stay a while in Budapest , you will regularly walk on its bridges , because this is where the Buda- and -Pest parts of the city meet and breath. The Danube seems much wider than the Seine in Paris , and the strollers appreciate the breeze and the view from the bridges . There are a lot of cyclists and rollerbladers around , be careful when walking on the sidewalks....

World war II german soldiers with designer glasses ? That is not rare in Budapest . These two guys wait their turn, as a scene of a movie about the french Resistance is being shot in a street . See the real bullets impacts on the house behind : 1945, or 1956 ? Another day , I saw the preparation of two double-decker London buses for a scene of Spielberg's movie about the Munich Olympics . The city has such a great architectural diversity that it can accomodate any setting needs . You need Vienna in the 1900's , Berlin in the 40's or London in the 70's , Budapest will do the job .

Szoborpark : The many statues of the socialist era have been taken away from their initial location when the socialist regime collapsed, and gathered in the "Statue Park", in an ordinary suburb at a distance from the city center . To reach it , I took tram N° 6 southward from Jozsefaros to Moricz Zsigmond Korter, then bus #3 to Campona, and then bus # 50 to Szoborpark , such a long way to reach the purgatory of yesterday's heroes . Nice range of Lenins , proletarian figures , liberating soldiers shaking hands with workers, and the compulsory spanish war heroes....

Eiffel Wonder Just For Us

People like us living in Paris usually never visit the Eiffel tower . I am in the lot, too many people there . Maybe on a winter weekday I would try to climb the old lady . But this was not the only work of Gustave Eiffel , who was a prolific engineer/builder . And happilly, while in the Bordeaux region, we found by luck another Eiffel wonder .Driving back to Bordeaux after a day trip in the Cotes de Bourg area, east of the Gironde river and north of the Dordogne river, , we had a brief glimpse of the bridge on the right , shortly before crossing the Dordogne ( on this very bridge ) . We took a side road and quickly found ourselves along the river with the bridge a few hundreds meters away on the left . And nobody around... As I got closer, walking along the bank, the majesty of the contruction was even more striking .I walked there alone first , B. staying in the car . Great view on the bridge , wich was built in 1883 ( The Eiffel tower was built in 1887-1889 ) and used very imaginative techniques to progress through the river . The 7 metallic twin piers have such a great design , they have a sort of science fiction flavor . Two of the piers ( N° 6 & 7 ) were damaged during WW2 and were rebuilt in 1944-47 . The metal bridge was also restored and paint-coated a few years ago .The bridge shows barely his age . This pic shows where the metal part of the bridge meets the stone part , a sort of viaduct designed to keep the road at a comfortable distance from possible high waters, and also for the smooth transition of the road traffic coming from the hills on this side of the river . The alliance of stone and metal is close to our modern steel and concrete combinations .

Music in the Streets

This was june 21st, and the ritual "fête de la musique" all over the country ( and most of Europe ) . Warm day . Is this going to be a hot summer again ? The streets are crowded , not a day to drive around , even to ride around . I went alone, B. being busy, and headed for Montmartre , parked the motorbike Place d'Anvers , near Avenue Trudaine, between 9 and 10 pm . Not only because of the crowds , but mayor Delanoe is building little Berlin walls on major streets of the town , and traffic is now erratic on Bd Rochechouart .Whatever , here I am, on foot and taking this, or that street to try my luck.... Here, as for the first pic , we are in front of " Chez Camille" , a nice little café on rue Ravignan, a steepy street of Montmartre . This café is a nice place to stop on an ordinary day , and today it was also a very nice spot to enjoy the music and the good vibrations . It has a rickety tiny little wooden terrace where you can sit and observe the life down on the street... Tonight , there is goood music here , and the atmosphère is....cool . I heard the street in front of the café was full from 7 pm to 3 am that night . Can understand that . But I moved, and wandered around . This is at a little higher altitude , on rue Maurice Utrillo , not a street, actually , but stairs , in the typical montmartre style . The DJ here has some success, and watching people dance with the Sacré Coeur in the background is pleasant, I thought I might have a nice shot . Just before , I had paused a while sitting on the stairs in front of the Sacré Coeur, looking at the lights of Paris with the moon clearly visible on the left, hovering above the roofs . The place was probably hot in the afternoon , but, if not cool now, was beginning to be bearable .

Poland 1981

Looking at the emotion at the passing of Pope John Paul II, I would have liked to witness this moment in Poland, a country where the love for the pope was genuine and deeply rooted . I witnessed it from close when I cycled through Poland in the agitated summer of 1981 . I cycled all across the country, through villages and towns, camping most of the time . The country was in the middle of a struggle between Solidarnosc backed strikers, and the regime . Picture at left shows the Christ with his hand on his face, a common representation in Poland .

Warsaw had these big demonstrations by Solidarnosc to support the general strike . Lines of miliciamen were disposed where the crowd had gathered . Looks impressive, with the "milicja" trucks, but the mood was mostly quiet and peaceful on both sides . I shot quite a few pictures of the events . There was a feeling of excitement for something unusual going on here .

Warsaw was on "Strajk", on strike, and quite everything was on a standstill . The stunned population was looking at the Solidarnosc demonstrators, silently, concentrated, and visibly interested . They were sometimes in long discussions with the union members . There were visibly all kind of people in this crowd, intellectuals, workers, retirees, housewives . The unthinkable was happening right here in Warsaw , in front of them . What did they think would happen next ?

Valentine's Day

Will the sun heat us out of the freeze?We had never been to Brugge , and what better time to correct the omission than Valentine's day ... Actually , a cold winter day may be the best time to beat the streets of this beautiful town , as I heard it is overcrowded with visitors in the high season . Braving the cold wind , we walked along its narrow streets, wide squares and windy canals, enjoying changing lights as the sun and clouds alternated, with rare locals and a few foreigners around .Jan Van Eyckplein (square), that is something...This is what we saw after turning round a corner : A canal finishing dead end at the back of a statue. The city is sometimes called the Venice of the north . Wrong . This is the Strasbourg of the north . I see some similarities with my favorite french city . Same circular canal around the city center . Looking at the locals here on their bicycles, winding along the canals on the cobblestones streets, and remembering this experience when I cycled across the scenic urban landscape of Strasbourg , on little bridges on the Ill river, through rue des juifs and past the cathedral to the Petite France and its canals .*****

Winter colours . Reflections . The green tones on the left may be at St Salvatorskoorst , but I'm not sure .
The golden knight on the right is one of the striking statues outside of Heilige Bloedbasiliek ( Holy Blood basilica ) , on Burg .