Our little village in France (Montréal, near Carcassonne, in the South West) has a history dating back over 1000 years to Cathar times, and has a pretty eclectic architectural heritage. The Collégiale, or main church, dates back to the late 13th century, although it is thought a primitive church existed here several hundred years before that. Much of the surrounding village was burned to the ground by the Black Prince in 1355, and the next 400 years saw the village repeatedly attacked as a consequence of the religious strife that dominated this part of France. As a result, many of the older houses in the village date back to the 17th and 18th centuries and these sit alongside houses that have been modernised since, often in a haphazard fashion. There are barely a handful of completely new houses in the main part of the village – all the new development has been carried out further afield.
The somewhat diverse architectural styles in the village are reflected in the doors – not just to the Collégiale and the grand houses in the village centre, but all the smaller houses too. Every time I walk around the village I marvel at the sheer variety of styles of door on show, so for a bit of fun decided to do a mini photo project, recording as many of the different doors as I could. Camera used was (as it often is these days) the Fujifilm X-T10, this time with the 18-55mm zoom. No special technique here – just walk up, select a nice view of the door/doorway – often from the side as the streets are too narrow in some cases to use even the 18mm front-on. Photos are all RAW images, imported into Lightroom with a little ‘punch’ added, and some judicious cropping and further adjustment where needed. Here are a few of my favourites from my mini-project.
Encouraged by attending a couple of excellent workshops and photo walks with 
Shooting at street markets in France is a case in point – French people, in my experience, are not at all keen on candid photos. Whether its a national sense of privacy, or because some of the traders at the markets are working ‘on the black’, I don’t know, but be prepared for some hostility if you are seen overtly photographing them!
I took this rig out this weekend to shoot the lively Saturday market in Revel in the 
I suppose it’s easy to assume that photography only really got going with the advent of ‘digital’ – the easy availability of photos taken on smartphones and tablets, and relatively cheap and easy-to-use point and shoot cameras has revolutionised photography for the ‘man-in-the-street’. What you see is very much what you get, and cloud photo-sharing sites make sharing photos so easy.
Box Brownie and folding cameras taking roll film, together with the advent of consumer oriented processing labs really reduced the cost of photography, and the widespread adoption of 35mm film (originally developed for the movie industry) and cheap Far-East produced cameras really opened up the opportunities for everyone to take their own photos.
Nigel Young 