Sunday at the Quarry

The Jardin Extraordinaire is a former granite quarry in the heart of Nantes, turned into a summer swimming hole. The cliff face still bears the marks of the extraction — raw stone, graffiti, the geography of abandonment reclaimed by something more patient than industry.

By afternoon it fills up the way a beach does, except the beach is rock. Families, towels, bags, the low hum of a public holiday. A couple sit with their backs to me on the grass. Somebody is stood up in the middle distance deciding about the water. I spent two days looking for the right photograph and this was it — not the drama of the cliff, but the ordinary miracle of a city that converted its own wound into somewhere to spend a Sunday.

Shot on Fomapan 100, which renders midday light with an honesty that flatters nothing and misses nothing.

Shot on Canon AE1 Program, Fomapan 100 ASA — Nantes, July 2026

Printed at 57,4 × 30 cm through WhiteWall in Berlin. Choose Ilford or Baryta paper, as a plain print or framed — what the finishes actually mean.

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