{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1", "title": "Isabella", "description": "", "home_page_url": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella", "feed_url": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/feed.json", "user_comment": "", "author": { "name": "Isabelle Delamare" }, "items": [ { "id": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/the-bikes-that-stayed/", "url": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/the-bikes-that-stayed/", "title": "The Bikes That Stayed", "summary": "The bicycles have leaned on the same wall for years, the owner of the cafe told me, and nobody remembers who rode them there. Chipped paint, tangled locks and the first light on the street turn an ordinary corner into…", "content_html": "

The bicycles have leaned on the same wall for years, the owner of the cafe told me, and nobody remembers who rode them there. Chipped paint, tangled locks and the first light on the street turn an ordinary corner into a small portrait of the neighbourhood.

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I had no route that morning, only a roll of colour film and a coffee going cold. The light came along the wall at an angle that made the rust look freshly painted, which it was not. Two frames, then a delivery van parked in front and the picture was gone.

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Walking without a plan

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A plan is useful for a commission and useless for a morning like this one. You leave the house with the camera, you take the street you usually skip, and you let the light decide where to stop. Most of the time it decides on nothing. Once in a while it decides on six bicycles.

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The wall has a story of its own. It was a bakery until the eighties, then a print shop, then nothing for a decade; the sign was painted over three times and every layer shows through the last. The bikes arrived one by one, the way things arrive on a street where nobody is in charge.

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\"Shop\n
The same street, one corner on: the posters change every week, the shop never opens. Photograph by FRDM.
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Nothing happens in this photograph, and that is the point. The street is not performing. It is simply still there.

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What I kept

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From the roll I kept four frames: the wall in the first light, the wall with a woman passing (her shadow crosses the second bicycle), the shopfront around the corner, and the cat that has claimed the bench opposite, photographed by lying on the pavement, which drew a comment from the baker.

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I keep going back to these. A grand landscape tells you what to feel; a street corner leaves you to work it out. The bicycles are still there as I write this. So is the cat.

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\"Sunlit
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\"Sunlit
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", "image": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/media/posts/1/katsuma-tanaka-HqM70UrfhiQ-unsplash.jpg", "author": { "name": "Isabelle Delamare" }, "tags": [ "Street", "Documentary" ], "date_published": "2026-09-14T11:10:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-10-02T10:00:54+02:00" }, { "id": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/two-sets-of-footprints/", "url": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/two-sets-of-footprints/", "title": "Two Sets of Footprints", "summary": "The ceremony was at four, the tide was out at six, and the two of them walked the length of the beach while the guests found their tables. I followed at a distance with a long lens, which is where…", "content_html": "

The ceremony was at four, the tide was out at six, and the two of them walked the length of the beach while the guests found their tables. I followed at a distance with a long lens, which is where I like to be.

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\"Two\n
The next morning, before breakfast: they went straight into the water. Photograph by Nick Page.
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\"Person\n
The beach at seven, one guest awake before the couple. Photograph by Aarom Ore.
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The walk

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Nobody asked them to hold hands, and nobody asked them to look at each other. The frame is the two of them, the wet sand and the light going soft behind the dunes. I shot forty frames on that walk and the album holds three.

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A wedding on a beach is mostly wind. Veils go sideways, table plans go into the sea, the officiant shouts. What survives is the walk afterwards, when the wind drops with the light and the two people finally have nothing to do.

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The footprints are the only thing in the picture that will not be there tomorrow.

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\"Mediterranean\n
The village behind the dunes, where the guests were staying. Photograph by Peter Thomas.
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Two cameras, one lens each

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For weddings I carry two bodies and no bag: a 35 on one, an 85 on the other. The 35 does the room, the 85 does the distance, and swapping lenses in sand is how you end a camera. On the beach I used the 85 all evening and never got closer than the towels.

", "image": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/media/posts/2/vitor-monthay-DYoHBj8ZFOk-unsplash-1920.webp", "author": { "name": "Léa Marchetti" }, "tags": [ "Wedding", "Travel" ], "date_published": "2026-09-12T19:00:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-25T18:33:28+02:00" }, { "id": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/a-street-that-stays-quiet/", "url": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/a-street-that-stays-quiet/", "title": "A Street That Stays Quiet", "summary": "Layered posters, a shopfront and a narrow street holding onto the stillness of a Sunday morning. I went back over three seasons to see what changes on a street where nothing seems to; the answer is the paper, which is…", "content_html": "

Layered posters, a shopfront and a narrow street holding onto the stillness of a Sunday morning. I went back over three seasons to see what changes on a street where nothing seems to; the answer is the paper, which is never the same twice.

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\"Row\n
Winter: the bicycles arrive before the posters do. Photograph by Nick Page.
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\"Old\n
From the roof at the end of the street, the city the posters advertise. Photograph by Heba Alwahsh.
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Three visits

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Winter gave the bare glass, spring the first layer of concert bills, and the last visit in August the paste-ups that finally covered the whole window. Nothing dramatic happens, but the repetition of paper, glass and paint slowly reveals the character of the street.

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I photograph it from the same spot each time, a manhole cover I can find with my feet, at the same hour. The discipline is the point: when the frame does not move, everything that moves becomes visible.

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A street does not change. The paper on it does, and the paper is the diary.

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\"City\n
The same street after dark, when the towers at the end of it switch on. Photograph by Optical Chemist.
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What the window says

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Read the posters from the bottom up and you get the year: a festival in March, a lost cat in April, three concerts in June, an election nobody on the street voted in. The shop behind them has been closed since the first visit and nobody has taken the sign down. That is the story; the photographs only keep it.

", "image": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/media/posts/3/frdm-TsRCUor4Nb8-unsplash-1920.webp", "author": { "name": "Isabelle Delamare" }, "tags": [ "Street", "Documentary" ], "date_published": "2026-09-10T12:15:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-25T18:33:36+02:00" }, { "id": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/cold-morning-clear-run/", "url": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/cold-morning-clear-run/", "title": "Cold Morning, Clear Run", "summary": "A spare study of a forest road, low sun and the focus that arrives before the first kilometre. The empty tarmac, the restrained palette and the long shadows reduce the morning to weather, movement and a single clear line. The…", "content_html": "

A spare study of a forest road, low sun and the focus that arrives before the first kilometre. The empty tarmac, the restrained palette and the long shadows reduce the morning to weather, movement and a single clear line.

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Almost nothing

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The brief was a running campaign without a runner in the frame. The road does the work: it goes somewhere, and the light tells you it is early. We shot it over two mornings, the first foggy, the second clear, and used the clear one; the foggy frames went into the second half of the story.

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The art director wanted breath in the picture. You cannot photograph breath at six degrees without a person, so we photographed the things that stand in for it: mist on the lake at the end of the road, birds leaving, the moon still up.

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\"Silhouette\n
The lake at the end of the road, the first morning. Photograph by Collins Illich.
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\"Four\n
Four birds leaving, the second. Photograph by Stephanie Gibeault.
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A campaign about running with nobody running in it. The client took a week to agree and a day to love it.

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\"Crescent\n
The moon at the top of the frame, still up at seven. Photograph by Xavier McLaren.
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The kit

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One body, a 50 and a 135, a tripod I did not use, and gloves I should have brought. The road was shot at f/8 for the shadows to stay sharp all the way to the bend; the birds at 1/2000, handheld, from the car park, because they did not wait.

", "image": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/media/posts/4/anthony-e1cK-3oHwuw-unsplash-1920.webp", "author": { "name": "Isabelle Delamare" }, "tags": [ "Nature", "Editorial" ], "date_published": "2026-09-08T10:00:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-25T18:34:17+02:00" }, { "id": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/the-iris/", "url": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/the-iris/", "title": "The Iris", "summary": "A beauty session that ended up being about one square centimetre. We had a wall of light, a stylist and a list of looks; the frame that made the campaign is the iris, the lashes and nothing else. A macro…", "content_html": "

A beauty session that ended up being about one square centimetre. We had a wall of light, a stylist and a list of looks; the frame that made the campaign is the iris, the lashes and nothing else.

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\"Woman\n
The first look, in daylight. Photograph by Jamar Crable.
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\"Black\n
The second, on film. Photograph by Marylou Fortier.
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Close

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A macro lens, a tripod and a model who could hold still for a slow shutter. Retouching was dust and one stray lash; the colour is hers. At this distance every blink is an earthquake, so we worked in bursts of ten seconds and rested in between.

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The stylist had prepared six looks. We shot two of them properly and spent the rest of the day on the eye, because once you have seen the frame on the back of the camera there is no point pretending the list matters.

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The brief asked for a face. The picture is a centimetre of it, and the client never asked where the rest went.

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\"Thin\n
The studio between takes: incense, the only thing moving. Photograph by Abhishek Ajith.
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Why it works

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Skin at this magnification is a landscape; the eye is a lake in it. The blue is the product, the lashes are the frame, and the reflection of the window in the pupil is the one thing I did not plan and would not remove.

", "image": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/media/posts/5/tommaso-scalera-1MtMUEotQro-unsplash-1920.webp", "author": { "name": "Isabelle Delamare" }, "tags": [ "Portrait", "Beauty" ], "date_published": "2026-09-06T15:15:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-25T18:34:26+02:00" }, { "id": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/saturday-in-slow-motion/", "url": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/saturday-in-slow-motion/", "title": "Saturday in Slow Motion", "summary": "We planned an hour and stayed until the light moved off the bay windows. The armchair belongs to her grandfather and has not been moved since the seventies, which is the only reason the room still looks like this. The…", "content_html": "

We planned an hour and stayed until the light moved off the bay windows. The armchair belongs to her grandfather and has not been moved since the seventies, which is the only reason the room still looks like this.

The brief was a family portrait. What we made is a portrait of a room with a family in it, which turned out to be what they wanted and could not describe.

Letting the room set the pace

The family drifted in and out; I photographed whoever sat down. The grandfather read; the sisters argued about a video on a phone and then laughed at it; the dog changed chairs four times. I shot two rolls and kept eleven frames, most of them from the last twenty minutes when the sun had gone soft and everyone had stopped noticing the camera.

\"Two
The sisters and the phone. I never asked what was on it. Photograph by SanDisk.

A room that has not changed in fifty years photographs like a person: it has a posture, and it has patience.

The objects

Every surface in that room is a shelf. Books nobody has opened since the last move, a camera that still works, a bowl of keys to doors that no longer exist. I photographed the objects the way I photographed the people, at the same distance, in the same light, so that the album does not decide which matters more.

It is the slowest session I have shot this year and the one I think about most. Nothing was directed. The room did it.

\"Close-up
The book on the arm of the chair, left where it was. Photograph by Arun Prakash.
\"Camera
The grandfather's camera, which he insists I try. I did. Photograph by Markus Spiske.
", "image": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/media/posts/6/clay-banks-vUN8Hl7AarY-unsplash-1920.webp", "author": { "name": "Isabelle Delamare" }, "tags": [ "Portrait", "Family", "Documentary" ], "date_published": "2026-09-04T13:00:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-04T13:00:00+02:00" }, { "id": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/afternoon-shift/", "url": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/afternoon-shift/", "title": "Afternoon Shift", "summary": "One slatted bench, a sleeping cat and a small street scene that needed no direction at all. The afternoon light moved slowly along the wall while I waited for the stretches and glances that made the corner feel lived in.", "content_html": "

One slatted bench, a sleeping cat and a small street scene that needed no direction at all. The afternoon light moved slowly along the wall while I waited for the stretches and glances that made the corner feel lived in.

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\"Cotton-top\n
The other regulars of the afternoon shift. Photograph by Sergio Mena Ferreira.
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\"Macro\n
Closer than anyone asked for. Photograph by Veera Batlu.
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On the bench

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Street sessions are easier with a cat in them. Everyone who walks past has somewhere to look, and so does the camera. I sat on the kerb opposite for an hour with a 90 mm and let the cat run the session; it opened one eye at the fishmonger, both at the dog, and neither at me.

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By four the sun had reached the bench and the cat had turned over to follow it. That is the frame: the stripes of the bench, the stripes of the cat and the stripe of light across both.

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The best sitter I have had all year charged nothing and left without saying goodbye.

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\"Blue\n
The bird in the tree above the bench, which the cat pretended not to see. Photograph by David Waite.
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The neighbourhood

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The bench is outside a bar that opens at six. The cat belongs to nobody and eats at three houses. The fishmonger keeps a saucer under his counter and denies it. I have photographed this corner a dozen times and it has never been empty, which is the definition of a good corner.

", "image": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/media/posts/7/robin-de-kesel-akcScYWR7ts-unsplash-1920.webp", "author": { "name": "Isabelle Delamare" }, "tags": [ "Street", "Animals" ], "date_published": "2026-09-02T18:10:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-25T18:34:38+02:00" }, { "id": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/skin-and-silk/", "url": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/skin-and-silk/", "title": "Skin and Silk", "summary": "A beauty session shot soft and slow with one large window and white linen. No strobes, no retouching beyond dust; the make-up artist and the daylight did the rest. Beauty work rewards patience more than equipment. We spent the first…", "content_html": "

A beauty session shot soft and slow with one large window and white linen. No strobes, no retouching beyond dust; the make-up artist and the daylight did the rest.

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\"Close-up\n
The detail the brand ran on the cover. Photograph by Tommaso Scalera.
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\"Black\n
The same afternoon, on film, with the shutters half closed. Photograph by Marylou Fortier.
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Slow

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Beauty work rewards patience more than equipment. We spent the first hour on nothing but where the light fell on the pillow, moving the bed twenty centimetres at a time until the shadow under the cheekbone was the shadow we wanted.

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The model read between frames. I photographed her reading and those frames are in the edit too, because a face at rest is the reference for everything that follows.

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One window, one bed, one afternoon. The budget for lighting went on lunch.

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\"Thin\n
The room at the end of the day, when the incense was the only thing still working. Photograph by Abhishek Ajith.
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The edit

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Forty-two frames delivered, six retouched, none of them for skin. The client asked what software makes daylight look like that. The answer is a north-facing window and a wall painted the colour of the sheets.

", "image": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/media/posts/8/jamar-crable-Q1gg3WwZiKo-unsplash-1920.webp", "author": { "name": "Isabelle Delamare" }, "tags": [ "Portrait", "Beauty" ], "date_published": "2026-08-31T15:15:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-25T18:35:00+02:00" }, { "id": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/off-the-ground/", "url": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/off-the-ground/", "title": "Off the Ground", "summary": "One dancer, one teal wall and a camera kept level with the floor for an afternoon of jumps. The photographs follow the rhythm between attempts, catching the coiled pause, the kick and the landing that never looks the same twice.", "content_html": "

One dancer, one teal wall and a camera kept level with the floor for an afternoon of jumps. The photographs follow the rhythm between attempts, catching the coiled pause, the kick and the landing that never looks the same twice.

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Between the jumps

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He did not want the landing photographed. He wanted the moment before it, the one where the outcome is still open. So that is what I shot, on my knees, with the lens at ankle height, for three hours, until the wall had gone from teal to grey and the light had gone with it.

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A jump lasts half a second. A photograph of one lasts as long as you look at it. Between the two is the part nobody sees: the breath, the count, the small step back that every jump begins with.

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\"Black\n
The same brief, a different body: the acrobat, a week later. Photograph by Mateus Duraes dos Santos.
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\"Small\n
And the amateurs, on the coast that summer. Photograph by Jason Zeis.
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I shot the wall for an hour before he arrived. You learn a wall the way you learn a face.

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\"Crowd\n
The crowd at the show, the night after the session. Photograph by Haotian Zheng.
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The frame

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The edit is nine frames, all from the last half hour. The teal is the wall, the shadow is his, the dust in the air is from the floor and I would not have removed it for money. The magazine ran it across two pages with no text, which is the highest compliment a magazine can pay.

", "image": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/media/posts/9/isaac-macdonald-5azWmpmf2WA-unsplash-1920.webp", "author": { "name": "Isabelle Delamare" }, "tags": [ "Street", "Portrait", "Editorial", "Documentary" ], "date_published": "2026-08-29T17:00:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-25T18:34:48+02:00" }, { "id": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/grain-and-grey/", "url": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/grain-and-grey/", "title": "Grain and Grey", "summary": "A studio sitting on film, one roll, twelve frames. Hard light from a single window, a borrowed camera in her hands and the discipline of not moving for a slow shutter. Medium format makes you count. Every frame is a…", "content_html": "

A studio sitting on film, one roll, twelve frames. Hard light from a single window, a borrowed camera in her hands and the discipline of not moving for a slow shutter.

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\"Archive\n
A print from the market that started the series: a band, 1911, everyone still. Photograph by Museums Victoria.
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\"Silhouette\n
The lake, the fisherman, the same rule: one figure, one light. Photograph by Collins Illich.
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Twelve frames

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Medium format makes you count. Every frame is a decision, and the decisions show. The grain is the film, not a filter; the grey is the wall of the studio, which is white in colour and grey in every photograph I have ever made there.

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She closed her eyes on the seventh frame because the light was in them. I kept it. The eyes open are a portrait of her; the eyes closed are a portrait of the light.

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Colour tells you what things are. Black and white tells you what they weigh.

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\"Black\n
From the same month, the same film: the acrobat, upside down, in the same grey. Photograph by Mateus Duraes dos Santos.
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The print

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Printed on fibre paper at 30 by 30, with the border of the negative left in. The camera was her grandfather's; the print now hangs in the room where he kept it.

", "image": "https://demo.getpublii.eu/themes/isabella/media/posts/10/marylou-fortier-S_aTuH96xw-unsplash-1920.webp", "author": { "name": "Isabelle Delamare" }, "tags": [ "Portrait", "Black and White" ], "date_published": "2026-08-27T16:45:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-30T15:15:04+02:00" } ] }