“Woman and Delicatessen” — A woman walks past the Marianne delicatessen, Paris.
This photograph comes from one of our long walks during our early-December visit to Paris. We have been to Paris before, but always in the summer. The winter (technically, very late fall) visit felt quite different. There are still tourists — like us! — but in far lower numbers. But the biggest difference is that instead of the usual pleasant to hot summer weather… it was cold and gray the whole time.
As with several of the other recent Paris photographs, this one falls into the “quick grab” category, in which I work very fast before an opportunity disappears. Here it was partly the woman walking toward my camera position — I managed to get two frames including her before she was gone. I’m also fascinated by a few other things, including the prevalence of the color red in this scene, along with the extensive plant life above the canvas overhang.
“Free ‘P’ Star” — Free ‘P’ Star, a Paris thrift store, with orange and black paint and lots of street art.
This was one of those street photography “grab shots” — I think it was in Le Marais —that I make while walking about in the urban environment. I often make them almost spontaneously — thinking in the moment that the subject is interesting visually, but then not taking time to note the precise location or other facts. To be honest, in a lot of ways this is the opposite of how I work in my landscape photography, and that may be part of the appeal.
From more recent internet research, it appears that “Free ‘P” Star” may be a chain of what we in the US call “thrift stores” or “second hand shops.” There were lots of things in this scene that attracted me: the string contrast between black an orange, the glow of the purple light inside the store, and the impressive collection of street art on the outside wall.
“Passing Cyclist, Le Marais” — A bicycle rider quickly passes at a cross street in Le Marais, Paris.
I often ponder the similarities and differences among the various genres of photography I pursue. (If you follow me you have seen everything from landscapes to night photography to street photography to travel and more.) The connection between landscape and street photography especially interests me, partly because many people think of them as being utterly different. I think that there are some similarities. For example, I often think about the street landscape first, and then wait and watch for someone to animate it.
That was the case here. I was interested in the wall at the end of this narrow street, and the way that its view is bounded by the darker walls on either side. I knew that I could photograph people as they passed by. One tricky part of this is that I had no idea who was about to enter the scene or from which direction. So I had to be ready to react quickly. (This necessarily results in some less than remarkable photographs, too. I won’t share those!) The time was even shorter as this woman sped past on her bicycle.
“Woman in Winter Coat” — A woman in a winter coat walking on a cold day in Paris.
We walk a lot in the places we visit while traveling. Sometimes our goals are nebulous, if we have specific goals at all. On this day in Paris we left our hotel near the Palais Garnier opera house on a very cold morning and headed in the general direction of the Notre Dame Cathedral, miles away. The church had reopened literally days earlier, and while we figured that our chances of getting in were essentially zero, we did want to go see it now that the main restoration work was complete.
While it was good to see that the place is “back in business,” the visit was more than a little disappointing – huge crowds and barricades kept us at some distance. We continued on our walk, crossing to the other side of the Seine and starting back toward where we began. Somewhere around here I made this photograph. I barely recall making it, but I am sure it was a quick “grab shot.” I can tell you little about the woman at this point, aside from the fact that she looks as cold as I felt.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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