Two people walk past the closed storefront of Boulanger Coquelicot at night, Paris
This will be a brief post today… I made this photograph last August on an evening in Montemartre when we went out to look for a place to grab dinner. We passed this bakery, a place that our son and daughter-in-law had told us they had visited when they were here a few months earlier, and I figured I should photograph it. The location was quite dark and I was shooting handheld, so the long exposure allowed the furtive, hurrying figures to blur a bit.
A blue-clad person walks along a Florence sidewalk
Late in August, we ended our lengthy travels — the last four weeks of which were in the UK and Europe — in Florence, Italy. We had met family in the Chianti region, where we all stayed together for a week, and since we would begin our homeward flight in Florence, we decided to at least spend a couple extra nights there before departing. I suppose the main thing I discovered during our brief Florence visit was that two nights (two half days and one full day) was not nearly enough time to explore this city!
Our first Italian city was Bologna, where I noticed the color palette of the buildings was different from what I’m used to — almost everything was some shade between a dark tan and brown, all earth tones. We soon figured out that this was typical in all of the areas of Italy we visited. You see those colors in this photograph, with slight variations plus a bit of blue-gray around one door frame. Coming from the high-tech world of the San Francisco Bay Area, I was also struck by the natural wear on buildings in Italy — many had cracks, areas “needing” paint, and might seem to lean a bit. I discovered that this isn’t really a sign of decay, just the nature of the many older structures that give the place its character. This photograph shows, for me at least, one other characteristic I found in Italy, namely the remarkable light. Here it is the stark midday light, but it is often softened by a kind of gentle atmospheric haze or by low clouds. I think I now understand much better the nature of the skies I’ve seen in paintings from this part of the world.
A couple walks past street lights in a Montmartre, Paris park
Since our lodgings in Paris on our recent visit were in the Montmartre district, we frequently were able to go out on foot and explore the area. On the day we arrived we set out to “wander,” not really knowing that much about the area. (I often like to not know too much about a new place, preferring to discover it in person.) We began to figure out the maze of streets — a task never fully accomplished! — and discover interesting things in the area. In fact, we accidentally came upon things that turn out to be big deals — like the Sacred Heart church in its hilltop location.
Because we were often busy visiting other areas in the daytime, we probably saw more of Montmartre in the evenings than during the daytime, especially when we went out to look for a place to eat after returning to our hotel. I made this photograph on one of the evening walks as we walked through a small square and encountered another couple out for an evening walk.
“Woman In Polka Dot Dress” — A woman in a polka dot dress walks past a bicyclist on a Florence street
At the very end of our recent trip we ended up in Florence, Italy for a few days. We had been in the Chianti region just a bit south, and we were scheduled to begin our return flight at the Florence airport, so we figured that we should investigate this famous city a bit. (By the way, about that Florence airport… perhaps a story for another time.) This was our first visit to Florence, and it is a remarkable city in many ways — its very long history, its maze of narrow, curving streets, the architecture and museums, and more. I would like to go back.
It is also a pretty popular tourist destination, which seems to be the trend with so many such places. It seemed like most of the tourists were perhaps Italian, but the city was also crowded with people from all over the world. The press of visitors, of course, cannot help but have an effect on the city, and there is (as in so many popular cities) an uneasy balance between the qualities of the city that draw people there and those very people who come to visit. It seemed to me at times that perhaps 90% of the people I saw were either visitors or locals there to take care of the visitors. But every so often I would catch a glimpse of someone who did not fit into that pattern — a woman in a scarf ducking down and alley, someone going to work, perhaps the fellow with the bicycle, and this woman walking down one of the town’s narrow streets.
Leave a comment or question using the form. (If you are reading this on the home page, click the article title to see the full article and the comment form.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
