Comme ci, Comme ça roughly translates into English as So-So. Which pretty much sums up this break to Paris. Not that I didn’t enjoy being with my family and nor is there anything wrong with Paris as such, it’s all still there: Tour Eiffel, Champs-Élysées, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, Notre Dame… a beautiful city, no doubt about that. However, as I get older my patience to queue and tolerance with thousands of tourists wanes ever so slightly.
It’s not always been like this, but tourism has reached new heights, everywhere is crowded no matter which city you visit. No destination is really that exotic or especially rare nowadays. If you announced that you’d been to Egypt thirty years ago, or just returned from Japan people would be wowed. Now you can climb Everest and regale them at diner parties with a story of how long you had to queue to reach the summit. I can remember my first visit to Paris, I just strolled up to the Eiffel Tower, pondered whether to go up or not, decided I would and just did it. Don’t remember there being any sort of queue, not one a mile long at least. Las Vegas is the same, it used to be a place for those that gamble, now it’s full of those who prefer to amble, there’s hoards of them, just looking, getting in the way.
I’ve mentioned before that once upon a time you could park your car next to Stonehenge, walk up to it, touch the stones, dance around naked if you wished. Now there’s a visitor centre, a mile away, where you queue to board a bus that takes you up to the stones which are of course roped off. Anyway, back to Paris.
If you’re really lucky, time it just right, you can find some space.
I’m assuming that most people reading this post will have visited Paris at some point and so I’m not going to bore you with tourist information here. I have to say though that there aren’t many in the UK who haven’t been. For us it takes just over an hour to reach London Heathrow Airport, park up and a short flight to Charles De Gaulle Airport has you landing just outside of Paris in around forty minutes. The train journey to the centre of Paris adds another 30 minutes. Nothing really, and you’d think we’d do it more often, but there’s a reason for that.
As my friend Kev, and for 25 years Las Vegas travel companion, points out “They let you pick your own pocket in Paris”. Not too long ago I was telling you about our Roman Holiday, where we paid under 3 Euros for two coffees in Rome. We stopped at a Cafe in a side street just off the Champs-Élysées, the children needed the toilet and so I decided to get us a Cappuccino and a Latte to take away. The price 17 Euros and it wasn’t made by a barista, a guy just pushed a button on a machine. I said “Wow!!” when the lady behind the till told me the price and here’s where that Parisian attitude comes into play '“You should look at the prices first before ordering, that’s the price” and held her hand out for the cash. Now, I know how much things cost, that opening picture of Sam sitting outside of a cafe with her purchase from Chanel tells a story. We had already stopped at the smartest place on the Champs-Élysées for pastries and coffee. 17 Euros for two coffees from a machine was a total and utter rip off. I can only hope that as Louis was in the toilet for some time that he’d left it in the same state as he does at home!
You may have noticed that the weather wasn’t with us on this trip. No beautiful light which I was hoping for. Instead we received three days of grey overcast skies and rain. My friend and French Street Photographer Jeff Chane-Mouye (I urge you to take a look at his work here) says that he prefers these conditions because they make it much harder to produce a good Street Photo. There’s no reliance of light and shadows, no temptation to click easily made and very simple photographs. Of course it’s easy for him to say, because it’s always sunny wherever he goes! I agree, however I wouldn’t have minded a little light. Because I don’t want to take shots on the Street that are isolated or with blurry backgrounds, I want to see it all in focus if possible. That’s what makes a Street shot interesting, the details. Shooting at f/8 or f/11 with a Leica in dull light isn’t fun. The ISO is pumped up to gain some shutter speed and as much as I like my camera it isn’t great at high ISO’s, they’re just about usable.
As much as I want to walk through the streets I’ve been told (repeatedly) that I must think of the children. We made great use of the Metro. I’m always a fan of public transport in cities and Sam found a brilliant app: ‘Paris Metro Map & Routes’. Takes all the guess work out of the equation. You no longer need to calculate where the nearest Station is to you or wherever it is your aiming for.
Nor do you have to work out which lines and changes are required, it also informs you of the direction of the train you’ll need. More importantly, in my opinion, there are no arguments when things go wrong, mostly because they don’t! We still managed to walk around 9 miles per day.
It’s interesting how many French terms are used in everyday English: Déjà vu, Savoir-faire, Faux pas, Carte blanche, Bon voyage, Joie de vivre, are all examples. One that is used very often is Cliché and I tried to avoid them, what is unavoidable is the Eiffel Tower. It dominates parts of Paris and so ends up in a lot of shots. This one was kind of posed:
Whilst this one was more candid:
I think I’ll stop writing now. Instead I’ll post a couple of grids, the individual images can be opened up to view if you wish. Firstly, here’s one of some family photos:
and a second one with some more quickly grabbed Street Photography:
Those French terms that we use in English I mentioned earlier have some significance.
Déjà vu: Well I’ve definitely been here before.
Savoir-faire: Not entirely sure I possessed that with the camera.
Faux pas: I thanked a waiter by saying “grazie” rather than “merci”.
Carte blanche: My wallet would be a prime example as I opened it in any Café.
Bon voyage: It was a good trip, now I’ve had time to look back.
Joie de vivre: I think we had that for the majority off the time.
So, with these in mind here’s another another couple for my final image: Avant-garde? Et voilà ! Okay, not quite ‘Art’. Taken as we left yet another Metro Station, not entirely as I intended, oh well, C'est la vie…
As always my sincere thanks go to anyone taking the time to read this blog.
All images can be opened by clicking on the thumbnails and are taken using a Leica M with Summicron 35mm Lens fitted.
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