Category: Paris XIV

Crutch (B&W)

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At last I can walk about town and I can take pictures too. Yet, on that beautiful Spring day (temperatures around 25 celcius in Paris today), my crutch was never very far away from me. March 9, 2014.

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Happy New Year from Paris, France (HDR)

I know I’ve done it already but there is no harm in sending you once more all my best wishes for the year to come with this night shot taken from the Cité Universitaire, a beautiful 1921-1935 Students’ housing programme designed by the French government with the help from benefactors from the States (Rockefeller) and the then newly-freed Alsace (Deutsch Delameurthe). I can’t tire from taking strolls in that beautiful park, a stone’s throw from where I live. So here’s to you again friends from all over the World, and thank you so much for stopping by this blog and making it worthwhile to work so hard on my pictures. See you soon in 2014!

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Michel Pigeon, sculptor, the mirror (“Le miroir”)

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A very elegant yet improbable position. Try mimicking that! Even with yoga training…
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Close up view. The bronze is beautifully crafted
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Seen from above, the lady and the mirror…

Hurray! My old new D600 has just arrived in order to replace my stolen camera. While loads of funny comments about oil and dust spot issues are issued on the Web, the D600 is now cheaper. Buying a second hand camera and lens kit made it even cheaper, even though cheaper doesn’t mean cheap. Yet, I decided to start from scratch and not think about this dreadful event and start working on my pictures again. Here are my first shots today with the new camera, a set of stills of a statue by Michel Pigeon, a local artist from Rue Hallé, a nearby street in the 14th arrondissement.

This is a small bronze piece and the shots were taken with the superb Nikon 105mm macro (micro) lens. Not a spot of oil or anything on the shots; note that nothing would ever show with very large aperture modes. Anyway, as Ken Rockwell rightfully points out on his excellent website, what matters is the lens, so if there is one thing you need to invest in, it’s a good lens or a super good lens like the 105mm I used in this series of shots.

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Doorknob reflection

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Reminiscent of Neil Young’s harvest and its amazing cover pic, a staple of all record collections owned by people from my generation, my reflection in a vintage doorknob near Denfert Rochereau. Shot with my ancient manual Nikkor O 35mm f:2 lens.

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OLD AND NEW BUILDINGS

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Here is a topic which is very much my leitmotiv these days, both in my paintings and photography (below)

This reminds me of Jacques Tati’s “Mon Oncle”, a 1960’s film in which the film maker was opposing, with much exaggeration, the de-humanized modern day Paris, squeaky clean and globalized, with the old fashioned City, dirty but idiosyncratic, welcoming and unmistakenly French.

But in this case, the old and the new are no longer opposed. One may regret it – and God knows I hear a lot of whinging about that around here – or alternatively, one may grow to like that modern day Paris too, admitting that both of of these can exist side by side and enjoy looking at what’s best in both of these worlds.

Old buildings reflected in a glass building in Port Royal

From artyStuff
The Cathedral in Reims (Eastern France), is reflected in the windows panes of the ultra modern multimedia public library
What I like best is the 2 bats that they stuck on the windows. Will you be able to spot them on the picture ?
From artyStuff
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