Tag Archives: paris

Being totally presumptous …

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Last night I discovered that I had stood in almost the same places as Frank Hurley to take photographs at Petra, and was fascinated by how little the place had changed between our visits. If making a comparison between my images and Hurley’s was cheeky (and indeed it was!) then this is even more outrageous.

Interesting, though, to see that some things about Paris haven’t changed a great deal in 60 years: people still sit on the embankment of the River Seine, canal boats still moor by the Pont Neuf, and the skyline behind Ile de la Cite has gained only one tall building.

Although it’s possible to stand where the great man stood, and to point a camera at the same things he saw, it is totally impossible to replicate digitally the fabulous film grain and misty light in Cartier-Bresson’s image. And that, I think, is a very good thing.

 

Ile de la Cite, Paris, gelatin silver print by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1952

Ile de la Cite, Paris, digital image by me, 2011. (Black and white conversion and “film grain” added in Capture NX2 and Photoshop Elements.)

 

 

Framed: Paris and Petra

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Here are the two images that are “bookends” to my journeys this year.

Paris, in June: the Eiffel Tower as it came into view at the end of Rue de Monttessuy, the first photograph taken during my family holiday to Europe. And Petra, in October: my last glimpse of Al Khazneh, the Treasury, the final photograph from my study tour in the Middle East.

I’m struck by how different these landmarks are, and yet how similar the photographs. The Eiffel Tower, a modern monument built as the entrance for the World Fair of 1889, here framed by contemporary apartment buildings. And Al Khazneh, a king’s tomb carved from a sandstone cliff in the 1st century, framed by the 80m high walls of the Siq. Modern metal and ancient rock, both candidates for the new seven wonders of the world. I’m amazed that I have seen them both.

For some reason there’s a lot of food in my holiday snaps …

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Life’s not all about the food. Of course not. Masterchef lies.

That said, we did eat well while were away. We have some great memories of eating out together as a family and with our friends, and not as many extra kilos as might be expected. I guess we walked it all off each day!

Links: Laduree, Paris; Berthillon; Harrods; Summerhouse; Hope and Greenwood confectionery; George’s.

Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Paris (a closer look)

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As promised in an earlier post, here are a few more images gathered during a visit to this most beautiful cemetery.

It’s interesting that the word “cemetery” has been retained as the name of this place. The meaning of “cemetery” is “sleeping place”, or “dormitory” (from Greek koimeterion), which is not the same as “necropolis” (“city of the dead” from Greek necro and polis). “Cemetery” was used by the early Christian church to describe burial places, and conveys the notion that earthly death is but a “sleep” while awaiting resurrection. “Necropolis”, the word now used for Rookwood, seems to lack that hope.

Art, Paris

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Paris has so many art galleries and museums that it would take weeks to visit them all. During our short stay we were able to visit just four: the Musee d’Orsay, the Musee du Louvre, the Centre Pompidou and the Musee de l’Orangerie. We also enjoyed looking in the windows of private galleries in St-Germain, and browsing in the printmaker’s market in the square outside Saint Sulpice.

I’m still not sure what to make of the Musee du Louvre. The Louvre is a big, beautiful building and it holds some of the most famous, instantly recognised pieces of art in the world. But it’s also crowded and noisy, and there are very few places to sit and enjoy that famous art. In the Italian painters’ gallery, everyone seemed to be in a big hurry to join the crowd in front of La Joconde,  apparently barely interested in the other amazing works on the walls nearby. Now I’m not averse to taking home my own photograph of a beautiful art work if gallery rules permit, but the crush in front of da Vinci’s masterpiece and the jostling to get a picture of “and here’s me in front of the Mona Lisa” was just ridiculous. I did make it to the front of the crowd, more by accident than design, and was permitted a minute or two in front of the painting before a gallery attendant asked – no, told – me to move on. A bit disappointing. So I did take a photograph to enjoy at home. Perhaps that’s why everyone else was doing the same thing.

Despite the crowds and the noise, I did enjoy our visit to the Louvre. So too the Musee d’Orsay, though we visited while the van Gogh room was being renovated and some of his work was not on exhibit. It was quite something to see, in real life rather than books, the paintings and sculptures I had studied in high school Art class or read about in later years.

The Musee de l’Orangerie is a much smaller gallery holding French Impressionist works, including a set of large – and I mean large! – scale Waterlilies by Monet. These breathtaking paintings are hung in two purpose-built oval rooms lit by skylights, and there are seats in the centre of each room – hooray! Monet wanted to have his works hung in a place that would be a welcome haven from the bustle of the city. And it was.

The final Paris gallery we visited was the Centre Pompidou, a showcase for art from about 1900 to today. I could have quite happily spent all day on Level 5.

The French are fortunate to have so much of the world’s great art from across the centuries. I’m glad we were able to share it for a few days.

La Tour Eiffel, Paris

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La Tour Eiffel was the first, and also the last, Paris landmark I photographed. Our hotel was only two blocks away (we could see it from the bedroom window), so it was a great point of reference for us. We knew that if we could get back to the Tower, we could get home for the night! Most days we walked past it on the way to somewhere else, but we never did get used to the crowds of tourists waiting to ascend, or the sound of dozens of cheap key-rings jingling in the hands of hawkers. “Two for one Euro” – bargain! And we never stopped being amazed by the intricacy of the structure and the work that went into designing and building it.

We learned that there isn’t a “best” time to join the queue for the lift to the top. There are always queues, and they are always long. You just pick a day, and go. Ours was the final day of our stay in Paris, and the weather that morning was, well, awesome. No wind, so we went right to the top, and clear blue skies. As you can see!

At the end of that last day, with our bags packed and ready for the Eurostar to London the next morning, we decided to sit in the Parc du Champ de Mars after dinner, watching the sun go down and the Tower light up. A lovely way to remember Paris.

 

 

 

Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Paris

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Cimetière du Père-Lachaise is often described as the most beautiful cemetery in the world. That, and the fact that it contains the burial places of many famous artists and musicians, made us keen to spend some time there during our visit to Paris.

The cemetery is set on a hill, full of lush plants and trees, and crowded with graves and tombs. It is still possible to be buried there, but as there is so little space there is apparently no guarantee that you won’t at some time be dug up and cremated to make room for those who come after you. Unless, of course, you are fabulously rich or very very famous.

A sternly worded sign at the cemetery office informs tourist visitors that they’ll get no help here if they want to ask where Jim Morrison or Sarah Bernhardt are buried. There is, however, a map available and signs within the cemetery grounds. The paths and sections are mostly well marked, though you have to look hard for some of the famous graves. They do not all neatly line the pathways, as in this photo, but are crammed into whatever small space was available at the time.

At the end of this tree-lined path is the grave of the French Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro, and also the shared tomb of Heloise and Abelard. More photos of this beautiful cemetery and its famous graves posted soon.

Paris

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For the last three and a half weeks I have been enjoying a northern hemisphere summer, arriving home this morning to a rainy, windy, oh-so-cold winter day in Sydney. It’s exactly the wrong sort of weather for washing holiday laundry, and the right sort of weather for transferring hundreds of photos from memory cards to the computer.

This one above was taken on rue Saint Louis en l’Ile in the 4th arrondissement, just a little way from the best ice-cream maker in Paris, glacier Berthillon.

I’ll be posting more photos from our journeys through Paris, London, Derbyshire and Herefordshire (and a little bit of Wales) over the next few weeks.