Monday 30 April 2012

Vestiges of Life


Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles
~ Vestiges of Life ~


Vestiges of Life, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.


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One of the privileges of living in Paris is that sometimes even the metro stations give your averagely upper-crust museum a run for its money...

The doors opened and the grunginess of this shot admirably reflects the controlled panic with which I extracted my phone from my pocket, fumbled to switch it on, wait the interminable seven seconds for the photo function to wake up and grab the shot before the doors slid shut again and my train moved off to another platform of dreams.

It's funny how sometimes results show us what we want. At first I was disappointed not to have got the who phrase, 'Vestiges of the Bastille' in my picture when I checked it out later. But in retrospect I preferred it.

The dictionary definition of 'vestiges' is 'a trace of something something that is disappearing or no longer exists'. This blurry word, hovering over the remains of a man, his head on a plastic bag, clothes clinging, a perverse spectacle every time a train rolls in and the doors open and close like some exaggerated slow-motion snapshot of a lost life... it now seems to fit the image better than ever.

My train moved on, as ever, but the vestiges still remain, in the form of this photograph, of something disappearing or no longer existing: this moment, this motion, this emotion, this man.


And why not...
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© 2012 
Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

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