Marine Bleue, Marée Noire

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Marine Bleue, Marée Noire ~

Bleu Marine, Marée Noire, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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This the start of a new and occasional series which I'm probably going to call 'Crap Paris' over on Paris If You Please, and which is intended as the ultimate antidote to all those cutesy chocolate box pictures we're all so fond of, right?

Of course, one of these days I'll have to roll out a 'Sab's Chocolate Box Classics' series to prove I can actually take pictures of Paris vaguely resembling 'nice', but until that day comes, moons generally being white (or very occasionally red), and all that, this is roughly where I'm at.

The series isn't intended for Paris & I, as I'll be using any camera I have to eye, but maybe some other members will crop up here from time to time.

One of my biggest dilemmas is whether or not to manipulate the shots in any way. My initial feeling was 'no, just get away from all that'. Then I realised just how drab so many of these shots are and would be without a little help from our post-processing friends, so in the end I'll probably just carry on doing what I've been doing up until now. Some people love it, other hate, and I wouldn't want it any other way, and I'm sure you appreciate that people, as I appreciate your making it this far!

My other dilemma will be whether to include a dose of prose with each image or just leave as is for people to absorb and draw their own conclusions. You know I can blabber with the best of them, so the latter might be tricky, and yet for once I'd kinda like the image to do the talking. We'll see.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Lean, Green, Headbanging Machine

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Lean, Green, Headbanging Machine ~

Lean, Green, Headbanging Machine, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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The little guy was actually bright red, but it didn't come out in the even brighter sunshine. Whatever, you could be forgiven for thinking he was telling you in no uncertain terms: "Whatever you do, don't risk your bones in this place!" And judging by the wacky angle of the door to the door frame to the wall I'd be inclined to agree with him... it gives a whole new perspective on why so many people wear presumably protective skullcaps in these parts.

This sort of structure is not uncommon in the Marais, where sometimes it looks like the whole place is creaking and about to crumble around you if you utter your shalom aleichems or your fabulous dahlings too enthusiastically.

It's not just relative hovels which have structural issues either. A wimsical wander through the Hôtel de Sully will reveal a couple of seriously seasick arches and door frames a long way from any oceanic disturbance.

Then again, there used to be a huge (sculpture of a) mole emerging from one of the neighbouring lawns transformed into a gigantic molehill, so maybe that has something to do with this creeping subsidence. Look, don't ask me, I just report what my eyes see, that's all!

Paris isn't the only place with this problem though. I was in London this weekend, and they say that in a few years we'll have a new tourist attraction which will no doubt be labelled 'The Leaning Tower of Ben', or some such. Just don't stand downlean of it - that's one headache you definitely don't need.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

_________________________________________________________________________________
© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Fancy A Flutter?

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Fancy A Flutter? ~

Fancy A Flutter?, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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If you're thinking of having heart flutters, some places in Paris are more propitious than others. The top of the Arc de Triomphe is one such. Gare du Nord is another. And a panicky international train station with worker ants and holidaying hornets swarming all over the place is probably a jolly good place to have one.

A defibrillator, that is. It's dead easy; you just open up the case, pop your ailing ticker into the machine, type in your credit card number, wait a while and out it pops again, as good as new! They do a special deal if you wanna croissant with it.

I'd just got off the Eurostar from the UK where they'd been Jubileeing it up for the Queen's Diamond do and I imagine there where quite a few loudly beating hearts as the thousand-odd boats sailed chugged and rowed their way down the Thames, what with lots of Brits being fairly patriotic.

All I saw was a bunch of soggy southern souls milling around miserably at Trafalgar Square looking despondently at a blank screen hilariously headed 'The Mayor of London proudly presents the Queen's Diamond Jubilee'. It must have been a black diamond screen I suppose. Did I mention it was chucking it down, by the way? Ahh, England... you've gotta love 'er (but give me French flutters any day).

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

_________________________________________________________________________________
© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Stuff Is All Around Me

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Stuff Is All Around Me ~

Stuff Is All Around Me, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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'All is ephemeral', shouts the graffiti below an enigmatic vision of a face and a sharply punctuated exclamation mark.

Below the blue text someone has added, even less officially, 'I don't agree because god is everywhere around us and he will save us if you believe in him and in yourself'.

Both propositions appear to be pretty difficult to defend if you ask me.

For the tout est ephémère guy, it depends what you're referring to by 'all'. After all, they say that we're walking around with bits, in the form of atoms, of everyone or even everything that's ever lived more than 50 or a 100 years ago or so chugging around, or through our bodies. Doesn't seem particularly ephemeral when you look at it like that.

On the other hand, I definitely feel the onus is on the invisible friend guy to prove what he says is right than for us to prove it isn't, otherwise we could be believing in all sorts of silly invisible things, which would be, well, silly couldn't we, wouldn't it?

Taken at face value though, the 'everything's ephemeral' guy will be proved right, and is probably waiting eagerly to see when the first bit of degradation to his ephemeral efforts takes place to imbue the piece with a certain sense of delicious irony. It won't be me who does it though, but in a sense of delicious irony the 'god is all around us' guy has set off the degradation process himself by adding his scrawl to a more finished piece, thus trumping himself nicely, which may please the original artist, potentially...

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

_________________________________________________________________________________
© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Crocodiles & Strained Smiles

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Crocodiles & Strained Smiles ~

Crocodiles & Strained Smiles, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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In case you've never been up close and personal with a tiger's backside before, allow me to be the one to introduce you to the experience, and it's fairly impressive when all's said and done.

I particularly like the snaking tail, and there's an accompanying reptile between his legs to show him how it's done if necessary.

We're in the Tuileries gardens, where there are a lot of interesting statues of all sorts: classical, modern and just downright weird, as well as temporary pieces which could, quite frankly, be anything.

This crocodile's proportions and contortions seem to be more or less accurate, but remind me to show you the classic Paris croc where he's twisting his head back on himself at a physically impossible angle - one to snigger over.

And one day, just maybe, I'll show you the statue where the protagonist seems to be cradling behind his back what he is so sorely lacking up front. Clearly not a problem our fine feline friend has, at least for the moment. 'Fraid I can't go into any more details for fear of frightening the children, but it's intriguing to say the least...

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

_________________________________________________________________________________
© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Deconstructed Visionthing

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Deconstructed Visionthing ~

Deconstructed Visionthing, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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A very unremarkable photo, to start off with at least, of a decidedly noteworthy building - the old American Centre, sorry, I guess that would be Center, and now the Cinémathèque Française. They couldn't afford it, apparently.

I won't go into all the architectural stuff, which is easily look-upable, but it's an amazing sight in the deconstructed style of a famous architect called Frank Gehry, particularly well-known for a certain Bilbao building. For 'desconstructed' read 'funny blobs hanging off it' which is about as close as I can get to a reasonable verbal description of the thing. I like it.

It made a pleasant pause on the latest walk for my Paris-lovers group Paris If You Please (on Meet Up), as we explored the lesser-known twelfth arrondissement. This included parts of the Bercy park, the elevated Promenade Plantée and just good old run of the mill Paris streets, so it was all good.

As usual, I started off the planning process thinking what on earth are we going to find on this walk. And as usual Paris came up with the goods, with, for me at least, at least 10 or 15 interesting things to look at or discover, and for some on the walk the Cinémathèque Française was certainly one of those. Deconstructionism: if you didn't know it existed before, now you do. Although regular readers of these wayward columns may have had a suspicion already...

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

A Little Quality Zeine Time

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ A Little Quality Zeine Time ~

A Little Zeine Time, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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When the weight of the world
weighs crazy on your shoulders


Throw those boulders in the Seine,
the cleansing waters whisper zen


And open up to let you in, and then,
like older siblings' knowing smiles


The miles of ripples take you lazy,
smooth and smolder, fold and grin

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

_________________________________________________________________________________
© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Liberation Struggle

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Liberation Struggle ~

Liberation Struggle, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Struggling as Paris' brand new Autolib car hire system is to establish itself, this image brings home to me what an uphill struggle it might be.

Although in principle it's a great idea, in reality it's having a hard job pulling away from the starting line. One of the main reasons, I reckon, is the influx of these new city-sized minimobiles like the famous Smart car.

That's the one which has the enviable characteristic of being (almost) able to drive into roadside parking spaces nose first. Quite a few Parisians try to and do get away with it, dispite the vehicle jutting out about a wheel's length as we can see in this electricity junction box artwork.

I've never actually been in one of these little boxes, and there was some criticism of them at one point for encouraging yet more people to hit the road for shamefully short journeys, which countered their relatively low levels of pollution which was one of their selling points in the first place.

By the way, who needs to apply some corny speckled paint effect to their images when they can get the surface they're photographing on to do the job for them. See the pale blue areas in the painting to see what I mean.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

_________________________________________________________________________________
© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Boozing On The Broadside

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Boozing On The Broadside ~

Boozing On The Broadside, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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It's surprising how often 'cafés' comes up when you ask people what they love about Paris. There seems to be something intrinsically special about sitting drinking overpriced beverages watching the world go by as the world watches you watching it doing whatever it's doing.

I've heard that there used to be three times as many cafés in Paris as there are now, which is kind of hard to believe, but I'm sure it's true that many have closed, although many are certainly still open. Venturing off the beaten track will introduce you to many less showy more intimate affairs, where the real locals hang out. Sometimes to the extent that you hardly dare cross the threshold for fear of disturbing some intimate ritual or cabalistic ceremony of which you could never be part.

Belleville and Menilmontant are great areas for discovering the other kind of café, where people smoke chi-cha or whatever it is - hey, can they still do that these days - and nibble on exotic eats as eastern music wafts through the air.

The café above was nothing of the sort and could hardly be less touristy but it serves its purpose for this shot well enough. We're looking, or we would be if we weren't looking down a row of empty tables, diagonally across the Seine to Notre Dame, next to the busy Quai Saint-Michel and the Petit Pont. I think it was inventively called Le Notre Dame, just in case you hadn't realised that's what you're staring across at.

Anyway, I couldn't remember much after that Leffe and what preceded it, so let's just enjoy this café-moment and have done with it, Our Lady permitting.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

_________________________________________________________________________________
© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Grinding In The Binding

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Grinding In The Binding ~

Grinding In The Binding, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Zee Beeg Meelz ov Paryss (Grands Moulins de Paris) is what they managed to come up with for this building, inventive, non?

Whatever, that's what they were, and they've been made to look quite splendid in their new coats and colours as you can kind of see here.

The restauration project is part of a far wider-reaching effort over on the old industrialised left bank down in the 13th, and it was badly needing it, it has to be said.

They've created a bunch of new parks or 'green spaces' as they like to call them, around the developments, and the whole area is genuinely starting to take on a new air of freshness and vivacity.

Now the old mill is a university, and instead of churning out flour it turns out minds, borne by bread winners, presumably, bound to the past whether they like it or not...

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

_________________________________________________________________________________
© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

What Goes Up...

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ What Goes Up ~

What Goes Up..., originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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...doesn't always come down.

A pleasant, but not particularly exciting shot from Sab today, you may be thinking. Yes, but Ah-Hah, that's where you're wrong, you see. Not in that it's not even pleasant, of course, but in that it's more exciting than you could possibly imagine. For sad Paris curiosity freaks, that is...

Because, you see, it finally allows me to prove something people serially ask and disbelieve me about year in, year out, if they haven't actually seen the phenomenon for themselves or read my illustrated article on the subject.

It's one of the city's best-kept secrets, you see, and here it is, layed bare, in a cruelly pitiless image.

What's it about? The lamps on the Pont du Carrousel go on and off and up and down at dusk and dawn respectively (don't blink or you'll miss it, it's quite subtle), and on this morning, one of them got stuck.

Hah! It's definitely worth a stroll through Paris early morning, because not only do you often see plentiful evidence of the previous night's excesses - yep, even Parisians do stoopid stuff sometimes - you'll catch the city, literally and metaphorically, in an entirely different light.

It's a pro landscape (and cityscape) shooter's secret that you should only ever shoot at daybreak or nightfall, and there's much truth in that. From a street photographer's point of view to that you can add all the weird stuff that goes on at these witching and vampiric hours, when the cops are tired and the day's not quite sure what to do with itself. Ideal. And sorry Pont du Carrousel we've caught you with your skirts down at last!

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Hitting The High Notes

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Hitting The High Notes ~

Hitting The High Notes, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Buskers are everywhere in this city, but what I didn't expect was for them to start taking over innocent grocery store frontages on the slopes of mystical Montmartre as we see here.

It's understandable I suppose, what with this being Amélie Poulain's grocery store, no less. Her of her father's globe-trotting gnome, this humble establishment has become something of a Mecca for flighty-hearted fanciers everywhere.

In the same spirit, Au Marché de la Butte has become a stop incontournable whenever I take people around this quarter. Those who have seen the film are enchanted; those who haven't sometimes perplexed, but all fleetingly entertained, at least. And they generally get a gnice gnome picture into the bargain.

With a nice juicy SLR these little guys are perfect for demonstrating a lovely limited depth of field, with the banjo player in focus and the other two fuzzy. With the natural limitations of the iPhone, this is less of an at-the-moment-of-shooting option, although you could play around afterwards if that's your thing.

The little chap on the left reminds me that I'm supposed to be singing at a French wedding in a couple of months and a practice is coming up. Me, singing - HAH! Not alone, you understand. No-one would be that stupid. This is not a pleasant thought. Maybe I'll have a word with Mr. Happy there and get some lessons in. I bet it's the mushrooms.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Loving You Saturday Morning

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Loving You Saturday Morning ~

Loving You Saturday Morning, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Can some wino's discarded medicine and a bunch of dog-ends really become a soft romantic misty image thanks to some special effects? No. But it's kind of fun trying.

It's the incongruity which hits I think; as opposed to some model or common or garden plain Jane on wedding day in some silly preposterous pose, it's a bottle of booze and some cancer sticks which are taking centre stage. We ain't talking hugely expensive advertising campaign either although alcohol adverts are everywhere, this drug not being illegal yet, although cigarette advertising now is.

Bottles abound, be they in the urine-soaked corners of last night's excesses, hustling in their hundreds around one of the huge green Paris bottle banks or, unsurprisingly, in the grubby grasp of some local lowlife or dubious expat scouring the streets for succour.

Leaving leery evidence of passing is almost as amusing, it would seem, as placing various forms of street art in the most inaccessible or unexpected places possible. Who can get away with leaving their sordid empties in front of the Elysée (hard) or next to Notre Dame (easy) without feeling the heavy hand of the law or the lord respectively on their shoulder seems to be a continual challenge for the pickled perpetrators.

Personally, as a good citizen, and serial listener of a kids song which goes "Put your litter in the bin, in the bin; Put your litter in the bin, in the bin; Don't be a dickhead, be sure to shove it in; Put your litter in the bin, in the bin", or words to that effect, ad detritum, I always, but (almost) ALWAYS... yep. That. In there. It's only the right thing, I'm sure you agree.

If everyone did this, of course, I would be lacking the above photo from my opus, and you from your experience, which you may be thinking would be a jolly good thing too, but this is life and how I saw it on a beautifully sunny south suburban Saturday Paris morning and I wouldn't have it any other way.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.