Chalk Mark Champ

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Chalk Mark Champ ~

Chalk Mark Champ, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

BONUS: For Street Photography Fans!

facebook.com/streetphotographysecrets

Tweet

The bright bit you can see in the top left of this picture is actually a bit of Parisian skyline reflected in a gallery window.

The gallery is displaying a whole bunch of timepieces immortalised in some sort of plastic resin. None of them seem to be working. Time is standing still. I wonder where it will be in a hundred years' time. Proudly displayed in someone's living room, or in an art gallery or collecting dust in the artist's ageing great granchildren's attic.

Dust, the verb, is an autoantonym, by the way. It's its own opposite. You can dust crops by putting dusty stuff on them, and dust a shelf by taking dusty stuff off. Fascinating. I'll be on watch for more of those, and feel free to watch out for them too on my behalf.

At least, if this opus stays in tact, they dust won't actually attain the watches themselves. Would you buy it? I didn't look but I'll bet it costs thousands. Well, to me it's worth exactly what I paid for it, which was nothing, but maybe someone will think otherwise. Watch this space and I'll tell you if it's gone next time I'm passing time in that neighbourhood...

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.

Still Time Passes

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Still Time Passes ~

Still Time Passes, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

BONUS: For Street Photography Fans!

facebook.com/streetphotographysecrets

Tweet

The bright bit you can see in the top left of this picture is actually a bit of Parisian skyline reflected in a gallery window.

The gallery is displaying a whole bunch of timepieces immortalised in some sort of plastic resin. None of them seem to be working. Time is standing still. I wonder where it will be in a hundred years' time. Proudly displayed in someone's living room, or in an art gallery or collecting dust in the artist's ageing great granchildren's attic.

Dust, the verb, is an autoantonym, by the way. It's its own opposite. You can dust crops by putting dusty stuff on them, and dust a shelf by taking dusty stuff off. Fascinating. I'll be on watch for more of those, and feel free to watch out for them too on my behalf.

At least, if this opus stays in tact, they dust won't actually attain the watches themselves. Would you buy it? I didn't look but I'll bet it costs thousands. Well, to me it's worth exactly what I paid for it, which was nothing, but maybe someone will think otherwise. Watch this space and I'll tell you if it's gone next time I'm passing time in that neighbourhood...

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.

Bastille Platform Storm

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Bastille Platform Storm ~

Bastille Platform Storm, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

BONUS: For Street Photography Fans!

facebook.com/streetphotographysecrets

Tweet

Getting away from street art for a while, here's a strange sight for hungry eyes getting off the line 5 at Bastille if I remember rightly, coming up from Austerlitz.

Bastille is right, because that's exactly what we're looking at, or part of it anyway. This isn't quite part of the actual fortress/prison but part of the escarpment or counterescarpment or whatever it is in English. But it's close enough.

Strange to think, going by the accompanying diagram, that standing here on this platform we'd actually have been within the boundaries of this legendary place of fear and loathing, and finally liberation.

According to the panel, part of the corresponding wall on the other side of the defensive trench is also to be found in the underground labyrinth, but after a few minutes traipsing around the tunnels I gave up in disgust.

It's a nightmare down there! By the way, as a bit of trivia, for the price of knocking a hole in one of the metro tunnel walls we could have direct and easy access to the Colonne de Juillet. They don't want to do it though because people would have to buy a ticket to the metro to access it and it gets all complicated and messy, so no column climbing for us for the time being I'm afraid, just battlement bustling.

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.

Boy Oh Boy

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Boy Oh Boy ~

Boy Oh Boy, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

BONUS: For Street Photography Fans!

facebook.com/streetphotographysecrets

Tweet

Don't ask me who this little chap is or what he's doing there at such a strange angle. Oh yes, it's he who is at an angle, if you think about it, and not everything else...

But the lines are cool, those on his pullover seeming to continue those on the iron curtain he appears to be observing so attentively. You could even say he has a penchant for it.

This gets me onto graffiti and even more so street art where I can't see what they are trying to do. It intrigues and irritates me in equal doses.

Why put a cut out picture of this little boy here? What is the point or what are they hoping to say? I don't know I'm afraid, but maybe that's is the point. It's not for them to explain their art, but that's the tipping point of my tolerance sometimes. When I literally have no clue as to why, and then a new, darker flavour of why starts bugging me. More of why the hell... and I'm not sure if that's healthy!

Oh hang it, all art's healthy in the end, as long as it's not gratuitous and those are lines society itself draws, which perhaps even art is somehow bound to conform to. Which probably bugs some artists no end but hey, either you learn to be creative and original given certain constraints or limits, or you hit a hinterland where you cease to be able to make your art any more because nobody recognises it as such.

Oh boy! Where did all that come from?!

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.

Tomorrow I'll Procrastinate

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Tomorrow I'll Procrastinate ~

I'll Procrastinate Tomorrow, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

BONUS: For Street Photography Fans!

facebook.com/streetphotographysecrets

Tweet

As promised yesterday (I didn't forget) here is my Miss.Tic stencil and pithy aphorism, as only she can do.

She told me it takes longer to think of the words than to do the artwork, can you believe that. But she's a poet.

How shameful that I still haven't published our interview. It'll come one fine day, out of the blue and no-one will know what hit them. Until then...

I may be the world's greatest procrastinator, I haven't decided yet. I'm not proud of it, but sometimes some things just seem to take longer than others.

There's a saying that work will expand to fit the time you decide to do it in. In other words, if you don't set yourself a deadline, it'll take forever, which is pretty much what's happening with Miss.Tic's interview. Oh well.

Perhaps my passion for her and her work was just an illusion - only time will tell.

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.

Stronger Than Passion, The Illusion

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Stronger Than Passion, The Illusion ~

Stronger Than Passion, The Illusion, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

BONUS: For Street Photography Fans!

facebook.com/streetphotographysecrets

Tweet

This thing has to be seen to be believed. It's bigger than a house brick only ten times uglier, and if this is the apotheosis of Parisian love then I'll pass.

You'll have guessed that it's on that lovers' bridge amongst lovers' bridges, the Pont des Arts on the Seine between the golden domed Institut de France and the Louvre. Ile de la Cité's up river and Lady Eiffel smiles downstream. And around a million bloody locks are clinging to the bridge's sides like leeches.

Except when they're the size of house bricks, in which case drastic measures have to be taken.

However, as I foretold, more draconian plans are afoot. It's finally happened. The authorities now have the perfect excuse to remove the accursed things; the metal meshing is crumbling under their weight. And we wouldn't want anyone falling into the Seine now, would we?

Certain panels have already been replaced, and judging by the sheer volume of the things and the increasingly dodgy state of some of the barriers, others will follow.

Don't get me wrong - I don't hate the lovers' locks. I just feel you can have too much of a good thing, and that's what's happened here. It's lost its magic. You can even buy locks from some of the sacred bouquinistes (booksellers) who line the banks of the river - hey, vive capitalist initiative, that's what I say! Commercialisation of the dream. Buy a lock, become an instant bohemian romantic and impress your partner; even better than roses and champagne. Your blooms may wilt and your bubbly lose its sparkle, but your lock will remain.

Except it won't, as I've already mentioned. Oh well. As Miss.Tic says in tomorrow's post (if I remember), Plus fort que la passion, l'illusion (Stronger than passion, the illusion).

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.

Shedding Skin

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Shedding Skin ~

Shedding Skin, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

BONUS: For Street Photography Fans!

facebook.com/streetphotographysecrets

Tweet

Nature knows a thing or two. Given the omnipresent pollution of the city the plane tree simply shrugs its shoulders and slips into something more comfortable.

This is about as impressive a skin shed as I've ever seen though, I must say. OK, he's a big boy, but still, all those scales piled up against his shiny new stem...

Which leads us to one of my greatest perambulating pleasures: stepping on a piece of freshly discarded bark to hear that delicious crunch! I think it's even more of a thrill than slooshing through autumn leaves, which was more of a childhood passtime.

I resisted the temptation to hop over the fence and go barking mad by stomping all over those Parisian castoffs, but it was a close thing.

Why not check out your local park or tree-lined avenue and partake of this simple pleasure if you're lucky enough to have the right sort of species in your neck of the... woods.

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.