To Paris for a visit of a few days. First visit abroad this year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown.
A remake of 5 years ago, as in 2016 a lot did not work for me and the French were horrific.

On my list this time I had 3 photomuseums. In spite of our preparations I found one, Jeu de Paume closed, their opening times not adjusted to the end of their main exhibition.
Evidently one should be prepared for disappointments and frustrations when visiting France, it wasn't the first time this happened to me in France.

But except Jeu de Paume, I found everything worked out wonderfully well! And I was never insulted or ignored by the French, I even found more willing and able to speak some English. The French as a hospitable nation, who would have thought!
Hope you enjoy my report.

Except visiting photography exhibitions and buying photobooks, I mainly indulged in street photography.

The Covid-19 pandemic and as a result ever changing restrictions is far from over, but being vaccinated
and following the instructions of 1.5m social distancing and masks indoors, we are pleased with the present situation.

Liberté - Egalité - Fraternité: poignant expressions or hollow phrases these days?

#OnReading

Sacré-Cœur Basilica

A very enjoyable and sunny day

'Julia, oh Julia'..
The baby she is holding must have been named 'Julia' as that is what he kept repeating.

View from the Sacré-Cœur hilltop

One for Instagram, no doubt, it was all very deliberate..

#OnReading

Oh, these selfies..

I knew I was going to be asked for some money but the contrast with the homeless person was too good to miss.

No, she wasn't posing for me..

A rare photo 'sans people', of an abandoned railway track here in Paris.

I feel good, happy, to be constantly 'switched on', in search of photo opportunities.

You and me both..

Barbes and #graffiti way up high

This person was the center of attention of a patrol of policemen here in Barbes.
There was a vast difference in another way with Paris 2016: then we had a lot of armed military here in the streets.

Ligne <4> was the one we used most, it got us everywhere we wanted to go to this year.

Spectacular legs always get my attention, and as such it did not escape me noticing that
high heels were rare in the streets these days, very much replaced by sneakers (advert) and sandals.

Wearing masks was very well adherred to in the subway and other mandatory locations

#OnReading

#OnReading
I shoot these images to 'promote' the reading of printed books. There is something more
about printed books than e-books and reading on a smartphone in my opinion. Just something I do.

#OnReading
Famous photographers have published books on reading in the public domain: André Kertész, Steve McCurry
and currently also the New York-based photographer Lawrence Schwarzwald. And me!

The e-Steps were very popular here in the streets of Paris

Two for the 'price' of one..

Besides the e-steps there are other means of cool transportation

These are not yet upgraded to e-steps

Fontaine des Innocents
Renaissance-style fountain completed in 1550 to honor King Henry II, depicting nymphs & Greek gods.

Les Halles de Paris, a disappointment for us: just another shopping mall. And way too many people in there!

Masks were mandory here too

Henri Cartier-Bresson, 'Revoir Paris'

@Musée Carnavalet

I am an admirer of this iconic photographer and collect books of his work and visit exhibitions when
I can (such as in Venice last year). Carnavalet Musée is about the history of Paris and the entrance is free.
HCB's 'Paris Revisited' costs €11 to get into; it took me a bit to grasp that, as there is little English to go by (again).

More of this and other exhibitions on my Paris 2021 page 3.

It's been a long time since I saw such facility back home

'Just believe in art'!

We were fortunate with the delightful weather we enjoyed during these days

#1 Twins

#2 Twins

#3 Twins (on the right, but what a lovely smile, eh?!)

"Now it's my turn again.."

This photo was taken with my Leica Q2, but I used my Sony RX10M4 most days.

Bon appétit!

Happy Hour!
This area, not far from Les Halles, has a very lively atmosphere.

The roving eye..
Le Chant des Voyelles sits on the corner of Rue des Lombards / Rue de la Verrerie & Rue Saint-Martin.

A slow return to normal, to pre-Cov19 days? It will take a long time yet. Personally I like it not so crowded.

The 3rd photo exhibition, 'Tokyo' by Moriyama + Tomatsu in the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP)

Daido Moriyama is another, more contemporary photographer, I admire. He has a unique signature to his photography.

More on this visit on my Paris 2021 page 3

Trying something from another viewpoint, people passing by while I hung out our hotel window on the 1st floor

Lack of faces make them anonymous

People going about their business

More on #UrbanArt

Graffiti at Puces de clignancourt marché (Fleamarket)

#1 Cool guy

#2 Cool guy
Here I was asked not to take photos of his shop.., because he has fake designer goods for sale?

Tête-à-Tête

Graffiti @Clignancourt

Imagine finding your car like this, one morning..?

John Hamon (b.1982) is a French street artist known for posting his image on buildings across Paris. Since 2001, he has affixed and projected the image of his identity card photo onto monuments in 33 countries and 77 cities. Hamon began postering the image of his identity card photograph on Parisian walls in 2001. The image itself was taken in 2000, when Hamon was an eighteen-year-old high-school student. He describes his motivation as "C'est la promotion qui fait l'artiste ou le degré zéro de l'art" ("It's the promotion that makes the artist or the zero degree of art") Later Hamon projected the image on notable buildings (Palais de Tokyo, Palais-Royal and Bibliothèque nationale de France) and monuments (Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe). Hamon has displayed the image on monuments across the world – such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa In April 2019 he projected his image onto the Eiffel Tower. (My photo was taken of an insignificant building in Monparnasse, Rue d'Odessa I think). For the most part, Hamon has acted as a guerilla artist postering without permission; he was once arrested for attempting to project onto Notre-Dame de Paris. He was released without charge. The image is the basis of all his published works to date. [Wikipedia]

 

Voilà, l'arbre blue... If one walks along the Rue Descartes, which crosses the Rue Clovis, you can see this fresco, entitled 'The Blue Tree'; which was made in 2000 by Pierre Alechinsky. He was one of the influential members of the COBRA group (1949-1951), founded by the poets Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret, the painters Karel Appel, Constant, Corneille and Asger Jorn. One of Alechinsky's distinctive marks is to surround his central motif with boxes, vignettes inspired by the predella of medieval altarpieces. To the right of this fresco, a poem by Yves Bonnefoy entitled 'The tree of the streets', see kwarkito.blogspot.com Nearby is the Rue Jacques-Henri Lartigue, also a famous French photographer.

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