Être à Paris To Be In Paris All photographs © 1994 - 2010 Billy Sheahan. All text written in Paris, France & Chicago, IL, USA © 2005, 2006, 2008 & 2010 On the cover: Front: Le Tour Eiffel © 1994 Billy Sheahan Back: L’Opéra de Paris © 2005 Billy Sheahan Billy Sheahan Photography 1017 W. Washington Blvd. Suite 3F Chicago, IL, USA 60607 www.billysheahan.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. ISBN-13: ISBN-10:
9780983179504 0983179506
2010 Chicago, IL, USA
The first time I set foot on the streets of Paris it was in the Fall of 1994. I was stepping off of an airport bus at the steps of l’Opéra de Paris late one Saturday evening. I was completely unprepared. I had an overnight layover on my way back to the States after two weeks in Greece. I spoke not a word of French and was dressed like an American tourist visiting Santorini. Except that now I was standing in the middle of arguably the most fashionable city in the world. Much like a freshly discovered pimple on the face of a fashion model the morning of an important photoshoot, I felt awkwardly out of place. It was an inauspicious start to my affair with The City of Light. To some, Paris has the reputation of being an arrogant or rude city. I would instead make the argument that it simply mirrors back what it receives. There are a few courtesies that are expected when interacting with parisiens, courtesies otherwise known simply as proper etiquette. However, it seems as if the parisiens are some of the few world citizens that still practice it and insist that you do as well when visiting their beautiful city. Had I known this on my first visit to Paris, attempting to find my way from l’Opéra de Paris to my hotel, it would have gone much more smoothly. My first ill conceived notion was believing all parisiens speak English and would respond in English if I asked them a question in English about the direction of my hotel. I was only half correct. Most parisiens do speak English, but only if you show them the common courtesy of speaking to them first in French. It’s a little thing, but isn’t being polite all about the little things? My first properly good idea in Paris was when I decided to sit on the steps of l’Opéra with the other parisiens meeting and relaxing on this fine Saturday night and simply listen for a bit- and learn. “Bonjour.” “Bonsoir.” “Salut !” “Ça va ?” “Merci.” Words I had heard before, but not in their proper context. “Excuse moi.” “Au Revoir.” My first lesson in how to be in Paris was underway. I understood that I needed to speak some French to make my way around Paris, although I hadn’t put together exactly the how and why of it yet. I listened to the parisiens speaking French and English on
those steps and I learned that instead of simply walking up to someone on the street and asking for directions in English, I might receive a slightly better response if I said, “Bonsoir,” before breaking out the English, although it still wasn’t quite enough. They still responded to me in French. With my minuscule French vocabulary, obtained at what I would years later refer to as L’École sur les Étapes de l’Opéra de Paris, The School on the Steps of the Paris Opera, I decided to try a new tactic. I walked to a taxi stand, said, “Bonsoir,” to the driver and instead of telling him the address of my hotel in English, I simply handed him a piece of paper with the address written on it. He was onto my game, but nodded his head and said, “Oui,” as I mustered up a very proud, “Merci!” My first all French interaction after only an hour in Paris was a success! Once at my hotel and checked in, it was almost midnight and I decided to stay in, get a good night sleep after a chaotic day of traveling from Greece and wake up early to explore the city on a lovely Sunday morning. I checked out at 6 in the morning and headed, well, where else but in the direction of the Eiffel Tower. My flight back to Chicago was scheduled to depart Charles de Gaulle Airport at about one in the afternoon, so I had time to do plenty of exploring. I had a very basic map and found roughly where I was on rive droite in the ninth arrondissement and headed southwest toward le Seine. A little trick to help determine what arrondissement something is located in, is to look at the postal code. The first three numbers, 750, designates the city of Paris. The last two numbers are the arrondissement or district. Le Tour Eiffel is in the seventh arrondissement. Its postal code is 75007. Le musée du Louvre is in the first arrondissement with a postal code of 75001. There are twenty arrondissements in Paris, beginning with the first located in the center of Paris, rive droite, or right bank. The numbers increase in a sort of clockwise sea shell pattern, arrondissement two, three and four, also rive droite, before crossing le Seine to rive gauche, left bank, five, six and seven before crossing le Seine again, eight, nine, ten and so on, spiraling outward to twenty. I didn’t know any of this at the time, so I was a bit directionally challenged. I hoped if I simply pointed myself in what I thought was the correct direction, I would eventually find the Eiffel Tower. I should back up for a moment and say that while I was new to Paris, I had spent time in Italy the previous year as well as the recent two weeks in Greece, so I wasn’t completely oblivious to traveling in Europe. It’s just that Paris was such an afterthought.
MĂŠtro sortie, 1994
A layover on the way home. Before arriving in any country, I usually learn a few basic words and phrases, enough to make my way around and ask for directions. I certainly did that for Italy and Greece. But France? I hadn’t really given it much thought. In many other European countries you can more or less get away with speaking English to anyone you meet on the street. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and depending on how the United States government is currently regarded in the rest of the world at that particular moment, you’ll either get a big smile and an English response or, “I don’t understand English,” in their native tongue, which is either the truth or a semi-polite brush off if our current state of foreign relations is in a bad place. Many Americans who have never traveled abroad might, as they are reading this, be saying to themselves, “Why do the French insist on making you speak French to them when you know they speak English?” It’s a fair question on the surface, but one I would answer with another question: If you, as an American, were walking down a street in Chicago or Phoenix or Atlanta and someone came up to you and asked you a question in, let’s say, German, how would you respond? I bet a good many Americans would respond, at least to themselves, with, “If you’re going to be in this country, then learn to speak the damn language!” So why should France or more specifically Paris be any different? Ironically, the reasoning is slightly different. Parisiens expect you to speak French to them because it’s common courtesy to begin a conversation properly. And in Paris, that means in French. In the United States, the reason for the foreign language backlash is a bit different. Much like France, in the States we aren’t quite sure what to do with our growing immigrant population. We never have been. Historically, the immigrant culture de jour has been the group that does all the low paying grunt work, be it building our railroads, working in the kitchen or cleaning our toilets. A growing number of immigrants can manifest itself into a fear mentality in the minds of some that we will soon be flooded with a culture that won’t assimilate or a general change in the way things have always been. At the same time, it’s worth noting that as a United States citizen, unless your native ancestry is Native American Indian, all of our family ancestors here in America were immigrants at one time, all struggling to learn English and make better lives for themselves. Yet learn the damn language is often not far from the lips of many Americans when they encounter a foreigner on American streets. We have such short memories. In the United States, it seems that attitude about speaking the language is less about
L’Arc de Triomphe, 1994
courtesy and more about it being a harbinger of eventual change. And that makes many Americans uncomfortable. So for slightly different reasons, it’s not that much of a stretch to see that both in the United States as well as in Paris, speaking at least a bit of the native language, even poorly, can help overcome a great deal of the inevitable initial awkwardness. If one is going to be in Paris, one must speak at least a little French. There are a few other secrets to unlock a parisien’s smile, but I’ll get to that a little later. In the meantime, back to my first Sunday morning stroll through Paris. I found myself casually wandering through the streets wondering when I would get my first glimpse of le Tour Eiffel. Had I known better, I should have immediately directed myself to the River Seine and followed it along, but my parisien geography knowledge was still in its infancy. Instead, I first happened upon another of Paris’ iconic monuments, l’Arc de Triomphe. The streets were nearly deserted with the exception of several policemen seemingly standing guard about 50 meters away from the second most famous structure in Paris. In the distance I could make out the faint sounds of someone making a speech. I could see a large flag billowing out from the center of the Arc. As I approached one of the policemen, he turned in my direction and said something in French that I couldn’t understand, but from his tone, I knew I was not to proceed any closer. Instead, I took a couple of steps back and proceeded to pantomime both of my hands to my face to form the shape of a small box and with my index finger made a shutter clicking movement - the universal gesture to ask if it was okay to make a photograph. He didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no. It was more the facial expression of, If you must, as he turned back to face the street. I made two quick exposures, said, “Merci,” and was on my way. What I didn’t realize until later was that I had stumbled across a ceremony related to the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris in 1944. Now heading more or less purposefully in the direction of le Seine, I turned a corner - and there it was! Le Tour Eiffel peeking over the treetops and a neatly aligned row of parked cars. I made a photograph right on the spot. It’s hard to describe what I was feeling. Probably what a lot of people must feel the first time they see something with their own eyes that they’ve only seen in pictures. But there it was. Well, at least the top of it. I began walking through the park, stopping every so often to make a new photo of the tower, getting ever closer. I began to wonder to myself, how do you make a unique
Policier au l’Arc de Triomphe, 1994
Avenue Albert de Mun et Avenue de New York, 1994
photograph of something that has been photographed by millions of people over more than a hundred years? Nearly since the dawn of photography. Maybe frame it with the trees? I kept up my slow pace. Taking a few steps. Stopping to find a composition. Walking a few more steps. Finding another good composition. It’s the reason that traveling with a photographer like myself requires a great deal of patience. I’ve been known to sit quietly for an hour or more in a square, waiting for the right composition of people to walk into my frame before making an exposure. Sometimes waiting for no people at all. Or the light to be just right. Or the streetlights to turn on. The moment is all in the timing. Waiting for the photograph to come to me. On this particular Sunday morning however, I seemed to be one of the only people out exploring. Almost like having Paris entirely to myself. It was eerily wonderful. I continued to Avenue de New York which runs along the right bank. I crossed and leaned over one of the walls above le Seine. Many of the great cities of the world seem to be located near water. On a river or near the ocean. People are drawn to the water. And here I was at one of the most famous rivers in the world. Just beautiful. I continued to make photographs of the famous icon in front of me. Looking for an original way to frame it. The boats docked on the banks. A carousel. All part of the context. The funny thing was, I never crossed le Seine to get right next to or under le Tour Eiffel. And to this day I can’t tell you why. Maybe I was so in awe of it that viewing it from across le Seine was close enough. I knew my time was probably running short and I had to get back to Charles de Gaulle Airport for my flight home. I glanced at my watch and was horrified to see what time it was. My plane was leaving in less than two hours. I started doing the math and realized I was in trouble. I had enough money to take the bus back to the airport, but I would have to make my way back to l’Opéra to where the bus had originally dropped me off. That was probably a half an hour walk if I didn’t get lost walking through a city I barely knew. Unlikely. I only had 70 French francs with me - this was before the Euro - which wasn’t nearly enough to pay for a taxi - if I could even find one on this deserted Sunday morning. Suddenly my beautiful relaxing stroll through Paris was turning to panic. What happened next was so unexpected that when I tell people about it to this day, none of us can believe it. As my head turned in every direction looking for some clue that would help me figure out how I was going to get back to the bus stop or somehow the airport, I heard a voice approaching. “Do you speak English?” said the voice, with a French accent.
Le Tour Eiffel Ă Avenue Albert de Mun et Avenue de New York, 1994
I turned to see a well dressed man in his thirties walking towards me. “Uh... yes... oui,” I stammered. “Do you need some help?” Looking back now, I must have been quite a sight. I had packed very light for Greece, so I was standing there with my backpack and a camera, dressed in shorts, gym shoes and a very busy print shirt holding a camera. Definitely a tourist. And my bird-like head movements as I tried to think a way out of my situation must have screamed, here’s a man in need of assistance. “Well,” I began, “I need to figure out how to get back to the airport and I was going to take the bus, but I lost track of the time and I don’t think I can take a taxi because I only have 70 francs and I don’t think that’s enough to get to Charles de Gaulle.” “No,” he paused, “I think you’ll need a little more than that.” We both stood there for a moment, me so grateful that someone would bother to stop and speak to me in English and at least tell me how I might make my flight, and the man probably deciding what to do with this hopeless American mess of a tourist. “Why don’t we do this,” he offered. “My hotel is a few blocks away and I too am flying out of Paris, to Lyon in a few hours. If you like, we can take a taxi back to my hotel, I’ll pick up my bags and then we can share a taxi to the airport.” “Wow. Really? That would be so kind of you. I will give you all of my francs,” I gushed, suddenly amazed by the events that had just transpired in the last two minutes. From hopeless to hopeful. In retrospect, if someone was telling me this story, I would be wondering if it was about to get much worse, ending with me waking up in a bathtub full of ice, less one of my kidneys, but at the time, I can’t say why, but I trusted him. It felt like everything was going to be okay. And just like that, we walked to a taxi stand, got in cab and drove to his hotel. I waited while he went inside, again somehow knowing he was going to come out again. When he returned a few minutes later, I looked down at my watch. My flight was leaving in an hour and I was still in the center of Paris. But at least now I had a chance that I was going to make it. This was back in the day before all the extra security when you could actually show up at the airport 20 minutes before a flight and still get on. An international flight usually required a little more time, but it wasn’t unheard of to cut it this close. I have no idea what we talked about on the way to the airport. I have very little memory of the events between his hotel and the airport. All I know is that we arrived at
Bateau sur le la Seine et Tour Eiffel, 1994
my terminal with 25 minutes to spare, I handed over all of the French money I had to my samaritan and ran to check in, then to security and to the gate where the plane was still loading the last of the passengers. Somehow I made it, thanks to the incredible generosity of a parisien man whose name I don’t remember. Why he approached me, why he offered to help, why he agreed to go to the airport much earlier than he needed to, I’ll never know. Sometimes you just need a break, and that Sunday morning in Paris I learned that the kindness of strangers in the City of Light is not to be underestimated.
Carrousel et La Tour Eiffel, 1994
I didn’t return to Paris for eleven years even though I always knew I would. Finally, in September of 2005 and after photographic trips in the mean time to the Northern Territories of Canada, Mexico, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, it was time to return to what was soon to become my favorite city. This time, Paris was the destination rather than a brief layover and I was far more prepared. First, I had learned a little French. I was still far from fluent, but I knew enough to properly address the parisiens and how to communicate about simple things. Second, as I eluded to earlier, there are other little things one must do to make interactions more pleasant. Proper etiquette is the rule of the day. It’s not difficult. When you walk into any shop in Paris, it is customary to make eye contact with the shop keeper and say, “Bonjour!” It’s obvious to parisiens, but to Americans abroad, not so much. Can you imagine walking into a 7-Eleven here and finding the clerk to say hello before heading to the Slurpee machine? No? Well, I now do that here in the States as well. The hello part, not the Slurpee machine part. In Paris, walking into a shop without saying Bonjour is a bit like walking in and spitting on the floor. That might sound harsh, but it makes sense. Since most parisiens rarely shop for everything they need for the day in one place, it becomes a routine to go to one local merchant for bread and pastries, another for fruits and vegetables, another for cheese and yet another for wine. All within a short walk from their homes. You know your local shopkeepers and they know you. Such is the pace of life in Paris. It allows you to make shopping a much more personal experience. Making friends with the local merchants on every visit to Paris is an important part of being in Paris. I may have something specific I’m shopping for, but just as often I may ask, “Quel est bon aujourd’hui ? What’s good today? A local shop keeper takes pride in what he or she is offering and is more than happy to tell you because you bothered to ask. Taking time to slow down and have a small conversation is what life in Paris is all about. Enjoying the little moments. One of my personal favorites was walking past one of the small shops where I would buy fruit and cheese and having the owner wave and yell a big “Bonjour!” across the street when he recognized me. It made Paris feel more like home somehow. As you leave any shop, just as when entering, good manners apply. It is customary to say, “Au revoir” or “Bon journée,” Good bye or Have a good day, on your way out, especially if you are browsing and didn’t buy anything. These are all common courtesies that make ones life slightly more pleasant, wherever you are, but especially in Paris. Just ask my neighborhood shopkeepers back in Chicago, much to their slightly taken aback
delight of being faced with a polite customer in their store. On this second trip to Paris, I was staying at l’Hôtel de Suede in the Latin Quarter on the left bank. When checking in, I spoke only in my poor but earnest French to the desk clerk before he smiled and began speaking to me in English. If you’re wondering how he could tell to speak to me in English, the French can always tell you’re from America. It’s like magic. But it’s polite to make the effort to try out your underwhelming French language skills anyway. I was traveling with M, my model friend who had never been to Paris before. We settled into our lovely upper floor room and did a bit of unpacking before heading out into the beautiful parisien morning. As would become our custom, we would simply pick a direction and explore on foot. Traveling with M was easy because she too was a photographer and our walks were peppered with long pauses if one of us saw something interesting to photograph. As a photographer, it is sometimes difficult to explore a city like Paris with a nonphotographer who has a little trouble understanding why it’s taking so long to walk five blocks. Sometimes you have to sit still for a few moments for the right composition to make itself evident, or just the right balance of people to walk through your frame. Although I was hardly an expert in that city, I had done enough traveling in my life to give M a few pointers I had picked up along the way. Her first time in Paris would be far better than mine. Americans, for some reason, are loud. Something in our DNA must tell our lizard brains that speaking with raised voices when trying to communicate to someone in a language other than our own must help the process. It really doesn’t. Quiet inside voices work best in Paris. And when traveling in a new country, part of the fun is not trying to recreate the United States abroad. It might mean that service sometimes seems slower or different in another way, but in actuality the person making your croissant might be taking more care with it than slapping two all-beef patties on your sesame seed bun. Take a breath. Enjoy the pace. It’s good for you. It’s different in Paris. Even business happens at a more leisurely pace. It didn’t take us long to settle in to that relaxed state of mind. M and I had been using the “let’s walk in that direction,” method to explore Paris. We stumbled onto an amazing array of places, both the usual and the off the beaten path kind. We happened upon le jardin du Palais Royal by accident during one walk. We watched the children play on the square and then put our feet up on the fountain for an
Champs ElysĂŠe, 2005
hour to watch. Cafés and leisurely time drinking espressos, more exploring, finding a nice quiet bench in a beautiful garden. So relaxing. Every time I travel to another country, there is always time for pleasure, but it’s a working trip as well. Keeping track of which camera bodies to go out with each day and how much film to bring is part of the process. While I usually bring a lot of gear with me when traveling, I don’t take every camera and lens out with me on each walk. Better to travel light and if I happen to see a potential photograph that requires a different lens, I just make a mental note to return another time. Often, I manage to make a good photograph with what I have with me anyway. It forces me to creatively make due with what I have. It’s a nice exercise and way to make my brain think differently to solve any photographic problem. It’s a happy challenge. Being in Paris has less to do with trying to see all the tourist sites than taking time to listen to the rhythm of the city. It’s a strong beat, but not as frantic as other world class cities. It’s steady, but calming somehow. Purposeful yet carefree. Early on during our visit we had a lovely dinner at Man Ray (also called Mandalay Ray) at 34 rue Marbeuf in the eighth arrondissement, a little off Avenue des ChampsElysées. Johnny Depp, John Malkovich and Sean Penn were all partners in the restaurant which was converted from an old movie theatre. We walked past the serious doorman who warmed and gave us a welcoming smile once we exchanged Bonsoirs. A long staircase descended from street level to reveal the Asian meets bordello décor. Man Ray on Monday evenings was Opera Night and would end up being one of the most incredible experiences I think I’ve ever had in Paris or anywhere for that matter. Our hotel had helped us make reservations a few days earlier and in short order the hostess led us down another beautiful staircase to the restaurant floor where a 15 piece orchestra was playing on a small stage. We were astounded at what we were hearing and we hadn’t even made it to our table yet. Soon the orchestra was joined by a man and a woman who began walking through the restaurant singing arias from The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro among others. So beautiful. Everyone was so talented and enthusiastic about their performances. M and I both sat there and soaked it all in while enjoying dinner. Beautiful operatic performances at an amazing restaurant in the middle of Paris. Our server would occasionally apologize to us about the slow service because apparently one of the Saudi princes was also there that night and they were stretched a little thin with the demands of royalty. But we didn’t care. This was not about rushing
Rue du CloĂŽtre Notre Dame et Rue Chanoinesse, 2005
Avenue Albert de Mun et la Tour Eiffel, 2005
through dinner, but enjoying the evening to its fullest. As the evening wore on, we were one of the last tables still occupied past midnight and I told our server she could bring us la addición so the staff could finishing cleaning up for the night. She told us not to rush away and even joined us at our table after she was finished with her work and we talked for another hour or so. Even at the end of her long day, our server told us about her life and asked about ours. She gave us a few of her favorite places to try, off the tourist guides. We talked about everything as the rest of Man Ray finished shutting down for the night. A great way to end a tremendous evening of dinner and music. Sadly, Man Ray is no longer in existence. The beautiful room is still available under the name Le 1515 for lease for weddings and other large events, but the restaurant is no more. It was one of those experiences that I will remember for the rest of my life. We finally said Au revoir to our generous hosts and walked out into the beautiful night air, when M suddenly turned to me and said, “Let’s go see the Eiffel Tower!” Much like my first visit to Paris, we meandered through tiny streets in the warm Paris night in the direction of la Seine. Imagine my surprise then when we rounded a corner and came face to face with my first glimpse of la Tour Eiffel eleven years earlier. Same street, same row of cars, same park with the tower sticking up over the trees. Part of the fun of being in Paris for the first time is all of a sudden glimpsing the top of the tower over a building or a garden or park. It’s really breathtaking to see something so familiar that you’ve never actually seen before with your own eyes. Tonight as we walked toward it, M was getting more and more excited with every glimpse. I used one second exposures holding steady on something stationary and showed M how to do the same. We would spend twenty minutes or so bracing ourselves against whatever we could find. Walls, lamp posts, mail boxes. Le Tour Eiffel was fairly well documented that night. We continued on, but by that time M’s feet had enough of being restricted by her high heels. She threw her shoes in her purse as we ran across the now nearly vacant Avenue de New York, over the center road divider to run along the wall above la Seine, getting ever closer. Finally, we crossed the river at Pont d’léna to stand at the base. We made a few more exposures when all of a sudden, the tower lights shut off, leaving us standing in the darkness. It was two in the morning. We had closed Man Ray and now the Eiffel Tower. I flagged down a taxi and in my still slightly poor French said, “Bonsoir Monsieur. Trent et un, Rue Vaneau, l’Hôtel de Suede Saint Germain, s’il vous plaît.”
La Tour Eiffel à Pont d’léna, 2005
“Oui, Monsieur.” “Merci beaucoup,” and we headed off. After a few moments of silence, M and I resumed our conversation about the wonderful night and all we had experienced at Man Ray. Our driver at one point turned around and asked us in English where we were from and how we were enjoying our visit. As I had learned, speaking French first opens up all kinds of doors. As we neared the hotel, the driver asked us again the exact address and before I could answer, I saw the illuminated neon blue light of l’Hôtel de Suede sign up ahead. “Là!” I pointed. “Sacré bleu!” The driver laughed. “Sacré bleu,” he repeated. “You make a joke in French!” Each morning, M and I would set out for a few blocks and find a café to begin our day with a nice espresso and talk about in what direction we might want to head. Sometimes we had a specific destination in mind, like l’Opéra de Paris. She really wanted to see the Chagall ceiling there. L’Opéra de Paris officially open in 1875, but it wasn’t until 1963 that Marc Chagall was invited to paint the ceiling of the world famous opera house. We headed off in that direction, across la Seine to the ninth arrondissement. When we arrived we discovered that a rehearsal would prevent us from getting a tour of the actual theatre, but we could explore the rest of the beautiful building. It was only then that I realized that the film I had laid out for today’s walk was inadvertently left back at our hotel. I was still shooting primarily film back then. I looked down at my frame counter. I had one exposure left in my current roll. I was in one of the most beautiful buildings in the world and could only make one photograph. Certainly a challenge. As M snapped dozens of photographs in the Grand Foyer with her digital camera, I wandered behind her looking for the one photograph I would make that morning. When we entered the Grand Staircase, my wait was over. Now just a matter of finding the right composition. It was dim in that large room and I knew I would have to use a very slow shutter speed to expose my film properly. 1/8th of a second, which is usually much too slow for a handheld exposure. I found a column to lean against, took a long breath, exhaled until I was steady and clicked. I should point out that when you’re trying to hold your camera steady in such a case, it’s preferable to snap the shutter after a long exhale, rather than holding your breath after
Montmartre, 2005
Photo précédente: L’Opéra de Paris, 2005 Métro sortie à Boulevard de Clichy, 2005
a deep inhale. Holding your breath in tends to make you more tense, while the moment after exhaling is more relaxing and easier to hold a camera steady. It worked. And because I had forgotten to bring any more film with me that morning, I was free to take part of the day off from shooting and simply enjoy Paris. We continued to explore Paris on foot. We would use la Métro occasionally, beautifully clean, efficient and easy, but we couldn’t seem to stop exploring on foot, always looking to cross le Seine on a bridge we hadn’t been on before, always looking for a street we hadn’t walked. We made a lot of great discoveries that way. We found a parasol shop called Antione’s that had been in existence since 1754. I had to buy one that I fell in love with. Purple with black lace trim. Something for a future photoshoot. Moulin Rouge. Even before the movie starring Nicole and Ewan, I believed Moulin Rouge was this amazing place where moral boundaries were pushed and Absinthe flowed freely. Then the movie came out and fine tuned everyone’s idea of what Moulin Rouge was. Romantic, sexy. Well, there’s yet another version of Moulin Rouge and that is the reality of it. The only thing M and I had planned in advance for our Paris trip was that we would go see the show at Moulin Rouge. We both suspected it would be a tourist trap, but decided to check it out for ourselves anyway. As we reached Montmartre, the top of the hill that the north end of Paris sits on, the first thing we spotted was the familiar windmill. The large red lettering that spelled out Moulin Rouge, then the cheap food stand next to it and the unremarkable square it anchored. It was smaller and much less grand than I was expecting. But like many things that you build up in your head or see in movies, the reality sometimes doesn’t measure up. On our tickets it stated that cameras were not allowed in during the performance, so I left mine back at the hotel. As a result, I have no photographs of it, inside or out. Probably better that way. In a beautiful city such as Paris, Moulin Rouge was remarkably mundane somehow. Almost out of place. It was lacking a certain historical presence that I was expecting to feel. It was… well… touristy. Not to say that we didn’t have a great time there because we did. But I think we had to do a little quick mental adjustment to compensate for the reality of it as we were whisked in to the red, atmospheric, if a little worn, theater. I don’t know if it was our improving French or the positive attitudes we tried to present everywhere we went but
we were seated in the front row, nearly on stage. We could have placed our drinks on the stage if our small table became too cramped with our dinner entrees. During our dinner, the 1970s era black sparkley, Merv Griffen-esque curtain parted to reveal a small band, performing a set of oddly American easy listening hits, like Feelings and Blue Bayou. Finally, the real show started and it was actually quite good, in a cheesy kind of way. About the only thing that was as expected during the whole evening was that there were a lot of topless women on stage. And happily, all of their breasts of the proportionate and real variety. For as faux as Moulin Rouge was turning out to be, we would have been disappointed to watch a burlesque review with a lot of fake plastic breasts. They were actually all very good dancers. If you could ignore the tacky environment, the performers were very talented. During the big highly costumed and choreographed entrance, since we were so close to the stage, one of the dancers’ billowing capes managed to drag across our table and knock our little table lamp over and onto the stage. M was on lamp duty for the rest of the evening. The music was all pre-recorded and M and I spent a lot of time playing, “What movie soundtrack is that from?” during the performance. An interesting thing about a topless show is that after a while you get a little numb to the naked breasts, even as nice as they were. And I began to feel a bit bad about taking them for granted. Here were these women dancing their topless hearts out and we were not even appreciating that they were doing it half naked. I think the Moulin Rouge was aware of this and every so often another kind of act would come on stage as a little sorbet. One of those performances were two men who very adeptly balanced all over each other. Impressive. Another was a man with a light projector and a movie screen who did a very nice job of shadow puppetry. It was entertaining in an odd quaint old European kind of way. I enjoyed it. Another performer was a sort of clown who came out with a big oversized clown movie camera with a big crank and recruited a handful of tourists to act out his little play. Actually very entertaining as well. Really, and I usually hate clowns. But then in short order, the lovely dancers and the naked breasts were back on stage and all was right with the world. It is true that no self respecting parisien would be caught dead attending the Moulin Rouge show and it’s nothing I will ever do again, but it was interesting to see that even Paris can succumb to unsophisticated once in a while. We headed back to Avenue des Champs-Elysées to walk and people watch. Since it was late, we took a cab there and had a great conversation with our taxi driver. We spoke
La Basilique du SacrĂŠCoeur, Montmartre, 2005
La Basilique du SacrĂŠ-Coeur, Montmartre, 2005
French to start and then he spoke English back to us. We talked about the politics of the States and France and how both of our countries had helped the other over the last 250 years. We told him we were from Chicago, which he was excited to hear. We had a great laugh when he told us how much he liked The Blues Brothers and “black music.” We encouraged him to turn up the Barry White he was clearly dying to show off and we took the long way back, circling l’Arc de Triomphe and up and down Avenue des ChampsElysées several times with, You’re the First, My Last, My Everything, absolutely blaring out the windows at one in the morning. The following morning while we sipped our espressos at a small café, I witnessed tourists racing past us, trying to cram as much of Paris as they could in a few hours. They would have seen more of Paris, the true Paris if they had instead sat down near us and watched the city elegantly pass by. After enjoying our coffee, we decided to head back in the direction of Montmartre and visit la Basilique du Sacré-Coeur, sitting on the highest hill in Paris. It’s a beautiful white cathedral, built from 1875 until its completion in 1919. After exploring the surrounding grounds and interior, we found an entrance to a staircase on the West side of the Basilica leading to the top of la Coupole. I usually find myself a little claustrophobic climbing up into the top of cathedrals, winding slowly upwards, the narrow walls becoming ever narrower the higher we go. But climbing these 700 steps yielded a visual reward I was unprepared for. As we walked around to the South side, we were greeted with nothing short of a glorious view of all of Paris. Making photographs (I had remembered to bring enough film that day) of the huge billowing clouds with powerful sun rays bursting through them and onto the city below. We spent several hours sitting on the stone benches against the Coupole wall, watching the light and clouds play over Paris. Constantly evolving, always inspiring. While we were there, we observed a handful of tourists who had also made the climb quickly taking in the view for a few seconds and rushing off to their next self imposed sightseeing appointment. They saw it, but did they really see it? I think not. Perhaps the next best vantage point to look down upon Paris is one most people don’t consider. Sure, viewing Paris from the top of la Tour Eiffel is breathtaking. But there is one major thing missing from that view- The Eiffel Tower itself! No, a much better place to enjoy a slightly more intimate but lofty view from the center of Paris is from the top of l’Arc de Triomphe. One late afternoon we once again
Photo précédente: La Basilique du Sacré-Coeur, Montmartre, 2005 La Couple à la Basilique du Sacré-Coeur, 2005
Trois photos précédente: La Couple à la Basilique du Sacré-Coeur, Montmartre, 2005
Escalier en spirale à l’Arc de Triomphe, 2005
Vue de l’Arc de Triomphe de l’avenue de Champs-Elysée et Tour Eiffel, 2005
climbed the many spiral stairs reaching the top (just to the left of the elevator we had not noticed at street level) to find another beautiful view of the fashionable glittering Avenue des Champs-ElysĂŠes and la Tour Eiffel off to the right across la Seine. Again, we spent hours up there watching the light fade from afternoon to evening and then night, making more photographs as the city began its transformation from the beautiful natural glow of the day to the pretty street lights for the night. Completely wonderful and again inspiring. We spent the next week and a half exploring Paris on foot. Spending long afternoons with the parisiens in the beautiful parks. Le Jardin du Luxembourg and le jardin des Tuileries, all perfectly kept with beautiful lawns for relaxing. Groups of empty parisien green chairs told stories of recent conversations from earlier in the day or the previous evening. I could imagine the discussions between couples or groups of friends by how the chairs had been left. The chairs are disorder in an environment of order. Chaos amid perfection. Life. Paris.
Le jardin des Tuileries, 2005
Le jardin des Tuileries, 2005
The following summer in 2006, I returned to Paris again with M who had now been modeling for me on a regular basis. I had spent the last nine months taking intensive French language classes in Chicago. I was getting good at what I would come to call toddler French. All present tense. But I was told my accent was good. Looking for a more authentic parisien experience this time, I leased an apartment for our visit. An apartment would allow me to photograph M indoors as well as on the streets of Paris. Since I was traveling with a model, it seemed to make sense. It was exciting to be faxing rental documents back and forth with my new Paris landlord prior to the visit. I would have an apartment in Paris, even if for only a few weeks. I would feel much more like a parisien than a tourist. Also by having an apartment, I could browse the local shops in the neighborhood every morning while M was waking up and getting ready for the day. I would also cook many of our meals myself. It became my morning ritual. Stop off at the fruit and vegetable shop first to pick up something to have with our morning coffee and to snack on during our walks. Next, the cheese shop. Then the bread shop for a baguette and pain au chocolat. Finally the wine shop. It was always best to get the shopping done early in the morning to avoid realizing we didn’t have a bottle or two of wine for the balcony that evening after the shops had closed. Tragedy! I wish I could say having a small washer/dryer unit in the apartment meant we could pack lighter this time around, but it was just the opposite. We arrived in Paris with six large suitcases carrying the couture and shoes we planned to photograph M in, as well as all of the camera gear. Definitely not traveling light. Our lovely apartment was on boulevard Saint-Michel in the sixth arrondissement, overlooking le jardin du Luxembourg. And off in the distance from our balcony, la Tour Eiffel. Beautiful. We drank many bottles of French wine on that balcony in the coming weeks, watching le Tour Eiffel change from its familiar golden glow to its glittering strobe lights and back again. On our first evening in Paris we walked across le Seine to le jardin des Tuileries to discover a large carnival had been set up on the north end of le jardin near rue de Rivoli. A huge Ferris Wheel was spinning over the Paris evening and we purchased two tickets to view Paris from this unique vantage point. It was beautiful to see Paris from high above its center, la musée du Louvre off in one direction, Avenue des Champs-Elysées in the other. We had originally planned to begin making our fashion photographs on our first full
day in Paris, but after we settled into our apartment, we both felt we needed to unwind a bit before getting to work. We took a week to relax and find the muse, walking through the streets, me looking for interesting places to shoot that wouldn’t be too obvious. It was good to just watch the light of Paris during July, getting the feel for when the light was good in the morning and evening. The days were long and gave us plenty of time to be inspired before we finally decided to get to work a week later. I photographed M in and around our arrondissement in the couture we had brought along. Sometimes on the streets around our apartment, sometimes in le jardin du Luxembourg and sometimes in our apartment or courtyard. I looked for inspiration in the city. Some days we would work and some days we would just walk or spend time at our local cafés or gardens and soak up our new home for a few weeks. We decided not to force the work. If we had an idea, we’d photograph it. If not, then we’d go explore, looking for the muse. We had brought a lot of couture with us from several designers and it was refreshing to go to the closet when it was time to shoot and select from a nice range of beautiful things. It’s always a challenge to go out on location and work when there are a lot of people nearby. July is high tourist season in Paris and they were everywhere. We began to search out quiet little paths in le jardin de Luxembourg and the small narrow streets around our apartment that would allow us to work without creating too much of a scene. It’s funny, M actually did stop traffic, literally, a few times. The traffic lights turned green and the cars just sat there watching for 30 seconds or longer. No one honks their horns. The parisiens had become the sight-seers. M and I also used the inside of the apartment to create without being distracted by onlookers. At certain times of day, the sun would shine in through the tiny elevator shaft outside of our third floor apartment creating beautiful light to shoot in. Also right outside our apartment door was a beautiful grand winding staircase to use as nice location. A beautiful courtyard downstairs was another place to shoot. And then there was our little balcony. Just enough room for two people and yet another beautiful shooting spot. I believe parisiens look at beauty in a much different way than in other places. The men certainly stop and look. But it’s not leering in a creepy way that I sometimes see in the States. One man on a bike rode past us during one of our shoots and then turned around down the street and rode past us again. But it wasn’t uncomfortable. It’s quick appreciative glances, never staring. Even the younger boys seem to have an unusual level of appreciation and respect for their ages. They took shy hesitant glances our way and quickly averted their eyes. I think
DĂŽner Ă notre appartement, 75 boulevard Saint-Michel, 2006
Photo prĂŠcĂŠdente: Le jardin du Luxembourg, 2006 M portant Agent Provocateur et Patrizia Pepe sur notre balcon au boulevard de Saint-Michel, 2006
M portant une robe par Patrizia Pepe et chaussures par Emillio Pucci Ă le jardin du Luxembourg, 2006
M portant une robe par Patrizia Pepe, 2006
M portant une robe par Patrizia Pepe et chaussures par Giuseppe Zanotti, 2006
Europeans, and most certainly the French, have a much healthier philosophy When it comes to beauty and bodies and fashion and art and how it all is part of living. Since I also spend a lot time creating art involving nudity, it’s been such a refreshing experience once again to be in a country and a city like Paris where the body is not looked at as something to be hidden or ashamed of. I consider myself lucky to have lived in many different cities all over the world in my life and I can usually tell very quickly which ones feel like they fit. I can understand why so many artists have come to Paris to explore their art. I like creating in a city where so much beauty has been created before. When I create art in a place like this I feel a sense of camaraderie with other artists who have inspired me over the years. A community that continues through the years. I’ve felt many times in my life that I was living somewhere that I didn’t really fit in. A bit like an alien. The people around me didn’t get who I was or what I was trying to do. Not that it really mattered I guess. But sometimes it’s a little difficult to be on a different page all of the time. Although maybe it has made me focus more on what I knew to be my own personal truth. And I think ultimately it has been the thing that has made me the happiest in my life. And that’s why Paris makes me so happy as well. It’s a city that inspires me to really remember what is most important to me. It clarifies what I love about my own work. It realigns my priorities in a very pleasant way. Paris reminds me to live. It is easy to find inspiration here. Paris has what I sometimes call, good ghosts. So many photographers that have inspired my work have either lived in or passed through Paris. Man Ray, Robert Doisneau, Eugene Atget, Alexey Brodovitch, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton and of course, the master, Henri Cartier-Bresson. Extremely good ghosts. Walking the same streets as so many photographers I have admired. Unlike American cities, Paris looks much the same as it did one hundred years ago. The names on the shops and the Champs-Elysées storefronts may vary over the years, but so much of the beautiful city remains remarkably unchanged. I could sit in le jardin des Tuileries and look up at the apartment where CartierBresson spent his last years in Paris. Or walk the seedy streets of Montmartre where Man Ray would hire the prostitutes of boulevard de Clichy as subjects for his nude photography. Or sit in a café in the Latin Quarter on le rive gauche, home to the parisien artistic and intellectual community. There is plenty of inspiration to be found around
Cimetière Montmartre, 2006
Cimetière Montmartre, 2006
every corner. We returned to Montmartre and visited the beautiful cemetery there. The ornate graves of so many artists, writers, actors and even photographers who lived and worked in Montmartre remain. Man Ray is buried there, steps away from where he created his inspiring photographs. There was a film crew shooting in the cemetery that day. We kept our distance but stopped and watched them run a scene a few times before moving on. We continued to settle into our parisien way of living in our boulevard Saint-Michel apartment. Occasionally dining out, but enjoying our kitchen just as much and relaxing on the balcony at the end of our shooting days, listening to the sounds coming from le jardin du Luxembourg. Sometimes music, sometimes simply happy parisiens enjoying life. My French was getting good enough that when we did dine out, or visit the local shops I could speak almost exclusively in French, only relying on English if I encountered something that I didn’t know the French word for. But since I had been speaking so much French in every encounter, the parisiens were more than happy to fill in my vocabulary gaps with a new word when necessary. One evening back at our apartment, a thunderstorm lit up the sky as bolts of electricity struck some of the lightning rods affixed on all of the nearby rooftops. In the late 1700s, Benjamin Franklin had brought one of his most famous and useful inventions to Paris, the lightning rod and it was quite fascinating to see with my own eyes, one of the many things that endeared him to the parisien people over 200 years ago. I positioned myself out on our balcony, trying to protect my camera as the rain came down, shooting one second exposures again and again hoping to capture some of the bolts. It was a beautiful sight. On another evening we were treated to the Paris tradition of Friday evening roller bladers taking to the streets. We watched hundreds if not thousands pass by below our boulevard Saint-Michel balcony. Again, watching the beauty of Paris pass by. On our last day, we packed up our ridiculous number of suitcases and headed off in a taxi back to Charles de Gaulle airport. When we arrived however, it soon became clear Air France had overbooked our flight back to the States. I watched some of our fellow American passengers begin to panic, a few beginning to create a bit of a scene. M began to be infected with the anxiety, until I whispered to her not to worry. If we were to be bumped, we would be compensated for it. And besides that, rude and demanding never gets anyone anywhere at an airport. The ticket counter
Deux photos précédente: Cimetière Montmartre, 2006 et Gare du Nord, 2006
Foudre au-dessus de la ville de Paris, 2006
CathĂŠdrale Notre Dame de Paris, 2006
people have very little to do with whether you’ll make it onto a packed plane. They do have the power to make your inconvenience less so, however, as long as you don’t become a problem traveler. Sure enough, after a time, I was directed over to an Air France counter and I approached with a calm smile. After dealing with a dozen of my fellow frenzied and angry passengers, I could tell the woman was relieved when confronted with reasonable. She apologized and told me we would have to return tomorrow for our flight. I told her that was not a problem. Pas un problème, Mademoiselle. When I returned to M, standing guard over our baggage, I presented her with our compensation. Two Air France vouchers, enough for a return round trip to Paris any time as long as the tickets were purchased within the next year. M did very well containing the same shout of joy that I was holding in. A small inconvenience and a free return trip. Proving the old adage that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. We collected our baggage and rolled it out to an Air France van that was to take us to a nearby airport hotel for the night, again courtesy of Air France. A half an hour later we pulled into the driveway of a Holiday Inn Express. Probably as far from a parisien experience as one could imagine. It was a typical cheap airport hotel. We could have been in the middle of Kansas for all we knew. We pushed our half dozen suitcases into our small room, which left very little space to do much of anything else. After staring at each other for a few minutes, it was clear that our little Holiday Inn Express detour was not the way either of us wanted to spend our last 24 hours in Paris. So I went out to the front desk and had them order us a taxi back to Paris proper. With our luggage safely locked away in our tiny room, our taxi arrived and when he asked us where he should take us, M and I looked at leach other for a moment. We hadn’t really thought ahead that far. “Portez-nous à le Louvre, s’il vous plaît,” I said. And we were on our way back to the center of Paris for one additional unplanned evening. We met up with M’s cousin who happened to be in Paris for the day and we all enjoyed wine and cheese on the banks of le Seine for several hours as the sounds of a parisien accordion player wafted overhead from Notre Dame. Later that night, satisfied with our bonus evening in Paris, we walked to a taxi stand and took it back to Kansas, or rather, the Holiday Inn Express, all the while knowing we had free Air France tickets back to Paris for another time.
Another time turned out to be the Spring of 2008. I returned alone on this visit, renting a small apartment from my familiar landlord, this time in Le Marais on rive droite in the fourth arrondissement. 33 rue du Roi de Sicile was a studio apartment, a few blocks from the iconic Hôtel de Ville. Not as luxurious as my apartment on Boulevard Saint-Michel the previous trip, but plenty good. I didn’t arrive with a specific photography plan, but regardless, I knew it would be more about the work on this visit. I was determined to come back with at least two dozen really good photographs. The trick about beating jet lag traveling from the States to Europe is to try to stay up the first day you arrive. Planes usually leave from the U.S. in the late afternoon or evening and fly across the northern Atlantic Ocean through the night, arriving in Europe early the following morning about nine hours later. If you’re one of the fortunate ones, you can sleep on the plane and wake up refreshed. For the rest of us, we arrive without sleeping much at all. It’s tempting to drop your bags when you arrive at your hotel and fall face first into your bed and sleep through the first day, your body fighting to stay on its normal clock. But if you can manage to stay up for at least most of the day and wait until it gets dark before retiring, you’re well on your way to resetting your body clock for the duration of your visit. This time, I had work assignments right up to the day I flew to Paris and was already exhausted when I sat down in my comfortable (and free!) Air France seat. And even though I usually have difficulty sleeping on a plane, I felt sure I’d be out like a light long before we were out over the Atlantic. No such luck. And when I arrived at my little apartment in le Marais, I decided not to fight it. I pulled the blinds and drifted off to a deep, much needed sleep. It would set my schedule for the rest of my stay in Paris. When I woke up, I decided to give myself the assignment of photographing Paris at Night. Paris Foncé. Dark Paris. And so my odd sleep schedule continued. I would do my usual food shopping at the small corner grocer below my apartment when I got up for the day around three in the afternoon. I would make myself breakfast or late lunch or early dinner, whatever you want to call it and head out with my camera around seven in the evening. As in the past, I would usually pick a direction and set out on foot looking for interesting photographs to make. Paris is a great walking city no matter the hour. I would keep shooting until I felt I had a few good photographs, usually not returning back to my
CathĂŠdrale Notre Dame de Paris, 2008
apartment until about three in the morning. Shooting exclusively digitally now, I would back up my memory cards from the night onto two hard drives, do a bit of editing to see what I had and then turn in for the night just as the city was beginning to come to life again around seven in the morning. Since I had been traveling to Europe as often as I had been the last few years, I usually hold onto any unused Euros knowing I will be back soon to use them the next trip. A few days into my trip, however, I noticed I was getting a little low on the Euros I had brought with me to Paris and decided to head to the ATM or Distributeur Automatique de Billets as they are known in France. However, about a week before I left the States for Paris, I had attended a lovely farewell dinner with some good friends. On the way home, after having a bit too much wine, I stopped at my neighborhood ATM to take out some cash to use in the days before I left for France. Unfortunately, I took the cash but neglected to take my card out of the machine which I discovered the next morning. Never bank while intoxicated. I called my bank who assured me they would rush me a new card before I left for Paris. It never came. They have since gone out of business. Coincidence? Perhaps. But I did have a debit card from a sister account that I could transfer money to and use if I needed to, so I left for Paris thinking everything was well. Back in Paris, I walked up to the Distributeur Automatique, inserted my card and typed in my PIN. Incorrect, said the machine. I tried again. Incorrect. Knowing that some banking machines will confiscate your card after three bad attempts, I cancelled the transaction and walked away. Hmmm. It’s true I rarely used that card. Perhaps I had forgotten the PIN. This was turning into a potential problem. I had thirteen days left on my trip and €80 in my pocket. Subtracting the amount of the train ticket back to the airport, I figured if I didn’t manage to get any more cash for the rest of my stay, I would be on a budget of a little more than €5 a day. Difficult if not impossible in Paris. Was it my PIN or something else? I decided to put it out of my head for the moment and continue making photographs. I walked along le Seine toward le Tour Eiffel hoping to make some photos from Place de Trocadéro across the river from the Tower. I knew I would be in for a wait because anywhere near le Tour Eiffel is usually filled with tourists. It had been raining on and off
Trois photos précédente: Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, 2008 Rue des Mauvaise Garçons, 2008 Avenue des Champs-Elysées, 2008
La Tour Eiffel à Place de Trocadéro, 2008
La Tour Eiffel à Place de Trocadéro, 2008
during the day and the sky was still full of heavy clouds. Rather perfect considering my mood about my money situation. Yet beautiful. I waited about a half an hour for the a proper people-less moment and made a few good photographs from the lower level before moving higher up where bus loads of tourists were constantly arriving. But I am a patient photographer and I knew it was just a matter of time before I found an empty enough frame to make my exposure. In the meantime, what was left of the sun had set and the lights began to come on against the still threatening sky, resulting in yet another beautiful yet slightly ominous view of the famous icon. It took about another hour to wait for a sufficient parting of the crowds for a moment, but I finally had my photograph and headed away from the throngs to take a break at a small café and have a thrifty dinner. But I continued to be concerned about my cash situation. I decided the first thing I needed to do the next day was to find out if I was remembering my PIN properly. Fortunately for me, many people work at my photo studio back in Chicago and some of those people have keys. I texted one of them to find out if she could look in one of my file cabinets to retrieve the letter I had originally received from my bank telling me what my PIN was. Within a few hours I had my answer. I had transposed two numbers. The machine was correct. My poor jet-lagged memory. My bank card was fine. But not before word got out among some colleagues back in the States that I might be in the midst of a financial challenge. The next thing I knew, I had several emails from them that they had wired me some emergency money, just in case. It’s wonderful to have good people watching your back. Never take them for granted. Team Billy. Now with the money situation resolved, I could once again focus on my midnight photography adventures. And also begin eating again after my brief self imposed money and food rationing. I began to make mental notes of when the lights came on and when they turned off just before midnight at some of the more famous buildings, such as le musée du Louvre. For those I would have to arrive fairly early in the night to photograph them the way I had envisioned. Others such as l’Opéra de Paris were illuminated all night. Le Tour Eiffel, until two in the morning. L’Hôtel du Louvre and l’Hôtel Regina, all night. I planned out my schedule for the remaining night walks, timing out everything I wanted to photograph, but leaving room for the unexpected as well. If everything is too planned out, you’ll miss something in the process.
Trois photos précédente: L’Opéra de Paris, 2008 L’Hôtel du Louvre, 2008 La musée du Louvre, 2008
Pont des Arts, 2008
Interprètes du Feu à le musée d’Art Moderne, 2008
For instance during one walk along le Seine, I noticed that at Pont des Arts near le musée du Louvre, it was always full of crowds of parisiens talking, laughing and hanging out in the early evening hours through well past midnight. I made two separate trips to Pont des Arts, one close to midnight after the lights turned off on the beautiful Fondation Kenza – Institut de France on the south side of le Seine. I returned several days later a little earlier to make a photograph before eleven in the evening when the lights were still on. I decided the better photograph was when the lights were off on la Foundation Kenza because it didn’t draw attention away from the crowd of people on Pont des Arts, which was more interesting photographically to me. Sometimes you have to try a few things to see what works best. On another walk along le Seine on Avenue de New York one evening I heard the distinctive deep beat of music. As I approached le musée d’Art Moderne, I discovered one of the shallow reflecting pools was empty and inside of it were a group of fire performers spinning staves with fire at both ends. I sat near the edge for about a half an hour enjoying the show, one performer trying to outdo the others before continuing my walk. An amazing thing to happen upon. Close to the end of my visit, I felt I had reached my goal of at least two dozen good photographs and decided to take the last two days off from shooting and relax a bit. I forced myself to get to bed before the sun came up so I could be awake before noon to spend a little time in the beautiful April Paris sun. I headed toward one of my favorite places to relax, le jardin du Luxembourg, sat in one of the familiar green chairs, closed my eyes and let the sun wash over my face that had seen precious little sunlight on this trip. I suddenly became aware of voices speaking French very nearby and noticed I was suddenly in the middle of one of those familiar discussion groups. I had chosen a chair in the middle of about eight chairs and suddenly they were all full of young parisiens chatting away. I said Bonjour and they returned the greeting and continued with their discussion, only some of which I could make out. My French was still not good enough to follow an animated group discussion. But it was nice to be out in the middle of life in Paris. I decided to walk back across le Seine toward my apartment to have dinner out in my arrondissement for a change when I stopped in the middle of one of my favorite bridges in Paris, Pont Neuf near Notre Dame. Even though the day was supposed to be a relaxing one, I of course had my camera with me and decided to make a picture from Pont Neuf looking west down le Seine toward the afternoon sun. I was getting ready to compose the photograph when I noticed
someone suddenly rushing past me. Before I knew what was happening, a young woman in her late twenties had run from the street behind me, across the walkway and had jumped over the wall of Pont Neuf about two or three meters away from me into le Seine. Time seemed to stop as I watched her descend toward the river below. She hit the water more or less feet first and went completely under. I quickly turned to see if anyone else on Pont Neuf had seen what I had just witnessed. There were a few people on the bridge, but no one seemed to be paying attention. And no one was as close to where the woman had jumped as I was. Should I jump in after her? Should I call 911? Wait, do they even have 911 in Paris? It’s probably some other series of numbers. Why isn’t anyone doing anything?!! Should I leave my camera bag on the bridge and jump in after her? Should I jump in with my camera and ruin it? Does she need help? Does she even want my help? Before I could ask myself any more questions, she surfaced and we made eye contact. She had a pained sad look in her eyes. I’ll never forget it. It was a look that suggested not that she was in pain, but more that she still was here. Whatever it was she was trying to escape from, she had failed. If she had been trying to kill herself, it hadn’t worked. Pont Neuf and many of the bridges in Paris are just too low to the water to hurt a person jumping off of them unless they hit the water just so. She hadn’t. She began to drift in the current away from me, quickly westward down le Seine. She seemed to be physically okay, but I could hear her begin to yell in the distance. Not for help as much as in anger or frustration. Within a minute or two a police boat arrived and pulled her out of the water to live at least one more day. I stood there shaking. I hadn’t moved an inch. Had I done the right thing not going in after her? I wondered if she had surfaced unconscious if I would have done something different. I’ll never know. I looked out at the beautiful view before me. It could have been the last thing she ever saw. Even though I was still a little shaky from the experience, I decided to make the photograph I had planned to anyway. If for nothing else, to remind myself that sometimes as beautiful a world as you live in, even in a city such as Paris, sometimes you just can’t see past the pain. I look at that photograph now and I wonder how she is. I hope she is okay. I hope she has found some peace in Paris. I walked back to my apartment, went out for dinner and tried to think of something else.
Le Seine Ă Pont Neuf, 2008
Place de la Concorde, 2008
L’Hôtel de Ville, 2008
Photo précédente: Le jardin des Tuileries, 2008
L’Hôtel Regina, 2008
The next morning I woke up fairly early. It would be my last full day in Paris before I returned home the next day. I decided that I would relax, really relax on my last day, until I looked out my window and saw the most amazing billowing clouds low in the sky. I chuckled to myself as I grabbed my camera and my backpack and headed out into the mysteriously beautiful Paris day knowing I couldn’t pass this up. A photographer never really takes a day off. I headed back to le Seine as the clouds continued to form in the most amazing ways. The light was so unusual - and beautiful. I walked along the banks sometimes laying down on my stomach on the damp cobblestones as they reflected the light. I continued to walk, making photographs as I paused along the river bank. I knew they would be dramatic images. Finally after an afternoon of shooting, I felt I had what I had hoped for and enjoyed one last dinner before packing everything away for my trip back to the States. I had most certainly made a greater number of compelling photographs than was my initial goal. I know I’ve become a part of a city like Paris when someone comes up to me on the street and asks for directions in French. I consider it the highest compliment. It truly makes my day. Not only do I look like I belong here, but that I must appear to be someone who is approachable and able to help out when necessary. “Où est le Centre Pompidou? Ah, oui. Tout droit un demi- kilomètre, alors tourne a gauche, continuez pendant deux minutes, et voila ! Centre Pompidou ! “Where is the Pompidou Center? Ah, yes. Straight ahead one half kilometer, then turn left, continue for two minutes and there it is! Pompidou Center!” Not bad for an American in Paris. On the final morning I woke to a gentle rain and decided to treat myself to a taxi ride back to the airport. I had worked hard on this trip. I saw many unusual and unexpected things in Paris this time around. I deserved an easy taxi ride rather than carrying my bags to le Métro and then the RER train back to the airport. “Bonjour Monsieur. Charles de Gaulle, s’il vous plait.” The driver and I spoke in French at first, until he told me he was learning English and wanted to practice with me. We began speaking about the various arrondissements we were driving through and he asked me how to say arrondissement in English. I told him it literally translated to district in English, but we normally used the word neighborhood to describe sections of a city. Neigh-bor-hood, he repeated a few times.
Photo précédente: Pont Neuf, 2008
Le Seine entre Pont Neuf et Pont des Arts, 2008
I told him, “Je suis photographe.” I am a photographer. And we talked more about my work and what I had been photographing in Paris. He asked me if I had a card he could see. I gave him one of my business cards with my website on it. He liked the photographs of the nude women on both sides. He commented on how I brought out the beauty of a woman. It was a nice compliment. Sometimes I think I would be better understood as an artist if I lived in Paris. His mobile rang. It was his wife and he asked if he could take the call. “Mais bien sur !” I responded. But of course! After the call we returned to our conversation. Traffic was slow in the rain, but I was early and in no hurry to leave my Paris. He told me in addition to driving a taxi, he was also a musician and had studied under an American guitar teacher, whose name I sadly cannot recall. We talked more about art and music and how neither of us was getting rich doing it. And neither of us really cared. “Who needs to be the richest one in the cemetery?” he asked. He was right. Doing what you love in life is far more important than doing something just for the money. I know it keeps me younger than my years. He too gave me his card, and told me to call him when I returned to Paris and he would be happy to drive me around while I was there and have coffee or dinner. When we arrived at the airport, I paid him as he opened the trunk to help me get my bags out and I told him to wait a second before driving off. I unzipped one of my bags and pulled out one of my photography portfolio books. Before I accidentally turned into a nocturnal photographer on this trip, I had planned to take my book around to a few galleries and leave a few behind to get some feedback on my work. I handed one to my new friend who tried to refuse it, saying it was too much. I told him it would make me happy to know my photography was in Paris, even if it was simply on his coffee table or a bookshelf. Really. It would make me happy for him to have it. We shook hands, said Au revoir, and I promised to call him when I returned. I checked in at the Air France desk and headed toward the security check, placing my bags on the x-ray belt. I was waved over to one of the agents, a beautiful, impeccably uniformed woman sitting at a small table. We exchanged Bonjours and she spoke to me in French telling me to open my bag. She pulled out a full unopened can of Orangina I had meant to drink on the way to the airport. “Je suis désolé. J’oublie.” I am sorry. I forget. I still hadn’t mastered French past
Le Conciergerie, 2008
Pont Alexandre III, 2008
tense. I told her she could have it if she was thirsty. She looked around and whispered that she would love to have it but she was not allowed to take anything from a passenger even though she was indeed a bit thirsty. “Ah, oui, “ I responded, “Je comprends.” I understand. She told me I could drink it there and I popped the top and began to chug it all down. “No, no,” she laughed. “Lentement.” Slowly. I was running out of French and didn’t want to get her into trouble. So in English, I offered to proceed through security and bring her back a cup of coffee if she wished. “Oh, that is very kind of you, but it is not allowed,” she said as she smiled. “Okay,” I said as I zipped my bag back up. “Merci. Au revoir. Bon journée.” “Bon voyage,” she said. And I was on my way to my gate.
Être à Paris est facille. To be in Paris is easy. It’s the leaving I find difficult.
L’Arc de Triomphe, 2008
About my cameras: From 1993 through 2005 I always traveled with my Nikon F3 35mm film camera, made in 1983. My first photographs of Paris were made with that camera. Shortly after, my travels abroad also included my 1969 Hasselblad 500c medium format film camera that I still use on occasion to this day. In 2005, I took the F3 back to Paris, but was joined by Nikon’s poor first attempt at a digital SLR camera, the D100. I found I returned with few digital images I was happy with during that trip to Paris. The photographs from my film negatives were so much better. I used the D100 for less than a year before finally giving up and selling it. It was the first camera I ever bought new or used that I knew right away would not be with me for years, unlike my film cameras. By 2006, I had switched my digital loyalty to Canon. At the time, they were running circles around Nikon as far as digital was concerned. With the new Canon 5D, I was learning to make digital photographs that I felt could finally compare to my film work. But not ready to abandon my film just yet, I also brought my Hasselblad to Paris that year. Just in case. Today my F3 doesn’t get much use although the Hasselblad gets a roll of film run though it once in a while if I feel I have something special happening during a photoshoot. I shoot almost exclusively now with the Canon 5D Mark II and occasionally the 5D if I need a second body at a concert or a very fast moving event with no time to switch lenses. In addition to shooting stills with the 5D Mark II, I also use it to shoot motion when I’m called on to direct something in HD video. It’s the first motion camera I’ve used that shoots moving digital images with the same look as my still images. More like digital film than video. It’s the reason I have pursued directing in addition to my still photography work. I look forward to returning to the City of Light to explore what it’s like to be in motion... in Paris.
Billy Sheahan is a world traveling independent still photographer, film editor, director and writer, based in Chicago. His 20 year career in the visual arts as a photographer and commercial film editor eventually led advertising clients to request him as a director, feeling his unique experience of great composition and finding the perfect moment as a film editor was a brilliant combination. Sheahan has a strong visual style concentrating on the beauty of the world, be it the man made urban canyons of his native Chicago, the grandeur of the great European cities or the simple curves of a woman. Sheahan continues to focus his well trained eye on commercial, fine art, travel, fashion, people photography and motion projects for advertising and commercial clients as well as fine art photography collectors. In the rare moments when he is not shooting and editing, Sheahan is currently writing about his photography travels and adventures over the last two decades for a forthcoming autobiography/photography book. Photography clients include Leo Burnett, A. Eicoff & Company, Colman Brohan Davis, Hallmark, Philip Morris International, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s, Clear Wireless, and the Penford Corporation. Sheahan is a member of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) and the Association of Independent Creative Editors (AICE).
Inset photograph of Billy Sheahan by Tom Dernulc