Week 8: It was a beautiful sunny day in winter. Not a single cloud could be seen over Paris. In Luxembourg, the trees and bushes were bare of leaves. At the south end of the park, I saw this:
Taking this, I had a certain photographic reference in my mind’s eye. ..
Week number 7: snow still lay on the ground in Paris. I went out for a walk with some of Film Ferrania’s wonderful P30 film loaded in my camera. In fact it was my last roll of P30 (since then, more went on sale briefly through Maco, but I hestiated, and missed buying it).
Yes, this photograph looks like a postcard. In fact, I went to our photo-lab, printed it out, stuck it to some card and voila !
I sent it to a relative, who much appreciated it. It turns out that in the old days, (1920s) a lot of people did this — photographs were printed onto card and then sent as postcards. It’s fun!
Technical note: I processed my roll using D96, and I think it looks good! Better than the other developers that I used before. Processing P30 is a hot topic over on Emulsive.
And so the snow fell. I walked around Paris, shot a few rolls of film, but the best photograph I have was taken near where I work, in the main building of l’Observatoire de Paris.
In front of the main building there is a statue of Urbain Le Verrier. Here you can see him, through the front door of the Observatory, lightly dusted by snow.
Now we are into some deep bad weather. Overcast skies, rain. I went to the Musée Bourdelle one rainy Saturday afternoon and thought, well I can photograph inside. I was lucky! I found this photograph. There is a photographic connection in all of this, by the way: Berenice Abbot came to Paris to study sculpture with Bourdelle. But she met Man Ray, and then abandoned Bourdelle. Then she met Atget and abandoned Man Ray!
The Musée Bourdelle is one of the less-well known Parisian museums but it certainly worth a visit. There is a beautiful small garden inside and entry, and one can visit the sculptor’s workshops. Entry is free.