New York classics

Yes, this is a classic. As I was noticing before, some things don't change in New York. The subway, we just saw that. But these street food shops have been the same for decades. Why ? Probably because this is a pragmatic country. Why change things that work ? And by the fact that they are now landmark of the city landscape, you don't want them to change. It would be very different in Paris for instance. If such shops were allowed in the streets, they would be either very modern, designed by one of those fashionable designers, or they would be deliberately "old style" like the merry go round at the bottom of the Eiffel tower. They would look tacky, because false. And they probably would change every few years, in order to comply to new regulations making them controlled by some crazy administration… But here, we are in New York, and we are happy to see these illuminated carts. I have to admit never having bought any food from them… and never liked the smell they exhale.

New York noise

Underneath the big Apple now, since those steam tube make it a temptation. It is not like the metro in Paris. It is more "technical"… more pragmatic maybe. It seems rough. The efficiency is there and there is a little bit of decoration on the walls of the stations. And it has not changed for ages. That's what I like about this city : layers of time with no desire to hide the past. Same for the architecture in the streets, where you find the most modern constructions in between some remnants of the old life. This is the charm of New York. They keep their traditions. If things are efficient, no need to change them or camouflage them with a coat of modernity, like you can find in Paris. To go back down in the subway the big difference with the Paris metro is the noise level, which borders on the unbearable. But one positive thing : it works all night, where public transportation disappears in Paris around 1 AM. 

New York Mystery

I am in New York at the moment so the mood is very different. I have always wondered why at times the streets of this huge city breathe out impressive amounts of steam. It seems like the pavements exhales a surplus of energy. As if there was not enough going on all the time, night included. I have seen these striped chimneys at work in the day, but it is much more exciting at night. I wonder what kind of underground life is happening there. The subway is already frightening enough, what else is there ? Night photography is tempting in New York. I should also record the noise. Paris is as silent as a church during the dark hours. Not New York. Maybe this picture illustrates the kind of constant vibrations that occurs in Manhattan. I mean real vibrations that can shake you physically. I will have to dig in my library to put more pictures of this fabulous place since I broke my Leica yesterday, shortly after having taken this photograph. I feel lost without this extension of my hand that I have been carrying most of the time. Hopefully I will get it repaired…

Paris church

Two things I like when I enter a church : it is silent and cool. Here we are in Paris but I recently saw a sign at the door of a church in Venice. I unfortunately forgot the exact sentence, but it meant to keep silent to respect the mystery happening in such a place. I don't know if there is any mystery here in this Paris church but it certainly is cool. Literally cool. Good if it is summer. At least you know that you can find a fresh space at walking distance if you are wandering in the highly polluted streets on a hot day. But beware. Don't expect warmth in the winter. A church remains as cool if not even cold when it is freezing outside. And do not trust the appalling modern posters decorating both sides of the entrance to any catholic church telling the joy of faith and the warmth the community of church goers is supposed to bring. Most of the time these prayer lovers will keep silent. As instructed. Thank God… 

Transition

The reason for the previous picture is this one. They have nothing in common. Except one cloud that disturbs the rest of the image. At least for me. Maybe other lookers would give it no importance. As a matter of fact, the subject was more the Buren columns in the Palais Royal in Paris. But digging a little bit more, it was not this interesting piece of art at all. It was the man and the little girl playing in the middle of the striped columns. So one could say I completely missed the photograph. I will admit that if I had tried to only frame the man and the little girl, it would have been a totally boring shot. It probably is the balance of contrast that initiated my finger action. Maybe the shadow pattern on the palissade… The result is that I mainly see a single small cloud in a blue sky. Which is not true. In fact there are several clouds. Well you can't win every time ! And at least, we are back in Paris.

London bus

The bus… I'm coming back to the Goodsway, NW1, a street that seems to have disappeared from today's London maps. Don't forget this was over 40 years ago. And the bus seems the wrong color. Too light for the red. I definitely must have used a red filter on this one. That was the time dark skies on black and white pictures seemed to be a necessity. More drama, more snap. So the grey values are completely changed and the bus looks more beige than red. In fact what attracts me in this old analog negative is the cloud. London skies are supposed to be flat and here we have a white cloud jumping out of a dark sky that was of course of a blue absorbed by the red filter. One single cloud amidst a bus, a couple of huge gas tanks, and this is the reason why I did chose to include this image. 

London scene

People ! Most of the pictures shown here are empty of people. Would it mean that I don't like people ? Sometimes I wonder what prompts me to choose empty city landscapes. Maybe that's how I feel : alone and isolated. Especially in the middle of places where there are a lot of human beings. I don't have this feeling in a desert. I probably need a visit to a head doctor… But this time, there is a concentration of people. And not any kind of people. The Salvation Army. This is it ! I needed to be salvaged. And I am lucky, there is a majority of women concentrated in this weird building. Actually, it is quite frightening. These women seem to be very disciplined… and determined. And are these legs interesting ? Because this is what attracts the eye in the frame. This is certainly the reason why I pressed the shutter button about forty years ago. And as you can see, the only man in the scene is looking at…the ladies' legs. There is one thing I do not remember : what is behind the sliding door in the background. After all, maybe we are not in London. Maybe we are in some kind of suburb. I am leaving. They are about to start singing.

London colors

Colors…When I mentioned colors in the last post, I had a vision of the British city in my head dated from when I was twelve years old and was sent during the summer in a family to learn the language. One of the first things I noticed then was that, compared to Paris, London was a colorful urban landscape. The red busses of course, the red public telephone booths, but also the street signs were bright vivid colors in the middle of a grey and brown architecture. Paris is not as colorful. It is in fact quite subdued. And you would never see in the French Capital a strong yellow palissade. Another typical English character is the graphic use of typography, much more daring than in France. And also most of the time very efficient and beautiful. So here we are, in one of those bleak London streets, crossed by strong graphic signs. White lines on the road, yellow stripe, and a green bridge. It seems like all this is meant to compensate the rather flat light and the impression that, without these bold colors, it would reflect the kind of boring feeling the atmosphere of this city gives me. In fact I like this boring feeling, it gives me a sense of continuity…

London and the colors

Why am I putting such a picture on this blog ? If you look at it carefully, nothing is happening. Well there is the guy cleaning the wheel of the car on the right side. But that does not make a picture. Although it is quite weird. We are at the corner of two streets. It does not look like a garage, or a car wash place. So it seems out of place and alone that could be a reason. But to me, it is not. No, I have to wonder why I took this shot, and then why I selected it. And I think I may know. It looks like the background of a movie scene when nothing has happened yet. It seems fake. It looks as if the set designer had no time to prepare the scene. Or he did not know what he was doing. The building in the rear attracts all my attention and I can't say why. It is not the street art, although it makes a nice touch of green. Maybe it is the windows… In fact, what I think made me press the shutter is that the scene is full. It sorts of fills the frame from top to bottom. And it is colorful, maybe because of the low sun. And this rare in a city like London. 

London: a matter of contrast

We jump up forty years and this is contemporary London. Still the same area, just across the Eurostar station, St Pancras. Things have changed. We could be anywhere. London, Paris, what difference does it make when you eat junk food ? But the difference is also visual. Here I am using a digital camera, almost no grain. Everything seems sharp although it is shot at night. That would have been very difficult with film. High speed color Ektachrome was not so good. Color balance was very approximative. Negative film might have been slightly more satisfying, but anyway, I don't think I would have even thought of shooting at night unless I used a tripod. And that would have made the picture decision entirely different. Here, I passed in front of this place and somehow made a snapshot in just a fast gesture. Not even thinking that it would not work. So the contrast between the film photographs taken in the 70's is significant of not only a change in society, but also a change in the technical tools, which induces a change in subjects to be considered for a picture. Is it any better, more interesting ? I have no answer. One thing is certain : I would never go into such a place for food, even if I were hungry. 

London gone two

This part of London does not exist anymore. But…apparently these huge gas holders have become some kind of historical landmark and one is being preserved and even restored. Forty years ago, walking along this street was not very common. In fact, I don't think I have ever met another pedestrian when I was going home this way. I can see parking marks on the right side so people must have stopped their cars here to walk …where ? Today, this area has been replaced by modern glass buildings. The way itself might even have disappeared, replaced by a new layout of street to access the buildings. I liked this area, situated right in the middle of the city, behind St Pancras railway station, which is today the door to the Continent. Brickwalls, steel girders, empty streets gave this way to the North of London a very specific look. Great for wide angle photography, initiated by the great Bill Brandt, and made easily available by ultra wide focal lengths like the 24 mm, the 20 mm, and even the fabulous Nikkor 15mm, which I could not afford at the time but was a dream lens. Optical technology has evolved so much in the last four decades that all this is now an acknowledged way of seeing urban landscapes. In the 70's, I was walking around wo find suitable places to use these wide lenses. And this one seems to have worked.

London in the 70's

London in the 70's

It looks like a shop window, some antiques place in Portobello Road. But from what I can remember, it is the interior of a house. As a nosy photographer, I could not miss taking a picture. It felt again like one of those dark English novels of the late 19th Century. I was almost expecting an old man in a dressing gown, smoking a pipe going to the drink cabinet for a glass of whisky. It could of course be the premisses of a murder. Maybe the man had just killed his mistress and was expecting some help to dispose of the body. There is a technical glitch in this photograph that makes it look like an ancient picture : the lack of contrast. The dark areas are not really black. An old print ? No, since it was taken from the street, the reflection of the outside light gives this impression. On the top left corner, the actual reflection of a car and a wall betrays the photographer. And in fact, the only reason why you can see the inside is the shadow of my head. I have been trying in vain to see how I looked when I was young…

London gone

To stay in the same city and a similar ambiance, here is a picture taken more than 40 years ago when I was living in London. Actually, my basement flat was not far from this gloomy street, between King's Cross railway station and Camden Town. I don't remember if I was depressed when I shot this. All I can say is that I was doing a lot of walking at the time and I was fascinated by this huge town that was so different from Paris. Many areas where like this street and if you now go to Google Earth and look at the same street today, Penryn St, NW1, you will see how some places have been "gentrified". Not that such an area was originally a poor area when you see the way the houses were designed with these imposing columns underlining the entrance. It has regained its looks and the cars parked are no more derelict Volkswagen Combis. This is of course analog film and the grain is visible. I was probably experimenting a wide angle lens, a Nikkor 24mm, to be exact. and I certainly used a red filter to darken the sky, increasing at the same time the overall contrast.  

London rainy night two

Here we are again in London… I don't know if I would want to enter this church. It used to be that a church was a refuge for any person in danger. The priest would have welcomed you and hidden you from  whoever was pursuing you, even the police ! Things have changed, and now, when I see such a building in London, I cannot avoid to think about Ambrose Chapel where Hitchcock sent James Stewart and Doris Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much. What would happen in this place if I rang the bell at night to try to hide from… let's say the rain. Probably nothing. I would have to blame myself for not having taken an umbrella. Now why did I take this picture ? I was walking fast to my hotel and It suddenly struck me that I was not in a movie set. It was real, although it gave me this impression of not being in my own life, but somewhere in between a movie script and a fuzzy feeling of emptiness. The kind of situation where the mind is drifting from one thing to another and you end up losing the sense of reality. I took my camera to get back where I was, in a London street, just out of the train from Paris. 

London rainy night

Yes it is different from the last rainy night shot. Street lights, pavement, architecture. This is definitely not Paris. Here we are expecting the Werewolf anytime. No more smog in London, but it is almost missing here. This has a Sherlock Holmes atmosphere. A crime has been committed somewhere… Why do I have this feeling ? Maybe there is a coat of literature above what is after all a very uncharacteristic street bend. What gives an identity to a picture ? Probably what we want it to be. Our imagination and our accumulation of memories dictates an interpretation of what we see. The previous Paris night picture was for me very plain. It was home. The neighborhood, the streets around my place. Here, in London, there is some kind of excitement of not being home. I have known this city for a very long time, but it remains exotic to me. It may even affect the way I take the picture. Maybe I positioned myself to have this heavy atmosphere of a London that doesn't exist any more. I probably chose the focal length to enhance the emptiness of this passage. 

Paris rainy night

This is my metro station in Paris. As you probably can see, it could not be in any other city. You can appreciate the typical stone apartment buildings, the street lighting, the type of trees, even the pavement… But there is one special mark that is missing : the very special Paris sky. This is strange. Every city has its own type of sky. The clouds are different, the softness of the sun changes the architecture. Even in an old painting, you can identify the light of Paris. Of course, at night, the game is different. But still, the identity of the city is always strong. Maybe I should go to some other places, just to prove it. It is time to broaden the subject. There will still be pictures of Paris in this blog, but I might venture to some other towns…

Paris Montparnasse

This is not the Gare Montparnasse that everybody uses to go to the West of France. No passengers here. I have to admit that even I could not get in the depths of this part of the station. What does happen there, I don't know. Probably nothing special… But I find this ramp quite inspiring. It gives the impression that it is a reserved way for important people, one that would by-pass the crowd, the noise of the station hall, one that would give you access to a highly exclusive luxury car, with thick carpets, lampshades on the tables lining the windows, a sort of Orient-Express for the West. Great Bordeaux wines would be served, since the trains to this city start from Montparnasse. It would bring me back to the times of the Hitchcock trains, full of weird characters running along the corridors. Unless it was the Hitchcock Railway sung by Joe Cocker. I have never understood the connection there… 

Paris tomorrow

Worst than the vision of Jacques Tati in his wonderful films of the 60's. This is a "newly" developed area of the "city of light". Thanks to plastic bags, there are a few sparks of color in this welcoming and happy environment. The green trash bags look like giant used condoms. Who knows, what is left inside might be the seeds of a bright future ? Everybody in Paris is well aware that these remnants of happy moments are in fact here to protect the population from fear. There was a time when what was left in the trashcans of the city could not be seen and it might have resulted in tragic situations. Today, everything in our societies must be transparent. Maybe this is why we have more and more glass buildings. There is one at the right end of the picture. The funny thing about these so called modern constructions is that they are not see-through, they act in fact like mirrors, reflecting what is left of free space in the streets and obstructing the important things occurring inside. Sometimes, there is an empty space, like the one being crossed by the busy man with the colored plastic bags, probably containing processed food for his TV dinner…

Paris movie set

Is it a real street or a movie set ? I imagine everything behind the camera. A huge team of very competent persons waiting for the word : Action ! And all this in real rain. They planned fake rain, but everything had to be changed at the last moment since it was really pouring. The actors are waiting under a tent, last touch of preparation by the stylist. The director is so worried that he wanders around, drenched because he has no umbrella. The sound team had to wrap the microphones with special protection and they already know a lot of post-production will be necessary to correct this. Everybody is hungry. The catering has not been organized for a rainy set, so it will be a problem. The actress is getting cold and starts coughing. But the location is unique, far better than a studio set. It is not really in Paris, just in a near suburb, but that will do for this period film. Well it is a good thing I was imagining all this agitation, because walking through this street alone at night was a bit scary and I had yet another twenty minutes before getting to the metro station. I'll remember this street for a scene in my next shooting…

Paris staircase again

This is the third time I show the way to the entrails of Paris. I am not obsessed by going underground. But this one is really deep. We are Porte des Lilas and I don't recommend running down those stairs. It's a question of rhythm. You miss a beat and off you roll…maybe not in one piece once you reach the bottom. There are not many stations that deep in this city. Not like Washington DC or London. The interesting thing here is that there is no "wide angle" distorsion. I used a standard 50mm lens, which gives a better idea of the depth. Where are we going when we take this way ? At the beginning, it is quite frightening and gives all sorts of odd feelings. But in the end you are in a very standard Paris subway station. It could be anyone of the 302 stops of the city métropolitain network. We are in the standardized city belly, dating from the early 20th Century. White bezeled tiles all over. And I like it. It has become so familiar that in fact the fear is reversed. What are we going to find above ? An unknown Quartier ? A broken down familiar area that is changing so fast it has become a foreign place ? Or my usual streets that I don't even see anymore, blinded by habit ? This is the kind of apprehension I have when I step out of a métro station in Paris.