A Paris Neighborhood Close-Up: Place des Abbesses

Welcome to Paris Play's first slideshow post.

While I was traveling last week, tracing my mother's ancestral roots in Norway (more on that to come), Richard was in a five-day photography workshop presented here in Paris by Magnum Photos and its legendary photographer Patrick Zachmann.

One fruit of Richard's labors, a six-minute-and-thirty-second slide show, which you can watch by clicking the link below.

In Richard's words:

Patrick Zachmann’s assignment for me: to discover one small piece of Paris for four days, with one camera (Nikon D7000) and one lens (10-24 zoom).

I chose Place des Abbesses, in a working‐class but gentrifying neighborhood on the slope of Montmartre, with its own chaos‐causing tourist attraction, the Je t'aime wall; its resident homeless population; a slew of buskers; and its cafés and shops to service all.

Please click to enjoy our Place des Abbesses slideshow.

Autumn in August

Isn’t it strange how you set out to look for something, and you find something else?

Richard and I rarely decide ahead of time to write about and photograph a theme, unless it’s a scheduled event, like a parade. Otherwise we stumble upon our subjects. Serendipity, or whatever you want to call it.

But yesterday, we thought we’d go to our local market, and show you how it’s done in France. We arrived at the market on rue Mouffetard an hour after it opened. While it’s usually thronged, there was almost no one there. How odd. A few vendors had set up shop. But there were almost no buyers.

Why? We noticed that a funeral had begun in St.-Medard, the fifteenth-century church right where rue Mouffetard begins. Perhaps people didn’t want to mix life-giving food with death. There was a hearse parked between a vegetable stand and the church. Flowers being stacked in front of the church entrance. But no market, if market implies both buyers and sellers.

Then we realized that we hadn’t reckoned with August. The Parisians—doctors, lawyers, butchers, bakers, shoemakers, tous les Parisiens—take their month’s vacation in August, and the town is eerily calm and quiet. One local joke: You can shoot a cannon down any major boulevard in August and not hit a single French speaker. Unless it’s a Belgian, and they don’t count. (Belgian jokes here are like Newfie jokes in Canada.)

We walked back through Place Monge, which had its own skeletal food market going on, and saw the first yellow and orange autumn leaves. Last week it was too hot in Paris to move, and now, autumn is blowing in? Strange.

When we returned home, Richard processed photos and I worked on a short story.

Richard showed me a photo he’d taken in Place Monge of some eels, displayed with tails in their mouths, like an ouroboros, the ancient representation of things come full circle. But there is something terminally Irish in us that begins to play with words at the slightest opportunity.

“Let’s cut across the Eel St. Louis to the Maison Europeenne de La Photographie,” I suggested, when we had finished our work for the day. “Maybe we can do a post on one of the photography shows.”

Fashion shoot, Eel St. Louis, August 25, 2012

And so we did. One floor was full of fashion photos by Alice Springs. I used to see her and her husband, Helmut Newton, around the swimming pool of the Chateau Marmont when I stayed there as a traveling art dealer, and did my daily laps. They seemed infatuated with fame. Besotted with it. They would make great characters in a Chekhov-like story about character. When someone’s conversation revolves obsessively around one thing, you are seeing their character in action.

Photo and reflected photo in photo (c) Alice Springs

Then we looked at an exhibit called “Charlotte Rampling, Albums Secrets.” There were a number of photos of her by famous photographers (Cecil Beaton, Bettina Rheims, Alice and Helmut, and others). The most astonishing one was by Peter Lindbergh. She was wearing an African outfit of sorts, and with short hair, the length of her neck made her look like an African animal, maybe an antelope.

In another room, we listened to Charlotte Rampling’s beautiful, low voice in French and British English talk about beauty. People say it fades, she says, but it just changes.

There was a series of slide shows from her life, many featuring her three children. I watched them in fascination. Why did I never have children? I wondered. I never had the desire, yet I love children, and am always surprised to hear or read about women about to become mothers for the first time, who worry that they won’t know what to do. I feel I’d know instinctively what to do. I was the oldest of five, and loved reading to my younger siblings, directing plays and magic shows for them. And yet.

 

Everyone I know who has ever had the notion of past lives seems to remember exotic ones. I seem to recall just two (and this is, of course, nothing but fantasy); in my last life, I was a mother of nine, and a good one, too.

As we left the show, Richard said, “It’s hard to take photos of photos.”

“Unless you approach it like Emily Dickinson, by telling it slant. But I know what you mean. It’s hard to write about them too.”

As we headed for Mexican food, the wind came up. For the first time in months, I needed a sweater. “Summer’s over,” I said.

“Oh no, just wait,” said Richard.

Today, it’s hot again. Summer in the air, but leaves swirling in circles all along the Boulevard St. Germain.

Ah, Those Reticent Parisians

One of the things Americans seem to believe about Parisians is that they are reticent, aloof, hard to approach.

In some ways, that's true, but it's just that they aren't Americans. Smiles here are earned, not just passed out freely. You know that ubiquitous yellow happy-face that first appeared in the U.S. in the late Sixties? Parisians keep their Metro faces on until you've said or done something that earns a happy face.




As for being hard to approach, if you walk up speaking English, and just speak louder when you're not being understood, you're not going to make friends in any land. But if you approach the French with some phrases in their language, like "Hello" (Bonjour) and "How are you?" (Comment ça va?), you're likely to get a smile and a Ça va bien, et vous? in return.

As a photographer, Richard is out in the streets for hours a day most days. His French is improving, but he's still shy about using it, and even shyer about just sticking his camera into people's faces.




But often the Parisians are not equally shy. Richard will take a photograph of some object, like these clouds above the Luxembourg Gardens, and a group of boys will run up and clamor to have their pictures taken.

Such "intrusions" happen surprisingly often, and people love to smile for the camera. Even more surprisingly, they don't ask for a copy. It seems to be enough that they got their picture taken.

This week's Paris Play is dedicated to those non-reticent Parisians, who, with gesture, word or deed, asked or demanded or cajoled Richard to take their picture. These are the people who chose to pose--some of them literally jumped in front of the camera. His notes on the photos are in the captions.

 

I'm having a cappuccino at a local cafe, and she just walks up and sticks her face in the lens. How could I say no?

This kid was the ringleader of the Luxembourg boys seen in color above. They were far too cool to ask for the photos, but the girl they were with asked for them, so I e-mailed copies.

 This guy was the one who asked that I shoot him and his arms-folded buddy in the doorway above. I think they went to arms-folded school together.

He was saving a parking space for a patron of a neighborhood cafe. Good gig, done with panache.

I was shooting storefronts on the Boulevard Sebastopol, and she waved me over to immortalize her and her companion.

I thought he was annoyed that I was shooting his construction site, and we didn't have a common spoken language. But then he did this.

She liked her hat; I liked her necklace, which reminded me of street art.

There's a surprising amount of hazing in French schools, during which one is forced to dress up, or down, and be humiliated in public. This guy seems to be making the best of it.

Soccer (football, or foot) is the top sport here, but hoop dreams are moving up fast.

This is my favorite clochard, who lives under a building overhang on the rue St. Jacques. Always cheerful, a people person.

These friends were returning to a worksite that I had just finished shooting.

I was shooting the drama/comedy masks carved into the front of a theater building when she ran up, skinned knees and all, and struck this pose. I shot, and she ran off, giggling, pink backpack bouncing up and down.

Reticence, what's that? I did a sunrise shoot on Montmartre, around 7:30 a.m., and these folks were on their way home from partying all night. But first they had to pose. Later, he mooned me, but that shot is not for our family-friendly publication.