Ahead of this trip, I went to Paris only few times and did not manage to create enough memories of it: the first time was about 20 years ago, so I was too young to fully comprehend the experience this city gives. The second time was for just one night in 2014, while driving back from our theatre company’s show for the Camden Fringe Festival. Therefore this can be considered my first proper visit in Paris – and its beauty stunned me nonetheless. Looking down on the city from midway to the top of the Tour Eiffel and from the verge of Montmartre, and viceversa getting glimpses of the sky through the glass vaults of the passages: not something easily done anywhere.
People have in fact always been fascinated by Paris, and there is thorough literature regarding the many wonders of this city, and then regarding the emotions thus caused. We could not avoid noticing the immense number of tourists flooding the streets – yet it is hard to fill up such a giant city. We mostly sticked to the center and the main attractions, but also ventured to a few outer spots and it still is hard to see this city’s end.
I am confident enough to state that one of the most fascinating aspects of travelling is to see residents and tourist mixed up, even more in cities that big and cosmopolitan – where people with completely different backgrounds and tradition already share the same streets and institutions. For how boring and meaningless, one can observe fellow tourists themselves observing their surroundings – in a game of human observation and exploration that confirms that we are curious beings. Such occasions give me the chance to let loose my geek eyes for cameras, and it is fun and reassuring to see many others using film cameras – although it might just be due to trends.
But such interest in places, objects and people is just an academic if not shared with those one cares about. And lately I felt that instant pictures are a very funny and heartfelt way to keep track of the shared experience, even more since there is a difference in purpose between the pictures I take on B&W 135 film, and those I take on color 600 instant pictures – overly stated by such difference in medium/colour. I have to admit that it’s hard for me to compose a colour picture on 3:2 ratio 135 film, yet it comes much more natural on 6×6 ratio 120 and 600 film. My Polaroid SLR680 was a great choice for a travel camera in such a situation, and I don’t want to carefully store it at home as a collector’s item.
I also experimented with another camera: the Nikon AF600 I bought for a dime to always have a compact camera in my pocket. It’s not fancy, but it’s rather sturdy and one of the few wide angle lenses in compact line-ups. It also has a panorama-mode I never purposely use, but whose switch is a bit flimsy and gets bumped easily. Luckily it worked out fine for a few shots, and the thinner frame encapsulated well a centered portrait otherwise a bit more boring.
I also had the chance to get more confident with the used Leica M6 my grand-uncle recently gave me. I finally could use again my beloved Voigtlander 15mm, as I had to stop using when the Konica Hexar RF’s winding motor broke down, and decided to try shooting with the Nikon SB-15 flash on it, as a final experiment for this trip: such flashlight is optimized for wide angles up to a much tighter 24mm. I was expecting – and fearing – a small centered lighted part, with even harsher vignetting than in the pictures of my last trip to Japan (i.e. shot on a 21mm lens), but the results were well lit and extremely contrasty.
Behind this many technicalities, lies the simple ambition to take pictures of yet another city, and its inhabitants. Moreover, more than during any trip before – but actually on pace with a rising trend in my production – I wanted to take pictures that would both be representative of the spirit of the travel, and evocative of the fun that is related to a group experience. I took pictures of other and of the people travelling with me in the many typical parisienne spots that are usually depicted in postcards.
Yet we all also wanted to explore the most unusual aspects of what one of the cities with the most diversified mixture of different cultures and merging histories in the world can offer: from a 19th century greenhouse turned botanic museum, to a worrisome flea-market in the outskirts of the city – taking a stop at the Grand Mosque of Paris and its tea garden, attracted also by its rich assortment of arab sweets.
We even ended up in Japon-ville, a district filled with native japanese people living in Paris, a wide range of restaurants – not only focused on sushi – and mini-markets offering plenty of imported products. I have to admit that, even though we almost always had lovely french food – and some rice and vegetables at home to digest the pints of butter per dish – me and Giuditta went there for a couple of dinners. We ended up in the restaurant where Mitterand used to go decades ago, and where a oldish waiter decided to adopt us as I made the mistake to order in my stunted japanese, and he answered in a strong mix of japanese dialect and french.
In the end, I am happy that the pictures – even though fewer in number, when compared to other trips, due to the rainy weather – portray both an idealised ‘slice’ of what the city has to offer, and most of our experience and emotions while there. Even though I always am very critical regarding my pictures – as I always try to find a strong composition and content in them when developing and printing them – I know that at least a couple of them will move the viewer as much as they meant very much to me.
“An unfamiliar city is a fine thing. That’s the time and place when you can suppose that all the people you meet are nice. It’s dream time.” ― Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Thanks to Giuditta Fullone for reviewing this article.
All the images included in this article were shot on Ilford HP5 (pushed @1600) film in a Nikon FM2 with a Leitz 21mm ƒ/4 lens, home-developed in 1+0 ID-11 or 1+30 HC-110, home-printed in my bathroom/darkroom, and then scanned.