Paris

Paris

I was in Paris for a couple of days on my way south to the Bordeaux area and though my time wasn't my own, I did manage to document a few photographically interesting items as I moved through the city.

For example: It was very hot. So much so that any opportunity to cool off and not move much was welcomed. At one point, wilting yet walking, we glanced through the gate of a very high-walled area, saw deep shade and instinctively went towards it. It was the Montparnasse Cemetary where I found that Brassai and Man Ray have been buried. And I was a tourist after all so I had to photograph their graves.







It may be a little hard to read so I'll translate: the round monument on the left is Man Ray's headstone by Juliet. On it is written: Unconcerned but not Indifferent. Wonderful sentiment.


When it's time to close the cemetary, the watchmen ring bells as they drive around the grounds in golf carts. On my way out I found Sarte and Beauvoir's grave but didn't have time to find Brancusi, Baudelaire, Jean Seberg nor Tristan Tzara's graves. Among many other luminaries.



It's really a very pleasant place to hang out and the monuments to the deceased are about as elaborate as they get. (The above examples not withstanding.)


Again, while moving from A to B, I saw the following Cartier-Bresson related items. I had time to visit neither of the place nor the event advertised.




And while eating in a cafe on a side street, my wife pointed out a plaque on the wall across the street:



And finally, having nothing to do with photography really, but in case one needs another cool respite from the heat, there are the catacombs.



Something I found interesting about the catacombs is how the space came to be. Seems that the Parisians quarried the stone that they built the city with from under the city. In other words, they took the foundation of the city away, creating big open spaces and then placed the stone on the relatively thin layer of ground above those spaces. Gravity had it's way so they then had to build arches and supports and what not in the quarried spaces to hold up the city. When it came time to empty the graveyards, these spaces under the city seemed like a good place to store the bones.