Paris - The Beginning...

PARIS … in my pocket!

Armed with only my wife’s simple pocket camera, and a single roll of film, I set off for my very first visit to Paris in 1996. Primarily there on business I expected to have little time to practise my amateur photographic skills.

On my first glimpse of the city two things very soon became apparent…

Firstly - the camera was going to be hopelessly inadequate to capture the magnificence of these sights, with which I had for many years conducted a long distance love affair.

Secondly - a single roll of film (24 shots) would possibly last me my first half hour, for in Paris leaving one  view, only a few paces reveals another more enchanting.

The second matter was easy enough to rectify as many Parisian street vendors carried replacement films. The camera however was to remain a major challenge. Why then did I take it ?

To start, my own compact 35mm unit had been stolen. Further, I like to blend in with my surroundings. I am convinced that the oft implied detachment, even arrogance, of Parisians results from having to share their home ground with millions of foreigners each year . And further still, I am loath to appear decked out with a day’s factory output of Olympus or Canon hung about my neck, spending but a few seconds at any location, before heading to the next planned tour destination. “If it’s 10 o’clock, it must be the Eiffel Tower” is not my modus operandi. That way you see everything and learn nothing. Travelling successfully, is a foreigner asking me for local directions or information. Oh, and I walk - it simply is the best way to discover the heart of a place and its people.

The images …

With three Parisian weeks ahead of me I decided to challenge my artistic instincts to see how successfully I could record the magic of the city with the simple little device I had in my pocket. It used “110” film cartridges, had a built-in basic flash (useless for anything beyond a metre), a fixed single (plastic) lens, a shutter … and a very, very imprecise viewfinder. 
Plainly, I had not yet gone digital!!!

The results, printed on my return home, were less than inspiring. Certainly, personal memories had been captured, and even today those slightly blurred postcard sized images make me wish I were again in the streets of Paris. But I never would have dreamed of sharing them with anyone but my closest friends. Kept together in a photograph album, the collection I sometimes jokingly referred to as 'Paris…in my pocket', became my ‘Paris…in my drawer’… … …

I recently decided to digitize my entire photographic collection. Of course - high on my priority list were these Parisian snapshots. But, even with the best scanning resolution available, the poor detailing became, if anything, even more apparent. In a few idle moments I started playing with some simple post processing imaging software. I’d hoped the ‘sharpen’ effect would do just that. It did not. Some thirty designer effects later I discovered ‘watercolor’. The impressionist like result was fitting for the city

The results I'll incrementally post here, arranged by arrondissement. I have at last realized the final creative step in making Paris…in my pocket! the tribute to the city that I had always hoped it would be.

See for yourself!!


Dave

This first image is part of the concrete sign outside the Parc Floral de Paris in Vincennes.