Paris - Tuileries Gardens Detail - 1er

Plate VIII - Thinking, reading and dreaming

For any photographer looking for studies of human behaviour I can think of no better place to venture than this city. A camera snapping at every turn means that Parisians have largely become immune to seeing lenses pointed in their direction (although I was later to experience a very strong exception to this belief).And Parisians live their city.

Wherever you go you will find them enjoying every aspect and attraction of urban life – from the parcs and the banks of the Seine to the flesh-spots of the Boulevard Clichy. Shoppers will be scurrying from boutiques to the ‘grands magasins’ to fill their desires, professionals will be striding out to get to their next appointments - and everywhere lovers abound. Tourists, for them - well, they’re just something to be endured. They bring revenue to the city, and that can’t all be bad. 

But for the citizens of Paris there is always time too to relax. This has always been a home for the thinkers, the literature students, and the dreamers. I saw them all – but seldom on one bench.

And then, Paris has statues – they are found in almost every part of the city. Coming from a country where public art is an exception more than a rule, one could make a tour of Paris devoted these figures alone, not even venturing into one of the many museums where the collections of works are so vast that a number of them are not often on display. In the Tuileries Gardens many magnificent works will be found concentrated in a relatively small area. It is a gourmet fest of the (often unidentified) sculpturer’s art ... and of people.