dubious.biz(ness)

Believe it or not, travelblogging really requires some thought. It’s not as if this stuff just trickles from my brain. Unfortunately, it would appear from my total lack of interesting stories to tell, that I did not in fact have that part of my brain turned on. The point of the trip, as I mentioned was photos. As such, setting up these photos and looking for them seemed to take the majority of my time. There is, it seems, a mental narration that somehow gets saved as I normally walk through my day in a city. Honestly I believe a large part of this is due to the fact that I’m usually alone, but it has more to do with the fact that I just know I’ll be blogging it later.

I did not approach the trip to Paris with any intention of blogging it, and that, in retrospect is really a shame. In the future I believe I’ll stick to my skills. I’m not ever going to beat out the eyes of thousands of hungry photographers who comb the cities like Paris looking for a unique view. The best I can do is to copy their shots and add a few of my own. That, perhaps, is not a strategy to go about enjoying oneself, and writing these little notes on travel really helps cement the experience in my mind. So in the end I can say that I will not be taking my photography as serious. It’s that and the dawn rising.

You see in travel photography books, more than any other factor, the dawn is emphasized. I am not a morning person. I am especially not a get up before dawn person. Photography is all about the right light, as any photography will tell you, photography means “light writing” so the right light is critical. Dawn is perfect golden rays of light breaking across an empty horizon, warming the cooled, misty vistas. And, dawn is also when very few sane people are also awake. So dawn is really the perfect time to get a leg up on your photos and get out to see what there is to be seen. And without that beautiful dawn, I never would have experienced the Arc or the Effiel Tower in the same way. But, at the end of the day, I’d rather be in bed. Or at least hanging around when the daylight hours numbered fewer so that my sleep wasn’t cut to five hours per day.

My days tried to follow that of the sketches I found in travel photography books: Wake before dawn, go to a landmark, photograph it, go through the city and photograph empty streets, go to the markets as they open and photograph them setting up and selling goods. Photograph the morning cafe scene and people on their way to work. Have breakfast. Photograph shops, people going about their business, maybe do some touristy things. Photograph lunch crowds at the cafes. Get to the gardens and parks to catch people in the post lunch rest. Another touristy thing. Grab people going home from work, and the afternoon markets and retail areas. As dusk approaches move through the city catching things in the good light, and try to get to a landmark for an evening shot. Shot the dusk shot. Dinner. Now go to the nightlife areas and catch people partying and having a good time.

The dawn is, though, truly beautiful. So is dusk when I managed to catch it. You gain a new appreciation for these things when you schedule your day around them. Yet, that is a deathly thing to do every day. It takes everything out of you to try to keep up that routine. I managed to do it for 3 out of my 5 days, and I think the results were worth it but had I to do it again, I would make it less like work and more like vacation. I didn’t get to see all those things I had wanted to see. Though I did get an awful lot of pictures in.

Anyway, I don’t have a lot of stories to tell because really, the above is what I did all day. I will try to work out what it is I did do and get that to you as soon as I can remember it all, and after I put up the photos, my life’s work :-).

My guinness, originally uploaded by killermonkeys.

This beautiful pour is my reward for an hour’s work.

I am in Paris. I know, I know normally the blog announces these sorts of things with some pomp and then I write every day and these are the things that you expect from me on holiday. However I did not have much of a chance to announce the trip and I have had even less of a chance to blog it. I’m staying at one of my friend’s houses in the middle of Paris so it has not been a problem of Internet connectivity. We’ve been out and about every day all day, and this is honestly the first time I have had a chance to sit around and chill out and catch up on email

Before leaving I dedicated this trip in particular to doing some good photography. I wanted to see if I could really produce what I considered good photos. At first I thought I had produced total crap and was very disappointed with myself. However now in retrospect I am very happy, I think I’ve covered nearly every postcard of Paris you can buy and gotten some somewhat unique lighting in addition. Now the question is, can I uncover the “real” Paris, the Paris that I have seen but so far I haven’t really captured. Today’s adventure may bring me a bit closer to that goal.

Paris is an incredible city. It is all the things that you imagine and none, absolutely none, of the bad things I have ever heard. I will do some myth dispelling when I get back but in short: Parisians are not rude, Paris is not dirty, Paris is neither too touristy nor too coveted. I have not to be honest been impressed with the food, either the prices are too high or the quality too low (ironic considering the reputation). In short, I love Paris. If there was one place in the world I could be at any moment, of all the places I have been, it would be here. I am not kidding, not even a little. It is really that amazing.

Of course the novelty does wear off, I’m sure it would eventually, but for now this city is definitely premier. Anyway, I’m off to Musée d’Orsay to see some of those beautiful paintings, then going to wander around the left bank in search of that ephermial “real Paris.”