We're supposed to copy these photographers (copyright people...using the pics only to explain school things...so...it's for educational purposes...):

Doisneau (ps these are models. kind of sad, right? but not that sad.)

Cartier-Bresson

they both did "street photography," and Cartier-Bresson's method was to go somewhere with a perfect set-up, and then just wait for something to happen. I tried that. Didn't work out too well, and I ended up just following people around.

So, en fait, this could be called Creeper Album:

I think the last one is the one I'm going to post for my class, unless there is a HUGE UPROAR, and then I will reconsider. We're not allowed to write ANYTHING about our photos this week, and we can only post one.

I feel like I JUST posted last week's photography assignment. How strange.

This week was on food. This is the crepe man whose stand I visit quite often. He always gets very excited to see me and asks how I am. He usually tries to guess which kind of crepe I want as well. He's been right a few times.

My Post:

I walked down the Champs-Élysée with a German friend today who is visiting Paris. I told her about Ladurée and convinced her how necessary it would be to go eat macaroons that taste like sea foam sweetened by the finger of the gods. Our minds were changed when we saw the line basically puking all over the sidewalk. My German friend remarked how you would never see a bakery with a line that long in Germany, and I replied that maybe that's why macaroon's were invented in Paris, and not in Munich.

I have insufficient funds to build up a legitimate customer relationship with somewhere like Ladurée, but I consistently visit a crêpe stand right near my metro stop. The relationship started on my birthday, when I ordered egg, ham and cheese, and ate my first crêpe this visit to Paris. I have tried a couple of other stands since then, and somehow they have not lived up to this man on the corner. I have since been discouraged to try anyone else. While he cracks an egg, or cuts bananas, I look around awkwardly, counting my money out for the fourth time. He speaks a little bit of English, I answer him in sometimes almost smooth French. If I haven't been for a week or so, he asks if I have been on vacation, and I tell him the respective place.

I have even almost asked him what his name is a couple of times. Instead I take my food, the warmth seeping into my hands and my mouth, and through the traffic and people handing out flyers, I hear two words: à bientôt!

I was totally going to do a blog post about my weekend!

maybe I still will, but instead, for the past two hours I have been working on my blog post for my photography class. I had such a hard time for the first time ever coming up with the writing part. I just wanted to take pictures of windows, not write anything about it. Also, if you looked at my assignment last week, where I didn't write a complete sentence, and wrote the same thing over and over again, I got a hundred percent on the writing part. Gooooood...anyway. Couldn't think of a way to specifically leave out text, so it gets a bit cheesy. Hope it's just more "sensory" than corny though.

I got this idea from my mom, who took TONS of pictures of windows on our last trip to France, Poland, Switzerland, Slovenia, Germany, etc. and then put some of them into one of those frames that is like a frame for about a dozen pictures. Anyway, I liked it, and I decided to do something similar...Here it is:

I like when people use windows as metaphors.

You know the metaphors I'm talking about. They include wonderful things like windows to people's hearts and souls;
windows of opportunity, and hope;
to goodness
and love
and friendship.

I wonder what the people inside of the windows would say
as they look out into the streets of Southern France,
scowling or laughing,
speaking or smoking or drinking coffee.

I wonder as my fingers itch to throw open their shudders
and find hope or love or beauty.
Maybe I would find a small room,
perhaps decorated similar to my hotel room I've already seen,
with a wooden table and chair,
and a vase full of fake sunflowers.

So, what do you think? I took most, if not all of those pictures in Arles. It took forEVer to line all of them up. More pictures to come...

one other favorite thing in Ireland:

jane got stuck inside my computer.

also, last week, i got a good grade on my photo essay basically because i didn't really write anything. the week before, i got way marked down because i wrote way too much. i didn't want some people to interpret my photos their own way. i wanted them to know the specific reasons i took the pictures. but, my professor likes ambiguity, and letting the viewer make connections, and everything. anyway, since not writing worked so well, i tried it again. don't think it will work, but we'll see. let me know if you could make some sense of it. my professor's hard to do homework for. he loved my project last week that i really didn't like at all, and didn't like the one before, which was my favorite. so, we'll see.

this week's photo essay...

Ce que l'on fait pour l'argent, encore, encore, et toujours

un euro, un euro, trois pour un euro, hello! hello! one euro, three for one euro! one euro! one euro! hello hello! bonjour! excusez-moi, un euro un euro! jingle jingle un euro un euro! one euro! hello! hello! trois pour un euro! un euro! un euro! jingle jingle excusez-moi! un euro. trois pour un euro! hello hello! bonsoir! trois pour un euro! three for one euro! one euro one euro, three for one euro...more clanking metal...

hello! hello. one euro? one euro? water for one euro? would you like some water? un euro un euro, hello? hello! hello! one euro? one euro. one euro...one euro. un euro. un euro. un euro. un euro. un euro. un euro. un euro. un euro. un euro. un euro. un euro. un euro. un euro. un euro...

the leaves, now the water, and the leaves again, sweep sweep, and now the water again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again...

"all right, that's a good amount of shots, and we'll take a few jumping pictures, then we can see where we are from there, and try a few more things, right?"

This week's photo essay. You are right--it IS long. You can read the whole thing, or you can read the whole thing. Either way I won't be offended.

This assignment was supposed to be on architecture, or religion, or culture, or change. I went to the market outside of my apartment because it's like architecture and change every thursday and sunday! I took pictures there, and then I tried to take pictures of traffic at huge roundabouts to show how the french just circle around their huge monuments without looking at them, and when a street would almost go through a monument, they would just build the street around the monument. That didn't work either. Then I took pictures of people waiting. Because you do that a lot in Paris--or any big city. Waiting for crossing the street, for trains, in obnoxiously long lines because there is only one person working at a cash register, and three other workers standing around doing nothing, and other times too. This led me to think about people being bored in Paris. Because you can't get bored in Paris, right? It's Paris.

Riiiiiiiight...well, I kept thinking about things I blogged about a few days ago, about everything being different when you live somewhere, and if you can really do everything that you wish you could do, blah blah blah, and well, this is kind of a response.

So then I asked myself, where is the greatest concentration of bored people in front of ridiculously famous things? And immediately, the answer came.

The Louvre.

here is my post on my class' blog:

I went to the Louvre yesterday to take pictures. I know, maybe it doesn't really make sense with the assignment, because most of the Louvre's collection hasn't changed for decades. What I wanted to show, however, was people's reactions to one of the most important art museums in the world. I wanted to show a part of culture that sometimes is looked down on, but that I think is ironic, funny, and human. So, here is what I see as part of the culture of the Louvre. (Excuse me. LU-vrah.)

The idea for this stemmed from the way I have been feeling these first few weeks here. It is hard to simultaneously take advantage of every opportunity in Paris, and not keel over. It is hard to know what will help me have the best experience while I am here, and at the same time, not have an American attitude of self-improvement--going somewhere to see what I can get out of it. So I went to the Louvre to see how people felt to be in the most famous art museum in the world, because somehow, it seems that no one should be bored in Paris with so many important, photogenic monuments to see, right? Shouldn't there never be a time where one is so tired that they can't see and appreciate the most famous painting in the world? I decided to show another point of view. Most people are mortal, and can't stay on their feet all day, even if they're looking at art that changed the world. So it's normal. Relax, everyone can get bored, or tired. It's part of traveling, and learning, and whether or not you want it to be, it's part of art museum culture.

These students are studying, facing the pyramid, and the Louvre. It's a chance that I know many people would do a great deal for. And still students are bored, looking around, looking at the camera, and talking to each other. It's impossible to stay completely attentive even in this world-famous place.

Red shirt has been at the Louvre way too long, and he probably hasn't even been here for more than a few hours. The sheer massiveness of the Louvre can be seen in his expression.

I took this picture in front of a covered window. These students aren't even looking at any art at all, while some of the most talented Italian artists from the 15th century's works are displayed behind them. But, they are here, they want to, or at least are being forced to see things that changed our world, and fatigue is getting the better of them.

The Victory of Samothrace is behind these bustling visitors, who don't look at this priceless piece of sculpture. Not that I condemn what they are doing (especially because they were all polite, apologizing for getting in my picture), just that it really isn't possible to take in all of the art in the Louvre all at once. But doesn't it seem that a work as precious as this, people should be gaping, open-mouthed and eyed and dead-silent at this ancient piece of work, reveling in the sheer glory and beauty, and antiquity of it? But they are not, because they are human. Perhaps these people have taken considerable time before to observe, and now a glance is only needed to remind them, or maybe they will do that later. Or maybe they won't.

This picture displays the popularity of the Mona Lisa with all of the camera screens and the backs of heads. But as one looks at this photo, the eyes drift to the two security workers at the left, who have really no interest in seeing the most famous painting in the world. They have seen it before, they have seen it everyday, and it is commonplace. How interesting that even the most important painting, the most sought after, the whole reason some people come to this enormous museum, can be commonplace enough that guards do not stand behind the security band, staring at the woman's mysterious smile. Does that cheapen the remarkableness of the painting? Isn't it the same piece, the same brushstrokes, the same colors, the same artist that people are taking photographs of?

A mother, letting one of her children rest on her lap, asks someone next to her a question about the layout of the Louvre in her map. Her children are not interested in paintings painted by the masters. It could be possible that they could care less about these paintings at the moment, and would rather be eating or sleeping right now. I remember as a child running through the halls of this very museum, racing to the next gallery to win the only available seat in the room, and telling my mom that these were all "just paintings" and I was hungry and my feet hurt, and that it was so boring to look at just art for four hours straight.

I am not writing this essay and taking these pictures to show the frailty of men, or condemning their inability to appreciate art in its full measure, or saying that people need to be completely focused on these important works of art for the entirety of their visit. I'm not saying that at all. It's just that, when these people return to their homes to tell their friends about their visit to Paris, (which I think to a certain extent is for basically universal reasons. Everyone here is paying a lot of money to visit Paris. We are all here for the same reasons as all of those tourists, and admit it, we all use maps, we all want to feel what we've read and heard and dreamed about Paris, just like the rest of the people visiting here. We're just lucky enough to be here longer...) they can tell everyone they visited the Louvre, they saw famous paintings, and perhaps they felt a connection, or maybe they didn't. But while they were there, it really was impossible to appreciate every single work of art to the extent of their fame. It's okay to rest while we are here, it's okay for things to be commonplace, it's okay to be hungry and need to use the toilets, these things are all human things, and lest we forget, the masters of art whose works are displayed in the Louvre were humans too.