Cemetière Père Lachaise

Musée D'Orsay

On May 28th, we had lunch on the Seine and visited Musée D'Orsay. Luckily most of me was covered, but I still got incredibly sunburnt in one small patch.

Jardin du Luxembourg

The Luxembourg is the largest public park in Paris, and is a parterre or 'formal' garden, meaning that it has very particularly trimmed trees and hedges, and a formal design. The palace itself was built during the reign of Louis XIII for his mother, Marie de Médicis. It has a combination of gravel and grass, with lots of chairs for people to sit around and sunbathe oread or do whatever.
In Paris, there isn't much "personal space", because everything is so small and efficient, and so the public space is very important. Instead of spending leisure time in their own nonexistent backyard, Parisians frequent parks and public areas such as the Luxembourg.




There were plenty of things to occupy children - tennis courts, carousels, pony rides, puppet shows, etc. - while their parents lounged in the sun.

Some teenagers playing.. ball.. (I guess?) outside of the garden's gates.



What up, Grandpa Joe?





GIANT HEAD STATUE!



...it was really huge. It accounted for a large portion of the actual shaded area.

Carousels are key to any good public space.







...as are old men reading newspapers.










There are these really great pools of standing water where one can push miniature sailboats around with long poles. It sounds lame, but it probably would have entertained me, too, as a kid.



petit obélisk








Le Figaro: 30 ANS D'ÉMOTION. Displayed outside of the Luxembourg walls as an invitation to passers-by to regard the world through 30 years of the 'Le Figaro' lens, many of them cover images.
In Paris (and France in general, I believe), there are lots of public art exhibitions. Lots of galleries put photos up outside on material that can survive the weather. Some people just wheat paste them onto walls. More on that later.

Notre Dame de Paris

"Notre Dame" translates as "Our Lady" and refers to the Virgin Mary.


There isn't too much to say about the place - it's a giant church.



The main entrance, on the west-facing side.


The building of the cathédrale, commissioned by Bishop Maurice de Sully, began in 1163AD, during the reign of Louis VII.



The French Gothic architecture outside and the paintings, stained glass windows, sculptures all reference the naturalist movement in art, which is seemingly more secular and divergent from other traditional religious Romanesque structures (like the Cathedrale of Saint-Front in Périgeux, built around 1150 AD).
There was also this strange ambient music inside that seemed to come from somewhere other than the church itself. There were more tourists than anywhere else I'd been so far - it was a merging point for a lot of different cultures.


As I mentioned in the last post, our first assignment was on the "Public Paris". At Notre Dame, I photographed mainly people, but I tried to take a few of the other surroundings as well.

These are some of my favorite portraits;




I wish I had used a smaller aperture and included the structure itself in this photo, as well as focused closer on the man's eye and hunch back, because he was obviously pulling the whole Quasimodo look, and trying to get sympathy from those coming out of the cathédrale.



This guy was doing the same as the other guy - begging for a bit of sympathy as people were exiting. He saw me taking photos of tourists and him and other beggars, and must have thought I was something other than a tourist, because he winked at me as if we were sharing a secret and said "Ca va?" I stared back at him for a minute, shrugged, and said, "Eh, ca va bien." and went back about my business.


Crazy French goth kids singing Metallica -("Enter Sandman", specifically.)






Some accordian players on a bridge on the Seine, as seen on the walk back to the Metro station.