Smith, Springsteen, SNCF, Snow and Salvador

Finally, some action. Just when I was getting bored. Started the week with a 2-for-1 evening.


Photographed Will Smith who was here for the French premiere of “I Am Legend” and then zoomed across the city in time to photograph Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band in concert. It was my third time shooting Springsteen and he was, like always, brilliant.


Next was a special photo exhibition highlighting environmental issues related to the North and South poles. What made the exhibition special was that it took place on the first level of the Eiffel Tower, which had its walkways covered with artificial snow. Visitors wore snowshoes and trekked through the snow while taking in the views.


The week continued with another exhibition, this one at the Grand Palais, celebrating the 70th anniversary of the SNCF, France’s national railway company. The opening of the exhibition featured a full-scale train car outside the Palais (see photo) as well as ancient and future train cars inside.


Finally, the week ended with a concert of the legendary French singer Henri Salvador. The 90-year old (!) Salvador announced that this would be his last live performance but that he would continue to record music. You could see by the reaction of the crowd how well-respected Salvador is here. Salvador’s career has spanned over 60 years, including a period where he played with Gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt in the 1940’s.


I’d like to dedicate this blog entry to my good friend and “spiritual advisor” Bipul, who will be closing the doors of his store and leaving France next week after more than 20 years here. I will miss him a lot, as will the many others that spent countless hours with him, drinking chai, laughing and delving into the life’s mysteries.


Some photos of the week:

Clarence Clemons and Springsteen
Springsteen
Joking (I hope)

One Great Minute, Louis-Delluc & Barry Lyndon

Each time I get off the number 86 bus coming from the Bastille, I get to experience one great minute. This minute comes when, while walking from the bus stop on rue des Ecoles to my apartment, I get a whiff of two moment-changing smells … freshly-cut wood and freshly-baked bread. On a small street called rue des Bernardins there is a little lumber store where workers are constantly cutting planks of wood for their customers. My route home from the bus stop takes me past the store’s side entrance which is invariably covered with wood shavings. And just when I pass the side door, I take in the smell of the recently-cut pine, ash, cedar and whatever else they’re working on. It’s a real treat considering what types of smells I usually get to experience of the streets of Paris.

But the fun doesn’t end there. I turn the corner onto rue Monge and pass not one but two boulangeries, one of them (Eric Keyser) being among the best in Paris. With two boulangeries on the same block there is always at least one of them in the process of baking something so as I head for home, after just getting over my experience with the lumber store, I’m treated to the smell of whatever fairy dust the French put into their baguettes to make them taste so good.

I don’t mind taking bus number 86.


Not so much exciting on the photo front this week. I photographed an award presentation called the Prix Louis-Delluc, which is given to the best French film of the year. It was held at the fancy Fouquet’s restaurant along the Champs-Elysees. I also shot a re-release of the Stanley Kubrick film “Barry Lyndon”. One of the stars of the film, Marisa Berenson attended the small premiere.

Some photos of the week:

Clothing store on rue des Rosiers
Sunday morning along the Champs-Elysees
Figurine store near my apartment
Lake in the Paris suburb of Orsay
Female sphinx at the Hotel de Sully

Boring Week ...

Can’t say I have much to blog about this week. A lot of rain had me cooped up at home a lot the last few days. The main thing that got me out of the house was, believe it or not, a performance of specially trained horses.


The annual event is called La Nuit du Cheval (The Night of the Horse) and attracts pretty big crowds. While I enjoyed parts of the show, I couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong with training animals to do tricks for no particular reason other than to get applause at a show.


To see more images from the show, CLICK HERE.

I also shot a boring movie premiere with a bunch of children actors from the French film “Big City” along the Champs-Elysees. The only thing nice about it was the morning light.



A couple images of the week:

Snowman Cake
Spanish Cowboys

Bee Movie, iPhone and Christmas Lights

Motivation and the weather are more related here in Paris than I remember them being in California. The majority of days here now are gray and while it's not freezing, it's cold enough so that going on an extended walk isn't so fun. Just like you can feel the surge of energy when spring arrives, you can feel the dearth of energy related to winter arriving in the city.


Made it out long enough to photograph the French premiere of Jerry Seinfeld's "Bee Movie" with Renee Zellweger. Unfortunately the weather was rainy and stormy the day of the premiere and they had to cancel a planned photo shoot under the Eiffel Tower. Those would have likely been some fun photos.


A huge number of techies braved the cold and lined up along the Champs-Elysees for the launch of Apple's iPhone in France. The first customer to purchase the iPhone in France had lined up at 5:00am for the 6:30pm opening. Just FYI, French law requires that customers be given an unlock code with their mobile phones so the French version of the iPhone will be unlocked (although it will be sold that way at a higher price).


And finally, the season of beautiful lights around Paris has started. I hope to photograph the most special light displays around the city this month.


Photos of the week:

Savagery at the butcher

Vendome, Rufus, AaRON and Monopoly

I had a treat this week when I convinced the manager of the famous Ritz Hotel in Place Vendome to let me go to the rooftop of the hotel to take a few photos. I was really


surprised they let me but I’m glad they did. You don’t have to go very high in Paris for a spectacular view.

Shot two concerts – Rufus Wainwright (son of Loudon) and AaRON – both very well known here but not so much in the US (although I hear Rufus is finding a bit of a following there).


AaRON is a collaboration between two very talented men, one a Franco-American singer and the other a composer and arranger. They sing some songs in English, some in French. Their first album has gone double gold here but I doubt many in the US have heard of them. If you’re interested, have a listen to this song called “Lili” (⇐ click here to listen) and see why I think they’ve got a bright future.


The insane transportation strike has taken what most people think is just a pause. It’s been pretty horrible the last 2 weeks if you had to get on a metro, bus or train. For those of you that are confused as to why you can still take a train, bus or metro during a strike, the answer is because the strikers usually leave extremely limited service on certain lines. What this ends up translating to is that everyone on these limited service lines ends up wanting to kill each other because they are so packed together. A couple of days ago I was crushed like a sardine on a line 4 metro car and just before the doors closed, an idiot basically took a running start and smashed into us and wedged himself into the already extremely packed car. I learned some new French words from the others in our train and when the idiot turned around to me and tried to excuse himself by saying “c’est normal” (it’s normal), I responded with “sur quelle planete?” (on what planet?).


And finally, had dinner with my friend the Conquistadore and after we were done eating, a couple approached us and asked if we wanted to join them in a game of … Monopoly. It’s not everyday that I’m asked to play Monopoly so we agreed and spent the rest of the evening drinking wine and building houses on the Ave des Champs-Elysees.

Some photos of the week …

Cellist from the band AaRON
Proof of End Times
Black cat in the Pere Lachaise cemetery
Hotel de Ville in golden sunlight

Strike, Le Jean Burnt, Sinead and Beaujolais

The big news of the week is the huge general strike in Paris that started (and continues as of this writing!) this week. It mostly involves the transportation workers but like most big strikes here, various other unions join the movement in solidarity.The train, bus and metro system were mostly shut down but a few of the lines were still running with very limited service; I love the term they use for this … “quasi-nul”. I wasn’t here for the last big daddy strike in 1995 but my impression is that people here are handling it pretty well. There are tons of bicycles on the streets and although I’m sure regular commuters are livid, those who take the metro from time to time actually seem in a better mood than normal, probably because of the ridiculousness of the situation. A few other unions are expected to join the strike this week so things could get worse before they get better. Every poll still shows that the majority of people here do not support the strike and want Sarkozy to continue to fight. This could get ugly.

Some terrible news this week … an iconic café (well, it’s only iconic to me and a few of my friends) burned this week. Le Jean Bart café along rue Saint Antoine in the Marais had its interior pretty badly charred.My first few years in Paris I lived just across from “The Bart” and spent many hours there people watching, wondering which government program the barely-functioning waiters were hired because of, and trying not to look too closely at my meals. “Le Jean Burnt” will be missed … by at least 3 or 4 people (5 max).

This week I shot the premiere of “My Blueberry Nights” starring Norah Jones (yes, the singer Norah Jones) as well as the return of Sinead O’Connor. Sinead looked quite different than the last time the world saw her but she still sounded terrific.I was also supposed to shoot Kanye West in concert so I took the massively cramped metro across Paris, walked a long way in the freezing cold and upon my arrival was told the management changed their minds and no photographers were allowed to shoot the show. You can imagine how happy I and the other photographers were. The only saving grace was I found the motivation to take an invigorating 35-minute bike ride on a Velib (the “free” city-wide bicycles) all the way home along the canal.

Beaujolais Day also happened this week in Paris. The annual event happens every third Thursday of November (the release date chosen by the French government) and wine stores, wine bars, and restaurants fete the arrival of Beaujolais nouveau, wine made of grapes that were still on the vine only three months earlier (thus the "nouveau"). I’m far from an expert but this year’s Beaujolais nouveau tastes better than past years, although it’s still far from great. For more on Beaujolais Day, check out this BBC article.

And for all of you that asked, yes, I’m feeling much better thank you.

A few photos of the week:

Bicyclists near Place St Michel during the strike
Beaujolais Day
Beaujolais Day

Doc, Joss and the Metro

This week I got to experience the ease and simplicity of the French medical system. I’ve had a chest cold that I just haven’t been able to shake so Monday morning at 9am I called a British (read “English-speaking”) doctor in the Marais to see if I could come get checked out. He said how about 10:30am. I rode a Velib bike over to his office and he did an exam, gave me some anti-biotics and I was on my way. Stopped at the pharmacy next door and got the drugs and went home.

The office visit cost me 40 euros, of which 85% is fully reimbursable by my private health insurance, which costs 300 euros PER YEAR (not per month)! And by the way, the prescribed drugs are also reimbursable at 85%. But of course the best part was calling at 9am and getting an appointment at 10:30am that same day; that’s not always the case but it has been close to that each of the handful of times I’ve used the healthcare system here. It really makes me sad and embarrassed at the healthcare system in the U.S. – it’s disgraceful.


Photographically it was a slow week, but I did get to shoot Joss Stone performing at the Grand Rex Theatre. She put on a pretty good show I must say but maybe only because I didn’t have high expectations.


I’m posting a video I’d like to share with you. It’s nothing so special but I’m posting it because it’s typical of what you experience on the metro here in your day-to-day life moving around the city. Click HERE to see the video and be patient, the video might take a few minutes to load. {note: there is sound with the video}

I recently did some photo work for an international accounting firm here and they’ve posted a slideshow of my work on their website. You can see some of my Paris images (albeit a bit too small) by clicking HERE. {note: there is sound with the video}

And finally, a couple images of the week (of which I only took one):

Art or Vandalism? (view from my window)

God Bless America

World Conference, MTV Europe Music Awards and Pink Martini

Did some highly-entertaining corporate work this week. A big, international accounting firm had their world conference in Paris and hired me to capture the special events they had planned: a private party at the Louvre, an afternoon on a yacht along the Seine and a private fashion show and dinner at the Chateau of Versailles.


The event at Versailles was exceptional, something that evidently doesn’t happen very often. I wish I could post more photos for you to see but I’m seriously restricted due to very strict rules regarding photographs of the Chateau (but I’ll post a few anyway).


Spent 3 days in Munich to photograph the MTV Europe Music Awards. The show was hosted by Snoop Dogg and I thought how strange it was that two homeboys from Long Beach end up in Germany together at an awards show! The show was typically crazy with a big jacuzzi filled with models in the middle of the audience.


I got out and about in Munich but I was a bit under the weather and didn’t get to explore the way I normally would. I have to say the peacefulness, organization and general good behavior of its residents make Munich a really nice break from more latin-blooded cities.

English Gardens
I was most impressed with the number of organic restaurants and stores as well as the wide variety of quality ethnic foods available. I ate tasty Afghanistan, Ethiopian, Thai, Mexican and of course some German food (schnitzel) while I was there. And I wasn’t too disturbed when the menu at the German restaurant included things like a beetroot margarita and tuna puree (not kidding).

This last Friday, the Portland-based music group Pink Martini was back in Paris for a show at the legendary Grand Rex Theatre. I’ve photographed them a half-dozen times now and I really enjoy their music. I’ve become friends with a few of the band members and now each time they pass through Paris, we get together and they graciously give me excellent tickets to their shows. I had dinner with one of the band members this time and we had a good laugh at the fact that he went to a rival high school in Long Beach and we graduated the same year! The show was entertaining as always but it was especially nice to be seated in the audience instead of taking photos.

And a few photos of the week:

Waiters at the Chateau de Versailles
Good news!
Not sure this store name would work in the US
Disturbing
Trader Vics in Munich - Who knew?