Tennis Time ...

The French Open tennis (Roland Garros) is usually my favorite two weeks of shooting each year. For a tennis fan, it's hard to beat sitting in sun, on the court, and watching the world's best tennis players go at it. Things got off to a rough start this year, with raining spitting down the first couple of days. And although there has only been one day that didn't come with the threat of rain, delays have been minimal.

It's been a rough week for Americans playing there. All the women are out after the first week and only one man - unseeded Robby Ginepri - remains.


Ginepri is the first American man to reach the fourth round of Roland Garros in five years (Agassi in 2003). I shot Ginepri yesterday and he was playing like a man possessed. I can't remember seeing a match where a player hit shots that literally landed on the lines time after time after time. Not sure how far this former boyfriend of Minnie Driver will go in the tournament but he's quite entertaining to watch right now. Here's a photo of his latest opponent Frenchman Florent Serra after he had to endure yet another ball landing on the line:


I will post a compilation of Roland Garros photos when the tournament ends next Sunday but here are this week's photos of the week:

Strange combination
Why my back hurts
Bad luck parking there

The Can’t Film Festival

I’ve been completely consumed by the Cannes (Can’t) Film Festival these past 2 weeks. Thankfully I’ve shot the festival before and having some experience really paid dividends but as a semi-conscious, self-respecting human being, it’s really hard to deal with the levels of incompetence seen in the organizing of this event.

Some of my favorite examples (from a massive pool of choices):
1) The wireless internet in the press room not working because “too many people are using it”. And they expected that each journalist would wait and one by one file their stories, video and images?
2) On the official daily sheet the press office distributes to the press, the one that all the journalists refer to to write stories, caption photos and file their reports, each (and I mean each) day there was a major typographical error. They spelt the name(s) of people incorrectly and my favorite was when they actually got the name of a movie wrong. I don’t know, maybe 3 minutes spent with Google before printing thousands of worthless sheets each day might have been a good idea. By around the 9th day of the festival, I became known as the festival’s spelling monitor since each day I felt absolutely compelled to shame the press office by highlighting each error and handing it to them face to face. On the last day, they asked me if I wanted to work for them next year.
3) After the final photocall where we photographed the award winners holding their trophies, the security guards refused to let the press into the press room for about 30 minutes. A revolt started and eventually, not unlike the Bastille prison a couple of hundreds years before, we just made a run for it and got in. I don’t have to tell you what the stress level in the place was like with hundreds of press people just learning the results of the awards ceremony but being incorrectly (security mix up) prevented from using the internet to file their reports/images


I really could go on and on about things like not enough chairs, or electrical plugs or running out of decaf coffee on the 4th day or no lockers, etc. etc. etc. But let’s just say that if given the choice between having the festival’s organizers there or having complete chaos, I might choose the latter.

There were many firsts that I experienced at this year’s festival:

• First time I’ve had a physical fight (albeit brief) with another photographer (my record is now 1-0 lifetime)
• First time I’ve had water split by a guy next to me onto the back of my computer without receiving even a “sorry” from him. (No damage to the computer luckily)
• First time someone (Chopard) has thrown a party exclusively for the photographers of Cannes
• First time I’ve had to send images from a 3G key (high speed internet via the cell phone network) due to the internet not working at the festival or my apartment.
• First time I’ve eaten at an Asian restaurant called, believe it or not, “Chinks”.
• First time I’ve spent a festival night in watching an electrical storm and a Manchester United-Chelsea soccer match.
• First time I (or anyone else) has seen a French film given the top festival award in 21 years.

Note: I would have included that it was the first time that I’ve had another photographer accidentally lock my stepladder with his lock but it’s actually the second time I’ve had that happen to me.

The good news from the festival is that there are plenty of fun photos to look at, if you’re into these kind of photos. The personal highlight for me was having Sean Penn and Bono arrive on the red carpet together. There are very few people in Hollywood that I respect but Sean Penn is one of them – even if being photographed clearly isn’t his idea of a good time. And Bono, I’m a lifelong fan.

The other big moment for me was seeing Mike Tyson on the red carpet. To me, it was about the logical equivalent of seeing a zebra underwater.

So, if you’re interested, CLICK HERE to see the 100 images of the festival that I've posted. Remember you can click on a photo to view it in larger format, and from the larger image, you can scroll through each image by clicking on the “next” at the top of the screen.

The night before I left for Cannes, I shot a premiere for the film “Made of Honor” starring Patrick Dempsey. I don’t know much about the guy but he was so kind and so handsome that even the men in room where swept up by him.

Photos of the Week:

Red Boot
Segway kook
Cowboy

No Posting This Week ...

Check back next week ...

Madonna, Kylie, Caves and Me on TV

I imagine it's rare that being interviewed on television isn't the highlight of your week. But I have to say that photographing Madonna giving a private concert (tickets were not available to the public) at a small concert hall here was quite a buzz.


The event itself had the ambiance of something special - hordes of people outside Olympia Hall, celebrities in the crowd (Lenny Kravitz for one) and excitement that even spilled out to the nearby cafes, where signs welcoming Madonna were posted everywhere. Whatever you may think about her music, it's hard to find anyone who is better at putting on a show and knowing how to entertain. She is to the stage what Jack Nicholson is to the screen; they may not be the best but you're compelled to watch them when they're on.

To see more of my Madonna images, CLICK HERE.

And of all things, that same night Kylie Minogue started her new European tour in Paris.


Kylie is huge here so I shot her concert and then whisked across the city in a taxi in time for the Madonna show.

Later in the week I went to help my historian friend photograph some 14th century caves located in Village Saint Paul in the Marais.


These caves have been meticulously preserved and are today a private restaurant that can be booked for groups of 10 or more. I used to live right next door to these caves and never knew they existed. To see more about them, CLICK HERE. (click on the American/British flag for English)

Finally, a French TV journalist that is friends with my brother came by to interview me on the subject of the crumbling US dollar. The angle was that everyone knows it's tough for tourists, but how about for those who live in France and spend euros but get paid in US dollars. It's rare that I'm on the other side of the camera but it was pretty fun, especially because I did the interview in French and with my accent surely entertained the viewing public here. See the new story here:



Some photos of the week:

Hailing a taxi
Headless accordion player on Ile Saint Louis
Two special videos of the week ...

This guy's accent in English HAS to be worse than mine in French.

No idea how to title this ...

Obama Posers, First Weekend and the Calm Before the Storm ...

This week was a slow one, sort of the calm before the coming storm ... that being the Cannes Film Festival, which starts in 9 days.

My favorite moment of the week involved one of my favorite states of being ... mass confusion. I planned on meeting the parents of a friend who were visiting Paris, just to sit at a cafe together, chat and make fun of the passers-by. I had never met this couple before so we made very specific plans; we were to meet at the entrance to the courtyard of the Musee Carnavalet and I could identify them because they would both be wearing Obama supporter buttons. I arrived a bit early and decided to mail a letter at the post office just across the street from our meeting point and when I exited, I crossed the street and walked right into a couple matching the description of who I was meeting - about the right age group, at exactly our designated time and at our designated meeting place. And of course both sporting Obama buttons.

I introduced myself, we shook hands and we spoke for about 3 or 4 minutes, talking about the basics like how their stay has been and how the Parisians have been treating them. After a few minutes of exchanging niceties, I was about 10 seconds away from suggesting we sit down at a cafe as we had previously planned. But as I was waiting for the man to finish his sentence, he suddenly said "OK, bye" and took his wife's arm and headed off. I was stunned. Was it something I said? My hair? My boy purse? It wasn't until they had gotten halfway down the street that my mind first entertained the possibility that this wasn't the couple I was supposed to meet, which, it turned out, it wasn't.

After literally laughing out loud on the street corner where they left me and marveling at the odds of what had just taken place (exact time, exact place, same age, same description, Obama buttons), I couldn't help but wonder what those people must have been thinking about who (and maybe what) I was. I guess they were too polite to say anything like "who the hell are you?" or "WTF are you talking about?". I did end up meeting the right couple a bit later and thanked them for their part in creating my moment of the week.

This weekend was the first Spring-like weekend of the year here ... and it didn't go unnoticed.


It really seemed like every human in the city just ran out of their apartments and got to a cafe, a river bank or park. There's a tangible energy here when that happens and, if you can tolerate the lines everywhere, it's pretty good fun.


Some photos of the week:

Translation: Love provokes erection troubles

Tour Eiffel

Queen Mary