Paris, France

Recently, I had a chance to visit Paris for 3 days. Having read about this city of light and life through literature and art school since I was 15, I knew that I was blessed with an opportunity to perhaps reconcile the Paris of my dreams with the Paris in my eyes. I focused mainly on the Montmarte region, with its icon the Basilica of the Sacré Coeur overlooking its streets, Le Louvre, and the Latin Quarter.

My aim was to capture the nostalgia France has always brought to mind when reading French literature or viewing photos from the 30s and 40s.

Despite its size and the modernity you will certainly find in Paris, there is something fascinating about the city’s ability to juxtapose a living nostalgia within a modern context. From the fashion of its elderly couples (fedoras, scarves, your-hand-in-mine dear), to the beautiful simplicity of a Parisian strolling down the streets with two baguettes in a plain, brown paper bag, Paris enables those who desire something timeless, something that survives and radiates in our collective conscious, an opportunity of capturing it, of sharing the memory et la nostalgie, and in such a hypertextual era, where trends come and go so quickly, this is a blessing.

In short, Paris is a product of its own mythology - a mythos established through the literature, the art, and the style of its inhabitants over time (see Proust, Matisse, Cartier). There is something timeless and classic in its make-up, something of poetry in its shadows. I simply hoped to capture the city as I saw it in movement. Paris is both fluid and fixed, as are our conceptions of her. Here are some snapshots of its people, its shadows, and its light to attest to her nostalgic movement.

Paris, j’taime!