On Friday 19th November I rushed from lunch to make my final visit to Paris Photo, mainly to attend the launch of the book Lab East, showcasing 30 young photographers and to take a few pictures. You can read what I thought about the book and a few of the contributions in Paris Photo – Lab East, probably written in my hotel room late at night, which perhaps excuses the fact that I got the title of the book wrong twice (now corrected.)
I have mixed feelings about Blurb, and the post I wrote perhaps reflects that. Print on demand is I think an important part of photographic publishing, and one that puts control back into the hands of the photographer which I’m very much in favour of, but there are two great problems which I feel Blurb has failed to address. The first is simply cost – and I think better technology (and lower profit margins) could do much to decrease this, and the second is distribution.
There were just a few more stalls at Paris Photo to visit, and I did so before leaving. It is a huge show, and I feel sorry for anyone who tries to make just a single visit, as many paying visitors do. Fortunately with a press pass I was able to make a number of shorter visits and still see all I wanted to see. But there was far more happening outside the Paris Photo exhibition halls, and I left and strolled through the Jardin du Carrousel admiring the naked women (only sculpture) and walked beside the Seine to the Pont des Arts and across to the Institut De France to view the impressive landscape show by Thibaut Cuisset, which again I wrote about here, along with a little of my own work in More Paris – French Landscapes. Leaving this I called in at a number of small galleries in the area, some of which were taking part in the Mois de la Photo or it’s fringe, L’Off, before meeting my wife as arranged in St Germain.
We were on the Left Bank for a reason, as this evening around 30 galleries were keeping open until 7pm, listed in a leaflet Photo Saint-Germain-Des-Prés, and we visited most of them, though we needed a brief rest in a café too. I wrote about some of them here in Parcours Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and there are more pictures from my afternoon and early evening walk in my diary at To Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
We took the Metro back to the north of Paris and after dinner took the funicular in Montmatre for a walk around. It was late and many places were shut and there were relatively few people were around. A bus came along and we jumped on it, getting a tour of the area and fortunately it took us to Place Pigalle, from where we walked along the backstreets and back to our hotel on the edge of the 10e. Pictures at Montmartre at Night.
…to be continued
