Montreuil | >Re-PHOTO

Paris, August 1988. Most of August 1988 I spent in Paris with my family, although I rather deserted them at times to go out in long walks through the city on my own. But some of them do appear on quite a few of the roughly 1500 pictures I took.

La France, Paris, 2e, 2nd, 1988 88-8u-21-Edit_2400 — *La France, Paris, 2e, 1988 88-8u-21*

Back in November 2020 I posted here Montreuil, Paris which told a little about our stay in a flat in Montreuil on the east edge of the city, and where “Most days I went out for a walk before breakfast to buy bread and sometimes croissants, often with one of my sons, and always with a camera. Many of the bakers were closed for August and others took it in turns to be open for a week, making some of these walks a little longer, and I often diverted down streets that looked interesting.”

Montmartre, Paris 1988 88-8m-22-Edit_2400

As I also mentioned there, almost the first thing we did after arriving was to get photographs of our two sons at a photobooth so we could get their ‘Carte Orange’ and then buy weekly tickets for the Metro system – as I commented at ” little more than the cost of a day travelcard in London.” We made good use of those tickets, travelling around Paris and its outskirts as you can see from the album Around Paris 1988.

Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, Paris, 1988 88-8x-32a-Edit_2400 — *Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, Paris, 1988 88-8x-32*

The final sentence of my post in 2020 ended by saying I would feature more of the pictures in some later posts, but I don’t think I’ve ever got around to it. Nor have I put together a book from these images taken in 1988, though I there is one of the colour images I made, Photo Paris 1988. As usual with Blurb, the price of a hardcopy is ridiculous, but there is a much more reasonable PDF version. And you can view a good selection of the images for free on the preview. I haven’t yet put an album of these colour images on Flickr, but perhaps I will.

Here is the description of the book:

An evocative look at a Paris much of which was disappearing as the photographer walked the streets and took these pictures in 1988.
Peter Marshall’s pictures show a city and its fringes beyond the tourist circuit, capturing some of the flavour of the real Paris, but it is also very much a Paris of the imagination.

It’s time took a good look again at the black and white images from 1988 and made a book of them – and perhaps that will happen some time. A few have been published elsewhere, including a few I printed by alternative printing processes which I was dabbling with around this time, such as salt prints, kallitype and cyanotype. But I soon came back to more normal photographic printing.

Fauborg St Antoine, 11e, 11th, Paris, 1988 88-8y-61-Edit_2400 — *Fauborg St Antoine, 11e, 11th, Paris, 1988 88-8y-61*

88-8ab-22-Edit_2400 — *Arcueil, Val-de-Marne, Paris 1988*

Paris, 10e, 10th, 1988 88-8w-34-Edit_2400 — *Self-portrait, Paris, 10e, 1988 88-8w-34*

There are 366 images online in the album Around Paris 1988 and the selection here has just a few of my favourites, all uncropped. It would be difficult to make a selection but I think it could make a good book.

Montreuil, Paris 1988 88-8f-56-Edit_2400

Montreuil is of course not Paris, not inside the old walls or the modern municipality, but a commune at its eastern edge, only four miles from the centre of Paris, an ancient settlement now separated from the city by its modern wall, the Boulevard Périphérique.

Montreuil, Paris 1988 88-8f-12-Edit_2400

I don’t now recall exactly where we stayed, somewhere a short walk from Robespierre (the Metro Station not the man) and just a little further from the RER at Vincennes.

Montreuil, Paris 1988 88-8f-34-Edit_2400 — Rue Douy Délcupe, Montreuil,

Long before the days of Airbnb we had leased a flat from a colleague of my brother-in-law’s wife who had gone south for a month in a gîte for August – like most of Paris. It was a spacious flat for its usual single occupant, but a little cramped for our family of four, and while the boys shared a bed, we slept on a mattress on the floor, which was comfortable enough.

Most days I went out for a walk before breakfast to buy bread and sometimes croissants, often with one of my sons, and always with a camera. Many of the bakers were closed for August and others took it in turns to be open for a week, making some of these walks a little longer, and I often diverted down streets that looked interesting.

Montreuil, Paris 1988 88-8f-15-Edit_2400

We also went for family walks around the area, though on the first Monday of our visit went to a photo-booth to get portraits for the boys to get them their ‘Carte Orange (we still had cards from a previous visit) and then bought our ticket for what seemed a ridiculously cheap week of travel on the Metro system – I think little more than the cost of a day travelcard in London.

Montreuil / Vincennes, Paris 1988 88-8g1-64-Edit_2400

Once equipped with these we spent most of our time in Paris, but still occasionally walked around Montreuil on our way back to the flat or after our evening meal there rather than return to the city.

Montreuil, Paris 1988 88-8f-11-Edit_2400

There are more pictures of Montreuil and other places in and around Paris in the album ‘Around Paris 1988‘ and clicking on the pictures above will take you to a larger version in the album, from where you can browse them others. The images here all come from the first day or two we were staying there and are all a short walk away from the flat. I’ll feature some more in later posts.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.