This shot is... what? A clue - think about peckish feline
friends. It's... la rue du Chat-Qui-Pêche (fishing cat street!),
reputedly the narrowest, or second narrowest 'street' in Paris.
I don't know the exact definition of 'street' here, but you
ain't gonna drive a voiture down it, that's for sure...
Due to the fact that
I've played around with the colour and overall appearance
combined with the fact that half the wall's fallen off on the
left, this shot has a great 'period feel', marred only slightly
by the shiny new 'tourist information panel' which the Paris
council has helpfully put up next to every notable edifice and
curiosity all over the city, effectively ruining any attempt to
take old-seeming photos for evermore. Thanks guys.
Not being a 'photoshopper'
as someone recently accused me of (in the sense of 'getting rid'
of undesirable elements, not in the sense of playing with the
contrast and so on), I leave this sort of thing in. In fact, I
shoot reality, even if I try to manipulate it to my own ends
before I take the shot, so the cheesy tourist panel stays!
Having said all that, if
there is a blatant rubbish bin in the middle of some gorgeous
scene I just might be tempted... but I do my best not to.
I'm pretty pleased with
this shot actually. As you might know, this was taken from the
middle of one of the busiest little tourist thoroughfares in the
Latin Quarter, stuffed with about a million Greek restaurants
and kebab shops and pizza places and Indian and traditional
French and more.
However, for some reason
my agent has decided we should offer a Latin Quarter tour
starting at 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning, and at that ungodly
hour, I have to tell you, even on the normally bustling rue de
la Huchette, il n'y a pas un chat, which means there
isn't a soul, or cat (fishing or otherwise), in the street.
So there we were, me and
my two delightful Aussie clients, and we passed this passage,
and I stopped to point out the delightful row of lamps receding
into the narrow slit of sky. A few hints and tips later, and
suddenly this couple, hopelessly hand-in-hand, started walking
down the alley. Perfect. This is where I went into overdrive,
taking about 70 pics, using the professional technique of
percentages (!!!) hoping that just one of them will come out
with the couple in a nice position. That's not just a cop-out.
I'm looking for the couple to be nicely silhouetted in the slit
of light, distance between them but with the arms touching, not
too big and not too small, and this is the best one. I also
chopped the street sign in half in a lot of them, and I wanted
to include it rather than not for that extra Paris symbol...
I put the light section
slap-bang in the middle of the shot for reasons I won't go into
here! That's enough!
