If you want to convince your friends that you really were in the City of Light, make sure that you've got some photos of Notre Dame, the area around Ile de la Cite, the Tour Eiffel, and the Champs Elysees with the Arc de Triomphe in the background. There is a variety of ways to make these more interesting than the standard point-and-shoot image. Start by using black and white film. All the great photographers of Paris (e.g., Atget, Cartier-Bresson, Doisneau, Kertesz) worked in black and white.
Paris is the ultimate place to get photos of people viewing and reacting to art. There is sculpture throughout the city and the museums tend to be camera-friendly if not flash-friendly. The easiest museum in which to create dramatic images of art, people, and structure is the Musee d'Orsay, a converted train station housing art from 1850 through World War I. Another good choice is Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum and cultural center.
For the graves of great artists, marked by fine stone carving, Parisian cemeteries are unexcelled. Visit Cimetiere de Montmartre, the resting place of Hector Berlioz, Henrich Heine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Jacques Offenbach, and Francois Truffaut. Then move south to the Cimetiere du Montparnasse, where you find the graves of Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (Statue of Liberty), Charles Baudelaire, Samuel Beckett, Andre Citroen, Alfred Dreyfus (Dreyfus Case), Man Ray, Guy de Maupassant, Camille Saint-Saens, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. You can end your day east of downtown at the Cimitiere du Pere Lachaise (16 Rue du Repos; Metro: Pere Lachaise). Honore de Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Frederic Chopin, Moliere, Yves Montand, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Marcel Proust, and Oscar Wilde await you.
I am sitting here at IBM/Paris at lunch and was browsing photo.net and came upon this article. How convenient. Pairs IS wonderful (even if the keyboards are messed up :-) ). Just a note on tripods. In 2 locations, Jardin du Luxoumberg and Musee d Armee, I was taking pictures outside and was approached by security gaurds and asked to not take pictures. Othere were taking pictures with /"point and shootsi" and not being bothered. Lots of opps for night photos. Everything is lit. Despite the constant rain/drizzle; there are lots of images to make. Merci e, avior Jay J. Pulli , January 25, 2001; 08:17 A.M.
