The year was 1980 and on a whim, I took off to Paris for a long weekend with our Elizabeth.
We saw the sights, including some of the seedier bits, had some fine meals and just got away from our respective cities.
The sun shone and it was very, very hot, which I suspect is why those that can leave Paris in August do so.
For me it was the first foreign city I have ever visited and as you would expect it made an impression, although, long ago it was eclipsed by Rome where “at the end of every street there is a piazza and around the corner an ancient ruin”.
But Rome will be for another day.
I did the usual touristy pictures most of which were lost a long time ago.
But some of the negatives survived in a corner of the cellar where they have rested for forty years.
And amongst them were the “lost Paris collection”.
I knew I had them but long ago had forgotten just what they were off.
To my surprise there were very few of the usual scenes, and instead most were “ordinary” shots of Parisians getting on with the daily stuff, catching buses, sitting on benches and walking to the shops.
I can no longer recall what made the man on the Boulevard Des Capucines suddenly turn and stare or for that matter what he did next.
Nor have I clue why I chose to take the picture at that precise moment.
What I do know is that today I would think twice about taking the photograph of the group of young people enjoying their lunch.
Never snap people without their permission and never take pictures of people under the age of 18 has become a rule and quite rightly so, but the passage of 38 years makes it pretty impossible that I could now seek the collective agreement of those in the three pictures and so I will chance it.
Location; Paris
Pictures; Paris 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*“We’ll always have Paris”, Rick Blaine, Casablanca, 1942, Captain Piccard, Star Trek, The Next Generation, 1988, various book and song titles
The sun shone and it was very, very hot, which I suspect is why those that can leave Paris in August do so.
For me it was the first foreign city I have ever visited and as you would expect it made an impression, although, long ago it was eclipsed by Rome where “at the end of every street there is a piazza and around the corner an ancient ruin”.
But Rome will be for another day.
I did the usual touristy pictures most of which were lost a long time ago.
But some of the negatives survived in a corner of the cellar where they have rested for forty years.
And amongst them were the “lost Paris collection”.
To my surprise there were very few of the usual scenes, and instead most were “ordinary” shots of Parisians getting on with the daily stuff, catching buses, sitting on benches and walking to the shops.
I can no longer recall what made the man on the Boulevard Des Capucines suddenly turn and stare or for that matter what he did next.
Nor have I clue why I chose to take the picture at that precise moment.
What I do know is that today I would think twice about taking the photograph of the group of young people enjoying their lunch.
Never snap people without their permission and never take pictures of people under the age of 18 has become a rule and quite rightly so, but the passage of 38 years makes it pretty impossible that I could now seek the collective agreement of those in the three pictures and so I will chance it.
Pictures; Paris 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*“We’ll always have Paris”, Rick Blaine, Casablanca, 1942, Captain Piccard, Star Trek, The Next Generation, 1988, various book and song titles
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