Paris: The Experiment

Before I came home from the National Geographic Photography Workshop in Provence, I had a full day in Paris on my own. J'adore Paris. Seriously. I think I fell in love with the city of lights long before I ever saw it in person. But even when I finally stepped foot on the so-called dirty streets of Paris, I had already fallen. Hard. In love that is. There's just something about stepping off the train (or plane) into this city that has been around for-EVER. There's so much history, there are so many sights, there are so many smells, there's so much culture that's so unique to its people, there's just so... much! And I love it.

Between the ages of 16 and 30 I've been lucky enough to go to Paris at least nine times. It still blows my mind that things have worked out over the years for me to see this place so many times. And because of this, I have a gajillion (yes, I just made that up) pictures of Paris. I would be really scared if for some reason I had to print them all because it would cost me a small fortune.

So why in the world would I go and spend a full day there when I'm just coming off of a week in Provence at a photography workshop? Because... I adore Paris. As does my camera. So, we had a date. All day long. Me, the metro, my camera and time. I had a small agenda of what I wanted to photograph and what I wanted to see (or actually where I wanted to eat!). So I started the day by taking some Sudafed because I wasn't feeling well and followed that by a nap on the metro into the city. You may think it's difficult to fall asleep on a packed metro during morning rush hour... just take some drugs after being wiped out from an awesome week and then tell me how hard it is ;-) Anyway, I made it into town and began my day of wanderings.

The day was just as the title of the post says. It was an experiment. I have gads of pictures of Paris but I had just spent a week learning how to take better and more interesting pictures! So I wanted to see how I would "see" the city differently. I took a couple hundred pictures that day, which was a low number for the week. But I had no assignment other than the one I'd given myself.

The pictures in this post are my top 10. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

This one in the clock shop is one of my favorites because I've noticed this shop a handful of times because of its name: Zut! So I finally went in to see what it was. This man was on the phone the entire time and even though I asked if I could take pictures, the only notice he gave me was a slight nod to answer my question yes. But that was all I needed...! My only wish is that I had a bit wider lens to have gotten a better angle of the small space. Maybe on my next trip :-)