1er cours de photo et une soirée avec quelques français

Je suis allée à Belleville dans le 20e.
J'ai pris des photos.
J'ai bien mangé.
J'ai rencontré quelques jeunes français.
Je suis très fatiguée.

Today Phillip met us at a café called, "aux folies" in Belleville. The café was lively, filled with people who Phillip called, "bobos," and looked like the kind of café that really buzzes at night. However, we were at the café at 9am because the light was better, the coffee was cheaper, and the area was bustling with more locals than tourists. After scarfing down the coissants and other sweet treats that Phillip brought for us, we took off our lens caps and headed out.

Just behind the café was a magical ally filled with graffiti, collage, mozaics and very interesting people. It was like someone had dedicated this place to artists and let them run wild. Phillip was very insistant that we take pictures of everything, he even started conversations with random people just so we could get in a get a shot.


I took some pictures with backgrounds that looked like they belonged in high fashion magazines. Every wall was another canvas -- it was just gorgeous. We then hiked our way into a huge junkyard where some homeless people lived and some artists had set up studios. We met one artist who takes pictures of people on the metro with his cell phone and then makes elaborate sculptures of them.



The junkyard itself was a piece of art, too. The walls were filled with graffiti in vibrant colors and the ground was part garden, part assemblage. Phillip took pictures of us all jumping in front of a graffiti-ed wall and I felt like we were in some sort of movie. This place was unreal.

We left the artsy section and moved on to the more yuppy side of town for a great view of all of Paris and a walk through some gardens. Philip is hilarious -- he just flat out asks people if he can take their pictures. This one woman told him that she didn't want her picture taken but happily offered up her child to our lenses.

After a fabulous trip to a quartier I probably wouldn't have visited or even known about otherwise, I headed home to scarf down a crêpe with egg, brie, salami, tomatoes and mustard vinagrette. Yum. Then it was back to the studio for my photoshop lab.

I hesitate to even post the pictures I took in class today as I improved them greatly in the "labo." I feel like an evil genius. My labo teacher retouches for fashion magazines and I really did not know I could make my photos look so much better in post. We layered colors, removed blemishes -- I even did an excersize where I removed all the cracks off of a cracking clay sclupture from a photo I took today. It's amazing how you can make an average looking photo look fantastic with just a few tricks. I will never throw away a gray-toned, bland-looking photo again. Vive la photoshop!

After Labo, I headed down to the Cité Universitaire (the student dorms in Paris) for a night of "tex mex" dinner with some parisian students. I met a good handful of people that I really liked -- they go to a university called "Charles V" that specialises in English. Many of them are studying exactly what I study but the other way around. It gave us a lot to talk about.

I have learned of a salsa club in Paris from one of the Charles V girls, and I was very excited to here that many other Parisians dance salsa. Definitely want to check it out!

Tomorrow I have a trip to a chateau and Saturday is La nuit blanche (a great big all night party all over Paris, but particularly in my neighborhood; "la nuit blanche" means "all nighter" in French). Then I have homework!

Paris is crazy, but I'm loving every second.

Photos from today will come in this Friday when I have them photoshopped to satisfaction!

Total Damages today:
0,00 EUR

Visit to Vermès!

Today after French class, I went to a photography atelier called Vermès with 3 other girls to meet Phillip Vermès himself and discuss studying photography at his studio. He checked out Jay's camera, gave me a thumbs up, and gave us our first "theme" to start thinking about: our neighborhoods. I already have so many good ideas of where to find things that would make good pictures in my neighborhood and I'm glad that this gives me a reason to explore a little bit more.

Vermès is also much closer to my place than Reid Hall (Vermès is right by Opéra Bastille while Reid hall is on blvd. du montparnasse), and since class is on Thursday mornings with flexible lab times (I get to choose whenever I want to go in), it may turn out to be the superior studio to Spéos, the other photo atelier that we're visiting tomorrow.

M. Vermès was an interesting character himself. He took pictures of all of our ears with his super-mega-awesome-high-powered digital camera and his clothing made him look like someone who just walked out of Venice beach. Come to think of it, the whole studio looks like it could comfortably fit on the boardwalk.

On my way home, I picked up some "groceries" (just some pasta sause with meat to add to my spaghetti, some tiramisu gelato for one of these nights, and a soft drink) and made myself a delicious meal. As I sat by the window, I finished my French homework for the evening and decided to walk down to Reid Hall to print it out.

The walk down St. Michel is amazing, and the detour I took through les jardins de luxembourg was incredible. What a place for a picnic! The place itself is gorgeous and the people watching can't be beat. They even have lounge-style chairs -- it's like they know I want to get comfortable. I've decided that I will come back down here with a baguette and fixings one of these days, maybe I can convice Sam and her French friends to go with me.

In the middle of my super leisurely dinner at the Resto U (pasta, steak, green beans, salad, bread, raspberry tart), a man who appeared to be in his late 30s came and sat across from me. I think he could tell I was American because I was reading some information in a guidebook when he sat down. He was really cordial and explained a lot of things about Paris that he thought were amusing. It wasn't until 1/2 way through the conversation that I realized he didn't have any fingers on his left hand. I was absolutely impressed that he was cutting his steak, eating his apple, and explaining things with his fingerless hand so naturally that I had not even noticed there was anything different about it. More shocking was that when went our separate ways, I had learned nothing about the man's life, what he does for a living, how he lost his fingers, or even his name, but I felt I still had had a great conversation. I think that's the amazing thing about parisians -- they don't talk about themselves that much but still manage to be interesting in a world that is built on "profile pages."

I walked home, enjoying the hot parisian air (I have no idea why it is still this hot here -- I can't even wear pants at noon without breaking a sweat) and found that I didn't even want to dip into that gelato yet. A walk home in Paris was enough of a dessert.

Total Damages:

Pain au chocolat for breakfast from the boulangerie by my school: 1 EUR
"groceries": 3,45 EUR
dinner at CROUS: 3,45 EUR