Paris Vignettes: Picturesque Passageways

As you wander through the diverse neighborhoods of Paris, you’ll stumble upon intriguing passageways and meandering narrow streets. I find this to be one of the city’s most compelling attractions. Particularly with the light of the low winter sun, you can photograph some magical scenes in these secluded areas. Sometimes glancing down one of these passages you see people doing everyday things but with the light and shadows, it looks artful (as depicted below in “ceci n’est pas un artiste”). Always appealing are the courtyards near the Bastille (“cours pres de la Bastille”), where every 10 steps you’ll immerse yourself in unique places, some passageways even a bit green during mid-winter. I also enjoy the perspectives from the main streets like rue Saint Antoine or the “quai” towards the small side streets with their pavés (cobblestones) which form spectacular images that seem frozen in time.

Following this thread for this edition of Paris Vignettes, I also captured restaurants hidden in courtyards (“cour du resto”), and ateliers such as “espace des femmes,” which invite you to escape the hustle and bustle of the busy Parisian streets. Elsewhere you can stumble across a table and chairs enticing you to brush off the leaves, sit down and relax (“un table caché dans Belleville”). Add some rain and evening light and those pavés glisten (“pluie dans le quartier juif”) as one walks back home after a day of being a flâneur.