Paris Vignettes: The City’s Interesting People

Over the years, I’ve studied the photography of Willy Ronis, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï and Robert Doisneau at various exhibitions. These legendary photographers taught me the techniques on how to capture the lyrical, fleeting moments lived on the city streets.

While sitting in the park in front of the Musée Picasso, I magically snapped “c’est marrant” where someone reacted unexpectedly to what he was reading. Across town at the 1997 Big Bang Fashion exhibit at the Palais Galliera, I saw someone from the Instagram / Tik Tok generation who knows how to dress, pose and present herself in an artful way (“Big Bang fringé”).

As mentioned in other vignettes, I love doing walks with Paris Greeters and exploring people’s neighborhoods. On one guided walk in Ménilmontant, we met someone who cleans chimneys (“le dernier ramoneur”) but afterwards Josselyne mentioned that burning wood is prohibited so we wandered away wondering a bit.

The “manifs” in Paris are ideal events for these transient moments whether it is some protesters dancing to capture attention (“les manifestants dansants”) or more sudden when a protestor ran and jumped as high as he could to apply a sticker in “manifestant bondissant”. Appreciate the positive vibes from these vignettes which are moments captured in time and will never happen again in the future!