TK:PHOTO 'ENIGMAS IN PARIS' from TK Photography on Vimeo.
I have been photographing the streets of Paris since 2007
and have encountered many wonderful and timely moments that allowed me a peek- if you will- into what I call the other Paris..
Having been wooed by the Champs Elysées, Mr Eiffel's tower, the Louvre, The Moulin Rouge in Pigalle, The Tuilerie gardens and Place Vendôme near Concorde, Le Marais,The Notre Dame Cathedral, the Sacre Coeur basilica of Monmartre, Bastille, Républque and many of the other "you must go here" places, Paris exposes to the true troubadour-explorer another side of her reality that may never be encountered by the common tourist-seeker who is hoping to experience the romantically-prescribed version of the City of Light.
Her streets of celebrated artist-travelers' lore where, far from the familiar haunts of Harlem, Greenwich Village and Broadway, James Baldwin identified les misérables as the Algerian immigrants whom he encountered when he arrived in the late 1940's. He was able to connect to their
plight as undesirables and second class inhabitants in France. As an artist without a consistent means of support, he experienced the streets by rote, stayed in cheap hotels and befriended people and personalities from all walks of life. A strange episode in one of his fabled chapters here landed him in prison during the Christmas season of 1949.
James Baldwin on the "ancient glories" of French Culture" :
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| James Baldwin 'Equal In Paris' 1955 |
Paris is the coveted traveler's utopia and the voyager-scribe's irresistible delicacy that Ernest Hemingway named "a movable feast". I have found it to be true that the light, the sound and the mood of her citoyens is very swift and changeable and if you don't bring your own voice and light to project into her reality she will easily tempt you with her haute couture gourmet illusion.
If you are going to romanticize a place, there is no rule that says you can't. It is just that if romance becomes a necessary ingredient for such description, it should have more than one dimension for us to move within. I have read many other accounts of both not-so-well-known and otherwise celebrated artists' scripts on their particular Paris adventures. In the past many of these accounts seem to suggest that the most accurate descriptions of Paris could only come from one demographic;
The traveling avant garde who are (sometimes) talented, mostly rich, famous - and White. Tap swipe science has demolished this myth iIf you come here venture to base your expectations upon such myopic accounts exclusively, then you deserve the shock and the turbulent rearrangement of your psyche that may ensue when you turn a corner or hop off of the metro and arrive in Senegal.
I would have to include with JB's and E-Hem's accounts, those of Josephine Baker, Richard Wright, Miles Davis, Nina Simone and an uncounted many others whose Paris experiences were as dark or as bright as they come. Fast forwarding to today's social media universe where thoughts are published as they come, this is a tweet form Lyricist rap artist Lupe Fiasco candidly proclaiming:
"
He later told his twitter followers that he was "in Paris looking for the ghost of James Baldwin".
There is Jay-Z and Kanye West's Niggas in Paris a braggadocio-laden account of how young and affluent rap stars season their Parisian feasts du jour. And what about the Paris that is the birthplace of a new generation of young French artists from the post-Gainsbourg MTV and HIP HOP generation of the late 70's and the 8o's and through to the 20'nows?.. What Paris do they live in?
Even if I consider my experience here to have been a little more involved than would be than for the average visitor, and that being because of the paths laid and doors opened to me by Black men who were constant gardener-travelers, I hadn't yet heard - until recently, - about a "transient psychological disorder" that plagues unsuspecting, presumptive tourists who come here with privileged expectations of Paris and who very likely lifted their script from the California-based lab that has concocted for us a now inexhaustible supply of travel fantasies.
The photographs in my on-going 'enigma' series are a compilation of my street-going adventures that began here in 2007, after I had done my share of nibbling on the hors d'oeuvres and decided that I needed to create my own buffet. It was during this period of reconnaissance, that I began to stumble upon her not often recognized but always present food for the soul.
The sights and the rhythms that I encountered here reflect around eight years of exploring an unbeaten path in Paris and includes another series in this blog titled The Doors of La Rive Gauche.; a continuation of my photo-narrative with images that illustrate my fascination and intrigue surrounding the many doors that I passed by and entered here, wondering what or who might be waiting for me on the other side with some new untasted travelers' roue.
These various gateways to steps and corridors or to vast courtyards that house artist communities became a metaphor for the types of unlikely characters that I met and the worlds that they concealed - or did not conceal. As with any metropolis, the people, places and faces here are the real doors to the music and beats that kept me curiously coming, waiting and opening.
Absent are the typical scenes of a curly mustache-twirling , beret-crowned Gaspards. Pensive, with brush in hand, painting lilies by the fountain in Le Jardin du Luxembourg as Mireille and Pierre lie in the grass sipping a young Côtes Du Rhône. Or even our fictional comrades David and Giovanni café-hopping in Saint Germain des Prés to a chorus of ' Saluts' 'Allos!' and 'Adieus!'.
They are the errand-running blue tooth speaker blasting, freestyle-rhyming,cell tap swiping, scooteur dancing, velo-speeding young stars. The out-side-of-the-Jolie-zone -cicians who, will tell you that Les Banlieus where they and their families live is also Paris. There is the gallant basement pianist, the world class jazz musicians and chanteurs célèbres who play the grand festivals in summer and jam in the obscure caves or basement lounges in St Michel-when it's cold.
The colorful sons and daughters of the continents tremble the city from Barbes to Belleville to Aubivilliers. They who enliven the air with a bazaar of colors from The Orient, Dakar, Mali, Benin and everywhere on The African Riviera. They stay bending the common street sounds with ancient words that stir common French into bold and fantastic musical convo. Corner-chilling Al-Hajiis in their jalabiyas watching every single move. My comrade-homey and empanada food-truck vendor who introduced me to his D.R. by way of a three on three game of hoops, blasting salsa and bachata from loudspeakers and serving samples of his authentic Dominican treats to wary crepe lovers.
I accosted a group of romping demoiselles, poised on the steps of the Bastille opera house in their emo-regalia , defying all things Mireille- and Chanel. I took personal shots of my visiting family members, my niece and nephew lamping near the Louvre on a summer evening.
Many photographers inherently establish their visual presumptions as reality-
I would have to include with JB's and E-Hem's accounts, those of Josephine Baker, Richard Wright, Miles Davis, Nina Simone and an uncounted many others whose Paris experiences were as dark or as bright as they come. Fast forwarding to today's social media universe where thoughts are published as they come, this is a tweet form Lyricist rap artist Lupe Fiasco candidly proclaiming:
"
"
He later told his twitter followers that he was "in Paris looking for the ghost of James Baldwin".
There is Jay-Z and Kanye West's Niggas in Paris a braggadocio-laden account of how young and affluent rap stars season their Parisian feasts du jour. And what about the Paris that is the birthplace of a new generation of young French artists from the post-Gainsbourg MTV and HIP HOP generation of the late 70's and the 8o's and through to the 20'nows?.. What Paris do they live in?
Even if I consider my experience here to have been a little more involved than would be than for the average visitor, and that being because of the paths laid and doors opened to me by Black men who were constant gardener-travelers, I hadn't yet heard - until recently, - about a "transient psychological disorder" that plagues unsuspecting, presumptive tourists who come here with privileged expectations of Paris and who very likely lifted their script from the California-based lab that has concocted for us a now inexhaustible supply of travel fantasies.
The photographs in my on-going 'enigma' series are a compilation of my street-going adventures that began here in 2007, after I had done my share of nibbling on the hors d'oeuvres and decided that I needed to create my own buffet. It was during this period of reconnaissance, that I began to stumble upon her not often recognized but always present food for the soul.
The sights and the rhythms that I encountered here reflect around eight years of exploring an unbeaten path in Paris and includes another series in this blog titled The Doors of La Rive Gauche.; a continuation of my photo-narrative with images that illustrate my fascination and intrigue surrounding the many doors that I passed by and entered here, wondering what or who might be waiting for me on the other side with some new untasted travelers' roue.
These various gateways to steps and corridors or to vast courtyards that house artist communities became a metaphor for the types of unlikely characters that I met and the worlds that they concealed - or did not conceal. As with any metropolis, the people, places and faces here are the real doors to the music and beats that kept me curiously coming, waiting and opening.
Absent are the typical scenes of a curly mustache-twirling , beret-crowned Gaspards. Pensive, with brush in hand, painting lilies by the fountain in Le Jardin du Luxembourg as Mireille and Pierre lie in the grass sipping a young Côtes Du Rhône. Or even our fictional comrades David and Giovanni café-hopping in Saint Germain des Prés to a chorus of ' Saluts' 'Allos!' and 'Adieus!'.
They are the errand-running blue tooth speaker blasting, freestyle-rhyming,cell tap swiping, scooteur dancing, velo-speeding young stars. The out-side-of-the-Jolie-zone -cicians who, will tell you that Les Banlieus where they and their families live is also Paris. There is the gallant basement pianist, the world class jazz musicians and chanteurs célèbres who play the grand festivals in summer and jam in the obscure caves or basement lounges in St Michel-when it's cold.
The colorful sons and daughters of the continents tremble the city from Barbes to Belleville to Aubivilliers. They who enliven the air with a bazaar of colors from The Orient, Dakar, Mali, Benin and everywhere on The African Riviera. They stay bending the common street sounds with ancient words that stir common French into bold and fantastic musical convo. Corner-chilling Al-Hajiis in their jalabiyas watching every single move. My comrade-homey and empanada food-truck vendor who introduced me to his D.R. by way of a three on three game of hoops, blasting salsa and bachata from loudspeakers and serving samples of his authentic Dominican treats to wary crepe lovers.
I accosted a group of romping demoiselles, poised on the steps of the Bastille opera house in their emo-regalia , defying all things Mireille- and Chanel. I took personal shots of my visiting family members, my niece and nephew lamping near the Louvre on a summer evening.
Many photographers inherently establish their visual presumptions as reality-
I have been more than once bitten by this urge. I have assigned the signature title of this series of images to a still and haunting 'wayfarer' with her head bowed, holding a placard on which were written words that I never read. With her paper cup in front of her is full of the rare empathy and empty by the common lack of consideration that together spell her lot. Like a gatekeeper of the Champs Elysées sub walk where I saw her, she never said a word. She didn't thank the givers or frown on the ungenerous as the waves of a million human stories swept by her.
She is like this city; any city really. Only those with a certain kind of sight can see her and acknowledge her for who 'she' really is. She is like the redundantly italicized French words in this post majestically forward leaning as an accepted mark of style. but still, they are just words written in another tongue and distinguishable only to the degree that you decided to learn their meaning. .
She is not a beggar, a vagabond nor is she a cunning usurper of the rare compassionate givers. She doesn't respond to kindness or suck her teeth at disdain. She is just there. Maybe she has a secret to reveal and if you took time to stop and ask her the right question, in the correct tone of voice - or thought, You might even be shown the gateway and given keys to her yesterday, her now and her tomorrow all at a glance.
The sequence of images ends with her night scenes. Sign boards of dance venues on well-known Paris thoroughfares and the bright glow of a lamp post that beams on an empty side street at dark.
All of the scenes reflect moments captured while traveling through the streets of my Paris, my own realm of many rhythms and colors that include but extend beyond things considered to be typically Franćais. The unseen, (or unnoticed) and the ever-present .. is what I move to expose through my photography, in the hope that others may seek and see the same.
If by chance, you happen to pay this fair city a visit - for a spell? or are fleeing here seeking new danger well..
She is like this city; any city really. Only those with a certain kind of sight can see her and acknowledge her for who 'she' really is. She is like the redundantly italicized French words in this post majestically forward leaning as an accepted mark of style. but still, they are just words written in another tongue and distinguishable only to the degree that you decided to learn their meaning. .
She is not a beggar, a vagabond nor is she a cunning usurper of the rare compassionate givers. She doesn't respond to kindness or suck her teeth at disdain. She is just there. Maybe she has a secret to reveal and if you took time to stop and ask her the right question, in the correct tone of voice - or thought, You might even be shown the gateway and given keys to her yesterday, her now and her tomorrow all at a glance.
The sequence of images ends with her night scenes. Sign boards of dance venues on well-known Paris thoroughfares and the bright glow of a lamp post that beams on an empty side street at dark.
All of the scenes reflect moments captured while traveling through the streets of my Paris, my own realm of many rhythms and colors that include but extend beyond things considered to be typically Franćais. The unseen, (or unnoticed) and the ever-present .. is what I move to expose through my photography, in the hope that others may seek and see the same.
If by chance, you happen to pay this fair city a visit - for a spell? or are fleeing here seeking new danger well..
Come with with some other queries- pack your own spice and some original light,
of your own. If you choose to share your gleanings with fellow zone travelers through the the lens or by the pen every now and then pause and "Look Again"
FIN
Tejan Karefa..
Tuesday, March 1, 2016 Paris 14eme
TK NOTE:
while discussing this article with a young Parisian who works as a social media liaison to a large group of followers in japan I was fascinated by his revelation on the existence of a phenomenon known as PARIS SYNDROME.. wow.. googling this 'condition' will reveal to the reader how much our travel experience can by governed .. in this case ruined by our thinking.
MUSIC:
The accompanying song is Ritournelle de Paris by the well known French Singer André Claveau
who released a series classics that were popular in France from the 40's through the 60's .
RELATED SCREEN GRABS:
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| Wikepedia Definition of ';Paris Syndrome' |
An excerpt from a theatlantic.com article
: 'Paris Syndrome: A First-Class Problem for a First-Class Vacation' published
on October 14, 2011 ...
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PARIS EXHIBITS SUMMER 2016:
See my VIMEO PAGE: for other photographic and video material..
