Lefever Studio Q.1. 2007 Sacred Space, Rainy Streets

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Q.1.2007 Paris

Sacred Space & Rainy Streets

No flash, not even flash fill - be stealth - silent observation: if it is dark, shoot it dark. Without a tripod - hold still. Retain the ambiance.

Two days for Paris.
It is New Year and the city prepares, people are praying, tourists are visiting. It was cold, it was gray, it was Paris. With only two days in Paris, what does one photograph? Without much time to myself, I leaned toward my main interest: sacred space - in this case, churches around Paris. Sacred can be up to interpretation. However intentions for prayer and propitiating compels my interest. Spaces like these do not exist in Southern California. I revisited places photographed in 2003. To get there: the streets and the Metro also offered their photo ops. . .

SAINT PAUL

Saint Paul's Church is unexpectedly large inside and despite appearances from the street of a sandwiched facade worn down and ignored (at times it appears closed, even condemned) inside it is spectacular. It also contains smaller chapels of great intimacy and privacy. Off the tourist radar, it is my favorite church in which to stop and pray.

THE STREETS

Throughout Paris, like New York and other great cities around the world, there are the broken among the splendor. There were many shots of the homeless on the streets outside of churches and within the Metro (one sat huddled next to a Christmas ad delighting abundance in the season of joy - irony?). In all fairness there were those in the Metro performing for any spare Euros as there was normal commerce taking place everywhere on the streets above. It is interesting to observe a place one does not live in - interesting how that changes what one sees - and how hard one looks to see everything - yet when we live in a place, it becomes invisible...