Ok, yeah, Led Zep reference. On a side note I’ve been revisiting them recently, what a weird and interesting band beyond their hard-rock debauchery. Robert Plant is such an unusual singer. A precarious relationship with pitch and his voice goes rough in odd places, but there really is no singer quite like him. Jimmy Page and John Bonham are so heralded (rightly so) but John Paul Jones might be the real glue. They have a reputation as gods of thunder, but so many songs are acoustic and even on bangers like Immigrant Song the guitar is actually barely distorted. For a band whose better-known songs like Kashmir and Stairway to Heaven are over eight minutes long, Immigrant Song is surprisingly short, clocking in at a mere 2:26. Their dabblings in Druid and Norse mythology should be ridiculous but somehow manage to be evocative.
For such a famous band they are sturdy but pretty unpolished and off-grid by today’s standards. Pretty damn refreshing if you ask me.
Syrian refugee from car window, Paris, 2016
Anyway, this was supposed to be about rambling. It’s been a strange ride lately. In March I was still ensconced in Nairobi in our house with two doggos. In April I was back solo briefly in the Republic of Takoma Park, seeing my mom, reconnecting with friends and fam, moving soil in the garden, and trying to help save the US republic-if-you-can-keep-it.
Today was my first morning waking up in my in-laws’ apartment in a suburb of Paris, where circumstances have brought me for an undetermined period of time. Not complaining (or bragging), it has been that old dilemma of stability/security vs freedom/change. Certainly lacking the former at the moment but I feel privileged to be gaining plenty of the latter, especially as a man of a certain age.
Not sure how much I’ll photograph here, we’ll see. Paris is a challenge since it’s one of the most photographed cities in the world. If I do find a theme, I hope it will at least surprise. As I often say, I don’t try to make places look good or bad, I’m looking for something truthful. So many people, photographers included, fall into the trap of idealizing and romanticizing Paris, as if it was still the 1950s Paris of their mind’s-eye. Not me. While I do like it, I find the reality of the City of Light a somewhat grittier and complex everyday experience.
With that said, for now first things first. I set out in the cool rain early this morning, jet-lagged but determined to get my fix of proper croissants and baguettes. That’s something I do cherish here. On the ten-minute walk there, I reminded myself (as I would remind my former students) to at least look around, to open my bleary eyes to new surroundings.
It’s a bit like in 2013 when I had two days (really only one full day) to photograph in Tallinn, Estonia. I needed a hook, so I decided to not even shoot the famous Old Town at all, I only worked in the surrounding Soviet-era areas - with a bike and one small camera - to see what ordinary life was really like. My idea was when can a post-Soviet country move on, start being post-post-Soviet? The set actually won an award and were part of an exhibit at Nat Geo, here’s a different edit including a few I haven’t shown before:
Rambling on. More soon from Your Man Near Paris.