Georg Parthen, from his project ‘Beaugrenelle‘ and submitted to the mus-mus ‘@Paris’ project.
The mus-mus‘ @Paris project has debuted on their site – go have a look if you haven’t already. The project has been fairly well reported around the photo-blogosphere, and the list of photographers contains some familiar names; Alec Soth, Stephen Shore, Sylvia Plachy, Bertien van Manen, Simon Roberts, Linus Bill, Richard Renaldi, Vincent Debanne, etc. Closer to home (the internet), Hester Keijser and Norman Beierle (Mrs. Deane), Shane Lavalette, and yours truly all participated.
The @Paris project was, if you recall, a call for pictures of Paris from photographers from all parts of the world. From the call for submissions:
It is fitting that Paris, lovingly called “The City of Light” should have been one of the first and most thoroughly photographic and photographed places on earth. The list of Paris’ photographers runs from Daguerre and Nadar to Brassai, Doisneau, Cartier-Bresson and from Atget to Man Ray, Kertez and Klein and many more, a remarkable number of photography’s greatest artists made their mark ‘a travers’ Paris. Their photographs and publications have fixed in our mind’s eye a vision of Paris that is beautiful, often as edgy as elegant, and always complex.
The results, as you can see for yourself, are impressive. But as Marc Feustel, another expat based in Paris, writes on eyecurious:
I did find a lot of interesting material (Céline Clanet’s image above is a favourite), but overall I felt slightly frustrated. Paris has become a difficult city to photograph because of its past, but for me, as a group, these photographs did not sufficiently get under the skin of the city.
I certainly struggled with this when I first moved here (it took me about 6 months after arriving before I could even pick up a camera again in this city), but having resumed photographing again, I frequently ask myself how would one best depict this city? Paris is a city of mythology, more so than New York. New York is a lived-in myth whereas much of Paris’ mythology derives from the past or from a fantastical view of the city that never really existed (see Amelie Poulain). Indeed, every year there are groups of tourists who so idealize the city that when confronted with the actual city they go into shock, a phenomenon known as Paris Syndrome.
I think one must be sly about shooting in this city: You have to acknowledge the history, but at the same time completely ignore it when actually working. If you don’t, you run the risk of sliding right past what’s directly in front of you and instead capturing only the surface of metropolis as least as complex as any other. Paris work should always be more than just an archaeology of objects, architecture, and types, more than the reflection of the allure of the city…