Posts tagged ‘City’

Dec 10

Paris | Photography Focus – Rues and Rooftops

There’s no denying that Paris exudes charm around every corner, in every cobbled street (or rue), across its extensive grant Haussmann boulevards and in the intricate details of its architecture. And of course, on my recent visit to Paris I was moved to capture, as I have done so many times before, all of those beautiful little details. For no matter how many times you visit Paris, it is still abundantly generous in providing picture after picture of incredible angles and tantalising sights. I suppose in a way it’s akin to my daily walk to work through the grand streets of Westminster – where even on my 600th journey I might find a new architectural detail to tempt my camera into action.

But I would be lying if I said that Paris’ charm resides exclusively in its streets. For one of the defining sights of Paris for me, and the one which makes me gasp more than any other, is the city viewed from the rooftops. Whether it be from atop the Tour Eiffel, at the climax of the external escalator of the Centre Pompidou, up the spiral stone staircase of the Notre Dame, or at the summit of the romantic Butte de Montmartre, the view of Paris’ almost uniform tapestry of silver slate roofs punctuated by the gilded domes and gargoyle-covered spires of its monuments and churches is always breathtaking. On this trip, we were therefore especially lucky to be given a room in our fantastic Citadines hotel which boasted superb views not only over the Palais Royal immediately adjacent to the hotel, but also across the 3rd and 4th arrondissements towards the Notre Dame and beyond.

So in this third set of photos from my recent Paris trip, a collection which focuses on the architectural details which characterise Paris, do not be surprised to find a whole host of different roof-top shots; under grey skies and pink, close up and far away, but always, distinctively, Parisian.

Paris | Photography Focus – Les Jardins et les chaises (daily-norm.com)
Paris | Photography Focus – The city by night (daily-norm.com)

Sep 12

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A weekend in Kraków | Photography Focus 1 – Urban details

As regulars of The Daily Norm will know, when I visit a new country, and all the more so when I visit a city, my eyes are alive taking in all of the brilliant details which so often cluster abundantly, ripe for the picking, before me. I love photographing the places I visit, and not just the postcard views or the tourist hot-points where visitors gather for poses. Rather, in my photographic contemplation of a newly discovered urban space, my eye looks for all of the little details; often the ones which many a superficial glance may miss, or dismiss as ugly or unimportant. As my adventures in Lisbon demonstrated last Autumn, I love nothing more than a city which exudes character not through glossy renovations, but rather through tired dilapidation, through cracking walls which ooze history; through the empty bottle telling a half tale of the drinker who abandoned it on a windowsill; through the electricity wires which hang haphazardly across a street, feeding electric life into the many households around them.

For sure, Kraków simply dazzled with its array of picture-perfect charm-filled streets, with its gleaming gold domes and impressively baroque copper cupolas – and my many photos exploring those gems are still to come. But there’s another half of Kraków too, away from the tourist heart; the city which tells of its residents and its more recent past, which exudes something of the hard-edged spirit of a city which has fought through invasion and suppression to remain a centre of enlightenment and education, and which simply charms through the sheer character of its dilapidation.

These are my photos which focus on those urban details which can so often be missed. I hope you enjoy them.

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