The Albert Khan gardens.
These gardens are unbelievably tranquil, quiet and beautiful. They block out all the noise and smells of downtown Paris, you become very relaxed while wandering around the Koi ponds and stone paths. The museum itself was showing Cliché Japonais, and featured many of the photographs taken during Khan's travels to Japan. The show was beautifully curated, and showed one of (I think) the most purposeful uses for a giant iPad I have ever seen in a museum setting. The museum couldn't display all of the autochromes for the show, so everyone of the Japanese collection was digitally reproduced and put into a 'digital light box' on the iPad. You could sort, find, enlarge and flip pictures with ease. It was pretty cool. I was hoping to get the contact information for the curator, but when I did my best to ask in French to the lady manning the information and ticket desk, she looked at me like I was Mars. Oh well.
The Albert Khan gardens.
After we had our lunch on the front lawn of the museum (they weren't keen on food in the garden), we headed to the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, where Anne Cartier-Bresson had curated a show. Titled L'Objet Photographique, une invention permanente, the show looked at the materiality of the photograph and the historic processes used to create them over time. It featured examples of processes from the time and modern creations of the historic processes. Mark Osterman popped up quite a lot with the modern prints. I think my favorite piece in the show was a portrait of a man looking at a smaller version of himself standing on a chair. All parts of how this image was created were on display with this image, from the original photograph of the 'smaller man' that had been cut out to the old receipt that had been cut to that shape to burn it into the image. While visiting this exhibit was an optional trip, we firmly believe it should have been mandatory for the class.
The inner stair well of the MEP.
This visit is where the inspiration for the title of my blog came from. Prior to the trip, I had concerns about my French language skills. I am fairly bi-lingual, having been in immersion French education all through elementary and high school, but I hadn't spoken French consistently since high school, so a lot of my vocabulary has disappeared. I also thought I had no professional vocabulary in photography at all. Throughout the first few days of the trip, I was pleasantly surprised by how much of my French came back and how well I could converse comfortably. While we were in the MEP, I discovered that my concerns over the professional vocab were somewhat unfounded. Upon reading a label for an image, the French translation for "dye transfer," was "le dye transfer." The concept of Bugs Bunny French (English words or terms spoken with a French accent, or with the addition of some French words) seemed to hold true with the photographic world. While not true in all cases, the frequency of this occurring made me feel far more relaxed about my language skills in the field. Also, "le dye transfer" is just funny, and has stuck with ever since.
We enjoyed our dinner on Pont des Arts, which seemed exceptionally busy that evening. We also noticed a firm police presence as well. We then discovered that Ben Affleck was doing a film, a scene of which was being film while walking across the bridge. We still have no idea what the film is, but it did give me one of my favorite quotes from the trip.
Imma: I think my ass crack is going to be an extra on a Ben Affleck film.
Ben Affleck on Pont des Arts.
All Photography and videos by A cook.
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