Charlemagne à nos doigts

The Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. But this past Tuesday the Denon wing opened an exhibit, by invitation only, to be touched by those for whom a museum is normally a wide, empty space: the blind.

The salle was narrow, and really too small to comfortably contain the numbers of blind, each with a guide, often a dog as well, an empty wheelchair (?), and to top it off, a team of journalists from France 3 (see the sound man in back).

But the exhibit was a success -- and afterwards we were feted with delicious patisseries, juice and coffee on the mezzanine. Would that the Louvre could make more copies of more objects. The hunger is there.

Une invitation dans une exposition

It's always fun to take pictures of people taking pictures. This one was shot Sunday night in La Maison Rouge, the new museum next door to our apartment building. The occasion was a great (although poorly explicated) exhibit of Soviet art. The artist obviously is inviting his audience to become a part of his works; however, only the cosmonaut was accessible to people of a certain height.

Something is wrong with my camera. Sometimes horizontal stripes mar the image. Technically this photo is faulty, but it does provide an epilogue!

Le tout petit bout du 'Clear Lake'

I'm cheating by including this photo. After posting the first photo (just to 'kick off' this photoblog), I decided to make this a true photoblog and post a new photo a couple of times a week (or more often). But already I'm breaking my promise because I love this one so much that I'm posting it anyway. (And, hey -- nobody's looking!)

(It's from the best series of photos I've ever taken: "Weekend chez Bart, July 2006. " The scenery was so gorgeous that I had my first Ansel Adams moment -- minus the talent and the equipment and technique, bien sûr!)

Amants dans un rayon de soleil

This photo would be lovelier if the bushes weren't wrapped up for the winter, but such is life. I took it week before last in the courtyard next to the 13th-14th c. cathedral of Narbonne (Aude), France.

(A few minutes earlier, I'd spied this couple trying to take a photo of themselves, so I took one of them with their own camera. Now it was my turn.)

Le Lac de Créteil

On a hike with my blind friends yesterday under dark skies and a fierce wind, I wasn't able to get a good photo of the man-made lake at Créteil (a large suburb southeast of Paris). But this one gives some sense of the expanse of the lake. That's my group of randonneurs below, huddled against the elements.


Well, actually here's one photo I like. It's way too dark, of course, but you can see how the lake creates an oasis of marine life amongst the residential towers of Créteil.

La passerelle 'entre deux villes'

On the way home with John from Le Petit Comptoir, I managed to capture the canal boat before it slipped out of sight: joy!

Postscript: a photographer friend has suggested that I crop this photo, making it horizontal rather than vertical. Qu'en penses-tu ?