Point Zero

I never imagined blogging my adventures would be so time consuming, but if I had stopped to think about it, I probably could have guessed.  I'm a photographer, so I take A LOT of photos.  And I'm a perfectionist, so I agonize over the photos I've taken.  And I'd like to say that it's because I'm a bit of a creative genius in Photoshop, but I spend an inordinate amount of time in the digital darkroom; playing, tweaking, converting, masking and tinkering until I'm either bored or satisfied and then I move on to the next photo.  To say that I've got a backlog of thousands of photos is an understatement.  

Sadly though, my flurry of photographic output has faltered - my camera is broken.  We were traipsing about the Pompidou, and I suddenly noticed a dagger-shaped, over-exposed  strip running through my photos.  Urg.  Not good.  But not unexpected either.  I discovered that I have nearly 30,000 shutter clicks on this camera, and the shutter is just now getting arthritic.  Not bad, really, but the timing could have been better.  The good news is that I might be able to catch up on editing and story-telling until I'm armed and dangerous again.

You might be wondering why it's so hard to stay caught up.  Well, I'll tell you.  Twice now, we've had visitors from home and both times they were here for one week.  While they're here, I spend the entire time wandering around the city with our guests, camera in tow.  We leave the apartment in the morning and don't return until late in the evening unless we're having dinner at home and then I'm busy in the kitchen.  The memory cards stack up and before I know it, I've got thousands of photos to sort, edit, process, finish and then write about.  And I was already behind when they got here!  It's a tough life, I know!

I'm not sure what prompted me to launch into an explanation of my seemingly lackadaisical posting style, but I suspect a small measure of guilt has something to do with it.  What I really want to tell you about is the week I spent with my brother and sister-in-law.  It was their first time to Paris and we had a blast touring the city and squeezing in as much as we could in their time here.

Dennis and Beth arrived on a Saturday.  We met them at the airport then took the train/metro back to our apartment.  We let them relax for about 5 minutes before we dragged them out the door and off to see the sights.  We thought they might experience the dreaded, sudden-onset jet-lag and crash while out wandering, so we kept our plans loose and flexible.  That's where Point Zero comes in.  Our first stop was Notre Dame cathedral.

My very first photo of the day was of Point Zero.  This compass rose marker, set in the pavement in front of Notre Dame Cathedral, marks the official center of Paris and it is the point from which all distances to and from Paris on national highways are measured.

All toes point to point zero

It was very cold and the skies were gray, so I didn't take a photo of Notre Dame at a distance.  I have other better photos than I would have gotten on this day anyway, but I did notice something; when I'm with a small group of people, I get to talking and I'm not seeing.  If I'm not seeing I'm not photographing.  So my photo journal is a bit choppy, but that's okay.  In looking at these photos now, I'm intrigued at what caught my eye and made me stop talking long enough to make a photograph!

 We had to wait in a security line before we could enter the cathedral:

This was less like a line and more like a loosely-formed column of people all moving in the same direction

Notre Dame facade - The Kings Gallery- 28 Statues of the Kings of Judah and Israel

The Central Portal depicting the Last Judgment

Portal of Saint Anne - Jamb sculptures of Saint Paul, King David, Bathsheba and Another King

Many cathedrals are very dark inside and on a gray day, they are even darker.  Notre Dame is no exception.  I took this photo with a fairly long shutter speed and since I don't have a tripod here, I have to find a makeshift horizontal surface or use the floor for a timed exposure.  Still, I manage to get a few photos inside:

The beauty and grandeur of Notre Dame Cathedral

 By now you know I'm drawn to the candles, and partly because where there's candles there's light!

We took a side trip into the Treasury:

Beautiful Stained Glass in the passageway

Joan of Arc

Sculpture detail

The Treasury Ceiling - ornate and colorful

Saint Denis and Dennis

While the inside of the cathedral is dark and mysterious and filled with whispers, the square  of the west facade is filled with light, laughter and amusement:

We don't know who he is or why he was wearing this mask...

but he was having fun and enjoyed being photographed!

From Notre Dame, we headed to the Pont Neuf - the New Bridge - which it isn't as it is the oldest standing bridge across the Seine.  It connects the Left Bank to Ile de la Cite and the Right Bank.

The many faces of Pont Neuf

A bastion on the Pont Neuf

Bastion and Face detail

Not all was gray and dreary on the stone-clad quais:

Primroses and Pansies!

By now, I was sure Dennis and Beth would be craving a hot meal and a warm bed, but no!  Here we are consulting a map for our next stop:

At the tip of Ile de la Cite - and planning our next stop

Can you tell it was cold?!

 And because a day doesn't go by without some interesting scene in the City of Lights:

Try as he might, Little Doggie could not get his person to keep up