Today was as beautiful as it ever gets in Paris in December.
I got out a little earlier than I usually do: 1145.
The plan was to walk to Pont Alexandre III and then back to Pont Neuf and across to rue Dauphine and an Indian restaurant I have been wanting to try; I was going to have a late lunch.
I have not taken many pictures recently; I had assumed that that was going to be a condition of stasis for the balance of this sojourn, that I had run out of shutter clicks.
The minute I got down to the river level quai I found that to have changed.
I didn’t notice until later that my camera had gotten confused when building this panorama.
“It’s the light” I muttered to myself.
“It’s because, suddenly, an entirely new layer in the nearly infinite palimpsest of Paris light conditions has revealed itself, and I have – today – peeled it back; yet again I have been vindicated in my indomitable drive to piss away what little net worth I have on wandering the streets and quais of Paris”
(My reveries can get pretty heavy out there on the streets and quais.)
“So let’s roll with the light” I said to no one in particular.
The rest of the images are children of that perception.
The panorama is of Pont du Carousel; here is one of it alone – with Pont Royale peeking through Carousel’s arch from its place down river; Pont Royale is where La Frégate is, on Quai Voltaire at rue de Bac, and it is also at the down river end of le Louvre.
The arches under Pont Royale make a nice frame.
Next down river I thought l’Assemblée Nationale looked pretty good.
It wasn’t long before I was coming up to the berry bush that, on a day previous, coming from the opposite direction, I got some good pictures of a merle noire eating the berries. He was there today and I got a few not very good, but fairly interesting pictures of him; he was eating berries again, so he ignored me and I was able to get close-ups with minimal zoom.
A while back I took this same picture of la tour truncated by fog and bracketed by two of the golden horses of Pont Alexandre III.
Here is today’s clear weather version – and coated in a new peel off the palimpsest of Paris light.
And with new light I am never able to resist taking a close up of Alexandre’s horses.
A copper sculpture on top of le Grand Palais needed to be included.
I crossed the river on Pont Alexandre III and didn’t see much to shoot (that was the dark side of the river, out of the sun, so light driven inspiration was limited).
But, looking across occasionally induced a shutter click.
I went back across at Pont du Carousel and took a few pictures of some cormorants that I had seen in a sweet gum tree as I had gone the other direction earlier; the light was better now.
I walked on and crossed back to rue Dauphine at Pont Neuf to have my Indian lunch.
It was amazingly sub standard.
I was disappointed.
So I trudged on up river after lunch and got a few more pictures.
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