If Only Paris
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If Only Paris

A city read through its surfaces

Sepia light and the specific grammar of looking up. Signs, silhouettes, stone. Paris resists the camera and rewards patience. These images were made in the gaps between the obvious photographs.

29 images
Paris, France
The Seine at dawn: the river pale, the bridges dark, no one on the banks yet 1 / 29
A Haussmann façade in winter light: the shutters grey, the ironwork precise 2 / 29
Café terrace on a side street: two chairs, a table, nobody 3 / 29
The Eiffel Tower through autumn trees, glimpsed rather than framed 4 / 29
Metro entrance at Abbesses: the Art Nouveau ironwork against a pale sky 5 / 29
A bouquiniste's stall on the quai, the books dark green in their boxes 6 / 29
The Sacré-Coeur dome through scaffolding, a building being repaired 7 / 29
A narrow street in the Marais at noon: shadow on one side, sun on the other 8 / 29
Notre-Dame seen from the Île Saint-Louis, the reflection incomplete in the water 9 / 29
A boulangerie window at six in the morning: the baguettes just in 10 / 29
Pigeons rising from the Place des Vosges, the arcades behind them 11 / 29
A figure reading on a bench in the Luxembourg Gardens, autumn on the ground 12 / 29
The Palais Royal gardens: the colonnade and a lone figure walking the length of it 13 / 29
A café mirror reflecting the street: the inside and outside simultaneous 14 / 29
The Centre Pompidou exterior: the colour-coded pipes against a grey sky 15 / 29
Montmartre at dusk: the hill lit, the city below in haze 16 / 29
A man on a bicycle crossing Pont Neuf, the river silver below him 17 / 29
A flower market stall in the 5th: the peonies overflowing onto the pavement 18 / 29
The Louvre pyramid at night: the glass lit from below, reflections on the wet paving 19 / 29
A waiter setting tables on a terrace, the chairs scraping on stone 20 / 29
The Pont des Arts from below: the arch and the river and the sky in three registers 21 / 29
A child chasing pigeons near the Trocadéro, the Eiffel Tower in the background 22 / 29
A jazz musician in an underground passage, the notes echoing in the stone 23 / 29
Rain on a Paris street: the umbrellas black, the pavement reflecting everything 24 / 29
The Opéra Garnier façade in afternoon light: every ornament casting shadow 25 / 29
An art gallery opening in Saint-Germain: the crowd, the wine, the work ignored 26 / 29
The Canal Saint-Martin at midday: the iron bridges and the lock and the plane trees 27 / 29
A Parisian rooftop seen from above: zinc, chimneys, and distance 28 / 29
Final image: the city at night from the Sacré-Coeur steps, everything luminous below 29 / 29
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