Cezanne in Paris

“With an apple, I will astonish Paris,” Cézanne said. And so he did. And even today, still does.

We've seen two exceptional exhibitions featuring Cezanne in the last two weeks. The first, "Cezanne et Paris" is showing at the Musée du Luxembourg until February 26th. Cezanne is usually associated with Aix en Provence, however, he spent over half of his life painting in Paris and its environs. This is one of the more well known images from that exhibit.

This week we revisited Cezanne - plus Matisse and Picasso - at the Grand Palais for a special exhibit featuring the Stein collection. The Stein family - the writer Gertrude Stein, and her two brothers Leo and Michael, moved to Paris in the early twentieth century. They were among the first collectors of the paintings of Matisse and Picasso and this exhibit traces the impact of their support of avant garde art. Here are a few examples of the works featured here.

By the way, if you missed the exhibit in Paris, you can see it at the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art from Feb 28 - Jun 3, 2012

Classic cars

I think I've mentioned that Patrice loves classic cars? This morning's excursion followed a classic car parade through the streets of Paris.



Patrice knows everything there is to know about every Citroen ever made . . .

Père Lachaise

This week's photo expedition took us to Père Lachaise - Paris' largest and most visited cemetery. Tourists come to see the final resting place for personalities ranging from Jim Morrison to Edith Piaf, from Molière to Oscar Wilde. There are artists, composers, and politicians; household names seen on street signs and metro stations throughout the city. The cemetery is also home to significant and moving war memorials.

I've been experimenting in black and white, but I am still overwhelmed by the choices and controls - both in the camera while shooting, as well as in post-production color balancing. Please bear with me as I learn.






We rode bicycles to the cemetery and dressed for practicality and comfort of navigating the cobblestone paths and climbing the hills. However, I felt underdressed compared to other visitors to the grave of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret.

Bonne Année

Happy New Year and Bonne Année to all of my friends, family, and loyal readers. I wish you health and happiness in 2012.

Happy Birthday Philippe

Today is my son Philippe's 36th birthday. I'm sorry I won't be in Portland to celebrate with him and Rachel, but we'll be thinking of him and sending love.

Last year I featured some photos of him as a youngster.
Here's a more recent photo of Philippe:


Philippe and Rachel have a special connection with Paris - this is where they became engaged in 2007. Philippe and Rachel came back to Paris in May, 2011 and they returned to the site of his proposal - the Pont des Arts - to seal their love by attaching a padlock to the railing and throwing the key into the river below.









Patrice and I went back to the Pont des Arts last week to look for their padlock.

The bridge continues to attract lovers and padlocks.

Face to face

Patrice received a slide scanner for Christmas. He has thousands of slides taken by his father and himself over the years. One of the first slides that he scanned was this one of his much younger self:


We went to the Bois de Vincennes to take a more recent picture
and voilà - his doppelganger

The Louvre

A rare December blue sky led us to the Louvre for our most recent photo expedition.








Patrice enjoys playing with the camera controls and post-production special effects:


p.s. Oops, it's hard to see the birds in the tiny video window.
Here's an enlargement.