If I’m feeling energetic I will try to go for an early-morning swim before work. I always have my camera with me. Most times, there are few people around. But sometimes, sometimes, you see something, and you can’t always explain what is happening.
At Denfert. I imagine a misty veil coming down over the image, suddenly it’s a hundred years ago and it’s the same same square but photographed by Atget and there are people in the background wearing tall hats. In the background, andthere are horses and carts crossing the street. But is there the still the medium’s caravan next to the recently-opened metro entrance?
So everyone knows that there is a network of tunnels under Paris, the Carrières. I people know that they’re watching movies down there and having parties and singing and dancing. And that there is another part the catacombs filled with skulls that is making a fortune for the Paris town hall. I should know, we live right next to the exit. But there is also another network: a network of underground (in Paris) water-distribution channels, the Aqueduc Médicis, which was made a new hundred years earlier. There are still access points scattered around Paris. There is one in the observatory gardens. And there’s another one here…
Near here, there’s the rue de l’Aude. The last two years, to bring not-always so talkative Parisian neighbours together, an enormous breakfast brunch in the street has been organised…. Yes, another photograph with empty chairs!
