Signs

There are little signs of oldness I'm seeing in myself.

You don't want to know what they are.

You've heard about them.

Those of us my age are even older than the president of the United States and that hasn't happened to us before.

But when I see people who I'm just sure are older than me, and see that they're still active and still having fun and still in love and still enjoying the moment, I know that you can have signs of oldness -- with style.

That's what I hope to do.

I don't even know these two people, but I like them:

Imagine

Imagine waking up to a sky this colorful. Imagine seeing a wave this big.

Imagine tasting oranges this sweet.

Imagine listening to music in a setting this perfect.

OK -- I didn't taste the oranges. Just couldn't. But everything else was beyond belief.

Little moments. In the sky, on the sea. With people, with the things people create.

Little moments. Big treasures.

Life.

New eyes

I'd already walked from Notre Dame to the Marmotten Museum, which is miles and miles. And when you count the time wandering around gardens and cathedrals and museums along the way, you can add even more miles and miles.

So I took the subway to l'Etoile (Arc de Triomphe) and then headed east on the Champs Elysses.

And for a minute, I wasn't thinking of taking a picture.

For a minute, all I could think about was finding a place to sit down.

So I found one and sat down. And then I thought of taking a picture again.

And that was thanks to one of the museums I went to. It hadn't been on my list, but a tip from my professor in Antibes brought it to my attention. It was past the Louvre and across the way from l'Orangerie, just at the northeast corner of Place de la Concorde.

It was called Jeu de Paume and it had some unusual contemporary art and some old black and white photographs from Paris and the Cote d'Azur and New York and cities west.

It was the old photographs that were most interesting to me. They were taken in the 1930s by Lisette Model, of people in the act of living. And there was a quote on one of the exhibit walls that most struck me. It said something like, "You can see what people are like inside by looking at them outside when they don't know you're looking."

The quote was actually much better stated than that, but that's the gist of it.

I've been an avid candid photographer for as long as I've been a photographer, but mostly in the family setting. I liked thinking of it more broadly and as I sat on a bench across from the Promod store, I found fascinating people to photograph without giving up my seat (but having to move over a couple of times so more weary travelers could share it).

Here they are:

Thank you, Pierre. And thank you, Lisette.