Slightly Nutty Street Photography

     In the heart of summer, Grenoble was already a very hot place before noon. This old lady was coming back from the market and she clearly seemed to suffer from heat. As  she passed by a small church, I thought that such a weather had the roughness of a  divine punishment.

     This little boy and his grandma were waiting for the cinema room to open. It was one of the last days before the old cinema closed. You could buy pop corn just behind the cashier. And steal some from your grandson, discreetly.

     That day farm animals were exposed in the streets. Lots ot of city kids were  watching them attentively. These brothers were very interested in two little pigs, and vice versa.

     Coming back from Paris, I was feeling sleepy in the train. The lady in front of me fell asleep first. But her cat was fighting against, as if he had a duty to look after her. Eventually he fell asleep too, and I could take their picture without taking the risk that he denounced me.

     At a flea market, I got attracted by a man selling wooden frames for paintings. He was talking to a lady who obviously started to annoy him. So I went closer and heard the lady asking countless questions about the type of wood or the decoration style of a frame. The man was getting so painfully bored by all these questions that I knelt down just enough to frame him inside his nightmare.

    This wooden train had just been bought and given to the little boy at a flea market. Driving his train, the boy went out from the shade of a big building and then I felt like two kids were actually playing under the generous spring sun.

     This English boy was enjoying the show put on by the great Piédon circus.  It was very hot under the big top. During  the interval, many spectators bought drinks and, to help kids wait,  the acrobatic circus girl  painted their faces like clowns. But the lights went out and the show started again before the boy could get his painting. So the girl did it at the light of her phone and the scene was beautiful.

     At first the little dog was sleepy in his basket.  Going to the market early in the morning was clearly not his cup of tea.  But as his mistress took her time to choose flowers, he became interested in this choice and started to look closely from up on his podium.

       Printed on the window of a bank, I had already noticed this giant billboard before. But nothing was really happening there, until this day when a worried woman passed in front. The scene immediately made me feel the full annoying hypocrisy of such ads.

       In the department store, this little boy was heading to a different place than his mom.  He blew her a kiss with the tip of his lips just before  disappearing in the escalators,  as if their steel jaws were devouring him.

     This scene shot at a flea market reminded me Stendhal's famous statement (in Le Rouge et le Noir) that a novel is a bit like a mirror carried along a road, sometimes reflecting blue sky and some other times reflecting mud puddles : "Eh, monsieur, un roman est un miroir qui se promène sur une grande route. Tantôt il reflète à vos yeux l'azur des cieux, tantôt la fange des bourbiers de la route". What Stendhal did not specify however is who are the muses carrying it. Maybe this photo brings an answer to that question.

      This sitted dad was holding his kid's ice cream in one hand, and his cigarette in the other. Getting a bit bored of waiting, he started to look at his reflection in the glass wall. Or at its beautiful sheaf of  cracks . Or maybe at both. 

     On this sidewalk, there were a lot of people  sitting on the terrace of a café. At first I noticed  the striped sweater of the girl on the right. But then the other one, slightly turning her face towards me, hugged herself very gently and I was captivated by such a beautiful gesture.

     Most probably the man was accompanying his daughter to a deguised birthday party. I did not want to be too intrusive by shooting them from the front. So I waited that they went past me. And then I realized that her angel wings were magnificent from behind, reminding me of the angels in the movie Der Himmel über Berlin by Wim Wenders.

     It had been weeks that I was wondering about this poster on the window of a  personal assistance company. Of course I got the meaning of the scene: a young helping lady, having fun with the old man she was helping. But all this seemed a bit exaggerated to me, and when a sad-looking man went in between I felt like the whole scene made sense at last.

     From inside the toy shop, where I was buying a gift for a colleague's baby, I noticed that one of the two sellers had just gone outside to clean the shop window. I knew this window very well, since in front of it there was a beautiful statue of Pinocchio which I had tried several times to photograph. Then the opportunity to shoot this cleaning of Pinocchio was too good to miss, and I pretended  to have something else to look at  so that I could snap the scene.

     Quite early on a Sunday morning,  there were already a lot of people at the street market. At a place where dresses with geometric motives were sold, I noticed a few women of all ages already wearing similar beautiful clothes. Such a surprise superposition of so graphic patterns immediately caught my eye and made me shoot this scene.

     The great La Part-Dieu shopping center, close to Lyon's railway station, was full of customers on this Saturday noon. I n the dimness of a corridor, the brightly lit windows of a lingerie store almost hurt the eyes. And they made also great Chinese shadows.

     Towards the end of a cold winter afternoon, these two young men were pushing a shopping trolley. I liked the shadows that the setting sun made of them on the wall and focused on it.

    This little girl was waiting inside a café for her mom to pay. She was giving a very big hug  to the giant teddy bear, which made me think that she probably had a rough day at school.

     In the middle of the flea market filled with old dolls and chairs, it felt strange to see this ancient firearm in the hands of these two guys. They were looking like  tough members of a dangerous latino gang from Los Angeles. I took only one picture, from the hip, and I was lucky enough that it was pretty well framed.

      When this fancy man appeared at the corner of the street, I was  surprised by his eccentric and uninhibited elegance. He was giving his left arm to his mom. Contrasting with his colorful shirt, his heavy fur coat and his big shiny rings, her dress style was very classic and discreet. 

    When  I took this view, the little girl had just thrown away her garbage bag upon the others. I liked the way she did it, very furtively. And how she came back in her building while watching her dirty hand, probably before washing it.

     As a standard rule, I do not shoot people in distress or danger. Hence I'm not a big fan of homeless people's portraits. But this man, who I often met on Grenoble city center's sidewalks, had so much dignity in the way  he moved, despite his extreme poverty, that I dared to take his picture.  I'm still not comfortable posting his picture though and that's why I'm reserving it for this blog only.

     These two ladies were approaching and I noticed the third younger one on the magazine cover. I did not have any of my usual cameras, but fortunately I had my old iPhone in my pocket. So when the three of them were just in front of me, I did my best to shoot them from the hip.

      Blocking the entrance of a small art gallery, a strong man with his arms crossed in the back was talking to the owner. As he held his left wrist in his right hand, I felt like shooting the nice shadow of his left hand on the door.

     This cute little dog caught my eye and I decided to shoot him from a very low point of view. So I knelt down, pretending  to redo my shoelaces. I waited for the dog to be very close to me, as he crossed the while line of the pedestrian crossing.

     On an usual morning, as lots of kids were going to school, a mom stopped and installed her little girl on this steel barrel to change her diaper. In fact, it was a table outside of a fried chicken joint. Which I never tried afterwards.

     This girl, her tame weasel and I crossed our paths several times in the so-called Championnet area. But I always failed in taking a satisfying picture of them until this morning. As the pet turned a corner, it trotted in the middle of a so nice sun pattern on the sidewalk that I shot the scene.

    My brother and I were visiting a museum downtown. It was the end of an early spring afternoon and the light outside was beautiful. I was looking down at the paved square in front of the museum as I saw this old man walking with a stick towards his sitted friends taking the sun along the wall. Despite the company of a pigeon, he seemed alone and I took his picture this way.

    As I wandered along the banks of Isère, I noticed a lady and her little dog both sit at the top of stairs going down to the river. They were looking great, simply enjoying the view side by side. Although the shutter of my camera is quite discreet, they heard my first shot. That's why they seem disturbed on this second one.

     Painted on the walls framing a now closed cat coffee shop, there are two nice black cat heads facing each other. From time to time I go and see them, just in case something would happen in between. Like this poor dog pulling on his leash and sticking out his tongue.

     The relaxed attitude of this walker, taking a nap by the lake, really invited me to imitate him. And also to take a photo, despite the scene's overly simple appearance. It was then that a magnificent swan slowly approached, as if it wanted to definitively validate the atmosphere of serenity that could be felt around this sunny nap.

     For a few years already, there are in Grenoble so-called "Bike Highways". On one of these tracks, I saw in a strong backlight a couple and their shadow arrive. He was on his skateboard. She alone produced on her bike the effort necessary for their propulsion.

     The first thing that struck me, before the old lady arrived, was the very penetrating gaze of the young woman exposed in this hairdresser's window. As the second character took place in the frame, I noticed that she was wearing sunglasses, hiding her eyes not so differently from the girl with her hair.

     On the gates of the Luxembourg Gardens, a few famous sport photographs were exposed. Among these, I really liked the "Twickenham Streaker" (named Michael O'Brien) taken in 1974 by Ian Bradshaw during the half-time break of an England-France rugby match. With his arms outstretched as if he were Jesus and his forefinger pointing like on the Sistine Chapel ceiling , the streaker has a very graphic attitude that I was lucky enough to connect to a spectator.

    The disturbing dummies of this wedding dress shop window had intrigued me for a long time. As real twins rode past them on scooters, I only had time to cross the street and snap this shot, amazed by the coincidence.

     On the iron curtain of a greengrocer's shop window, a pretty painting depicted the smiling face of a little girl. As I thought that someone was missing to complete the picture, a smiling old lady passed by. Surprisingly, her gentle smile looked very similar to the little girl's one.

     Now that, for better and for worse, a large part of Grenoble's city center has been returned to pedestrians, some bikes and scooters drive too fast in walking zones. Hence signs asking for "walking pace" have been added. As I saw one, a lady ran past it as if in defiance.

    Through the window of the barber shop, I saw a quite burly man whose hair was being shaved. And especially noticed the barber's hand, nicely lightened by the sun at the top of the man's head.

     During the spring sales, I saw a lot of middle-aged ladies cruising from shop to shop. They seemed to be very organized and their expedition relied heavily on modern techniques, the first of which being smart phones. I took this picture in front of a clothing store as I felt it expressed well their cold-blood, very rational, shopping.

    In a flea market, there was this girl selling vintage porcelain dolls. She was chatting with friends and laughing. She was carrying one of the dolls in her arms, and I tried to take a picture of them discreetly. But she noticed me. And suddenly she behaved as if she had been transformed into a doll, just like her favorite one sitting on the table. With the same expression, and the same wide open eyes. Just like in a Twilight Zone's episode, which was a bit scary but did not prevent me to take this picture.

    Visiting my parents in the North of France, I was going with them to the supermarket in the small town called Denain. It was a bit cold and quite misty when we came back to the parking lot. An old man with a fisherman cap appeared, pushing his trolley along the wall of a junk shop whose sign was a magician's hat. I found beautiful the strange repetition of the cylindrical shapes of this hat, of the old man's toilet paper rolls and of the parking stones.

     In Grenoble's jardin des plantes, there were little trees which kids were used to climb. And this day I noticed a particularly busy one. So I got closer and took a picture of it just as the little brother of the girl at the top was entering the grove, with only a little foot left outside.

     This man and his dog behaved very differently. The former was completely absent-minded, while the latter was completely focused on his daily walk and the next spot to piss on. And the more the dog pulled on the leash, the more his master slowed down.

     Especially attracted by the candy apple and the little girl's fierce appetite, I noticed the GRAVITY sign only much later. Maybe I saw it without realizing it, in my unconscious as a physicist. Or more probably it was sheer luck.

     This man, known as Uncle Paul, had a thing for sorting potatoes. Simply by the way he was slowly choosing each potato in the daylight near the barn door, you could feel how much this activity was relaxing him. And soon enough you had the irrepressible desire to go help him.

     On a luminous summer morning, this old man seemed preoccupied. He was eagerly waiting for someone under the train bridge, and nervously scratching his throat and cheeks. I found that his very tense expression contrasted well with the much more relaxed characters on the painted wall, and took the picture for this reason.