Previous films made here include...

Saturday I had a meeting with Lois Grjebine, the owner of this marvelous apartment (pictured left) who has kindly offered to host my photo exhibition entitled "The Other Side of Paris". She is a woman of character and a social calendar to rival the busiest in town. The apartment is enormous with the most amazing triple height window in the sitting room. Original artworks hang on the walls interspersed with African masks. More artwork rests on random easels.

I had the vague thought that it might be fun for Lois to have a film crew in her apartment, then she told me how a great French film of 1981 by Claude Pinoteau "La boum" was filmed here featuring the novice Sophie Marceau! The film crew broke plates (which they then replaced), scuffed the floor and generally made a mess. Lois fiercely expressed her concern over the crew arriving on Thursday. I made suitable mollifying noises.

We discussed how I will hang the images and I explained my ingenious plan to which she nodded her acceptance. She asked to see some of the photographs that I had brought with me to this meeting and scrutinized them and nodded her approval. Then she told me she was the Chief Photo Editor for a newspaper and had met one of my heros - Robert Doisneau.

I feel smaller, but in very good company.

Location Scouting

Someone is watching you! Along rue Ruisseau towards Lamarck Caulincourt a piece of art casts a glance over the passers-by. And I cast a lens over the art and the passers-by. Both the artist and I are happy. And the passers-by... they are generally oblivious.

I am walking through the 18th in my role as location scout. Tom has sent through the filming schedule, Thursday is dedicated to Kate!!!! He will be shooting Sherry and I wherever I lead her in the quest for images of "The Other Side of Paris". My route needs to be fresh. I think I have found it. I stopped myself taking photos. 

But I need to run. I am late for John Baxter's Literary Walking Tour of Paris. I run to a walk...

Publicity and Opportunity

Without publicity, there is no audience, without an audience an exhibition stands little chance of success. I also need to remember that I am promoting Sebastian's talk on July 4th. The Paris Writers Workshop classes for this week are being held at WICE on 20 bvd Montparnasse. I walk up there armed with posters for both of our events and with postcards for mine.

As soon as I arrived I saw the image on the ground - it was too beautiful and required some exploring. It is part of an old boiler that was being dismantled. This section is only a tiny part of it - the whole boiler is almost a living entity. I just loved the shape. I was invited to the cellar to see the dying machine and got some great photos.

Inside WICE I put up multiple posters and also inserted a postcard invitation to TOSOP inside every welcome pack for next week's attendees. I am back there tomorrow morning to take photographs of people for next year's publicity for the event.