I don't have much time to write at the moment as dinner is nearly ready, but I want to share with you a few of the pictures I snapped today while in the heart of the city. Anne has a friend staying for the weekend who offered to escort me to Paris proper with instructions on how to navigate the various trains, busses, and the metro. I was grateful for the guidance.
I visited Notre Dame this afternoon, but didn't have nearly enough time to meditate on the ornate details of every corner. Thankfully I'll be here for awhile, so I will most certainly return for a more intimate visit. I was disappointed to see the number of people who scurried through the Cathedral with cameras, zooming in on every other statue and/ or stained glass window, snapping the picture, and running to the next as if they were participating in a scavenger hunt. I understand that tourists have limited time, and Paris has more to offer than most countries, but if one has only limited time to allocate to a site like Notre Dame, then one should put the camera away, and appreciate the view not through a cheap camera lens, but with one's own eyes and heart. Pictures are nice to have, but remembering how something made you feel the first time you saw it is much deeper and lasting than mere images on Kodak paper. Plus, thanks to the internet and tourist postcards, one can find those images after the fact, and those images are 500% more attractive than the pictures taken by someone running through the Cathedral with a run of the mill camera. Just saying.
Here are the few pictures I took..
I visited Notre Dame this afternoon, but didn't have nearly enough time to meditate on the ornate details of every corner. Thankfully I'll be here for awhile, so I will most certainly return for a more intimate visit. I was disappointed to see the number of people who scurried through the Cathedral with cameras, zooming in on every other statue and/ or stained glass window, snapping the picture, and running to the next as if they were participating in a scavenger hunt. I understand that tourists have limited time, and Paris has more to offer than most countries, but if one has only limited time to allocate to a site like Notre Dame, then one should put the camera away, and appreciate the view not through a cheap camera lens, but with one's own eyes and heart. Pictures are nice to have, but remembering how something made you feel the first time you saw it is much deeper and lasting than mere images on Kodak paper. Plus, thanks to the internet and tourist postcards, one can find those images after the fact, and those images are 500% more attractive than the pictures taken by someone running through the Cathedral with a run of the mill camera. Just saying.
Here are the few pictures I took..
Hey Melissa, Mike Murray here. Got your blog link from FB. Pictures look great! Picasa, the photo hosting software from Google does a pretty good job of hosting good photography at fair compression ratios. There's also some strong photoblog plugins/themes/etc from Wordpress if you're looking to go self-hosted for your blog.
ReplyDeleteIf so, let me know, I run a hosting company.
Have a good one & enjoy France! Make sure to send in your absentee ballot for Scott Brown for Senate!
- mbm
Thanks for the insight, Mike! Much appreciated. My internet connection here is painfully slow, and my laptop seems to have lost some of its mo-jo during the actual trip overseas.
ReplyDeleteI have a question: You seem to be the only person who has been able to comment on the blog. A few people have emailed me saying that they have tried several times to post, but that they are never successful. I've checked my settings, and I've selected to option to allow anyone to comment. Do you have some magic powers to which the rest of my family and friends do not have access?
-mmm
Maybe my comments didnt show up because I was using Firefox?
ReplyDelete-Gary
p.s. This is a test.
Haha. I guess that's the answer. No more firefox! :)
ReplyDelete