Les Deux Magots in the Rain, Paris
It rained late today, and I was reminded of a day almost a year ago in Paris. We had walked down Rue Bonaparte past St. Germain des Pres where a high-profile wedding was taking place. We could tell by the security and paparazzi. Who we had no idea, but we stood around for awhile and enjoyed the spectacle like everyone else in the crowd surrounding the church entrance. There was a very good photographer selling prints of Paris on print racks on the street corner. (I wish I knew his name.)
After awhile we strolled on and past the famous Les Deux Magots, and I wished, not for the first time, that I could get some kind of unique photo of the place but none was to be had at the moment. We crossed Boulevard Saint-Germain and continued on to St. Sulpice which neither of us had been in before.
Later that day I found myself back at Les Deux Magots from the backseat of a taxi. We had finally hailed a taxi in the late afternoon rain. Shot through the window with a Parisian bicyclist to frame the shot, I got what I wanted. It’s blurry. It’s atmospheric. It’s definitely not a “postcard” shot, but all of that makes your eye have to look at it a little bit harder and study it…
By the way, on the bottom-right you can see the photographer I mentioned earlier. He’s folded up his print racks. The wedding was also over. The paparazzi and security forces gone. The tourists dispersed. Les Deux Magots, like it has for over a hundred years, carries on.
This image is available as a print in the Paris Art Prints section of this site. More Paris photography for licensing is also available.