Afghanistan 1975 – 01/13 – Paris

Paris was the first stop on my second overland trip along the silk route. The trip two years before had been centered on India with Afghanistan as a country to be seen along the way. For his trip Afghanistan was the major destination. Unlike two years before the travel would not continue east to get back home. Kabul was to be the turning point for the return.

It has taken me thirty-seven years to get these photos into some sort of accessible form. These photos are the reason for this blog being started. I now think that a blog is not the best way to present such a large number of travel photos. But now the task is complete and I will have learned something from the effort, perhaps gained closure or come to understand what that word might mean. I can move on to other photos and self-assigned writing tasks. Now I have a blog as a natural outlet for those things that lend themselves to exposition in a blog.

Back to the 1975 trip and the photographs that ensued. In 1973 I took with me a compact 35 mm camera with automatic operation. I stopped working in Iran. I won’t mention the manufacturer because Canon has made a lot of other fine photo gear since then. This trip my camera was a Rollei 35 with a Zeiss lens and a Compur mechanical shutter. It had a light meter but it was not coupled to the shutter. If the meter failed I had plenty of latitude with the Kodachrome 64 I carried that would let me produce useful photos.

The first leg of the trip was Icelandic Airlines as it had been in 1973. The first European stay was in Paris. I purchased a Metro pass and did a photo tour of the city on foot from promising looking Metro stops. Paris produced many nice photographs. You don’t have to be Cartier-Bresson to bring back good photos from this city. Even if you don’t capture the decisive moment you have some nice pictures.

So we begin our trip in Paris with a collection of photographs of places that have been photographed thousands of times previously and from the time that photography was in its infancy.

0001 Paris 01 - Hotel California (Saint Germain)

Paris 01 – Hotel California (Saint Germain) Somewhere it is written that any set of travel photographs must include a photo taken through the hotel window of each hotel visited. This is such a photo from the Hotel California – – the one in the area of Saint Germain. I did check out and I did leave.

Paris 02 – Along the Seine 1

Paris 03 – La Tour Eiffel The photo includes the image of the quintessential French couple.

Paris 04 – Arc de Triomphe

Paris 05 – Place de la Madeleine – Under Construction

Paris 06 – Pont des Arts

Paris 07 – Along the Seine 2

Paris 08 – Notre Dame

Paris 09 – Notre Dame – Buttresses, keep ’em flying.

Paris 10 – Notre Dame

Paris 11 – Luxembourg Gardens

Paris 12 – Helicopter I never found out what was going on here but this helicopter managed to create a scene extracted from some sort of science fiction film.

The trip to the Musee d’Art Moderne produced some interesting images.