I visited Washington for the first time as part of a weekend trip organized by my high school’s French club. We ate at Maison des Crêpes. I enjoyed it. The restaurant is long gone but I remember it and my trip when I pass by its former location in Georgetown.

The Streets of Washington blog recently shared this photograph of the Maison des Crepes on Flickr and explained its history:

Maison des Crepes originally opened as La Crepe in 1967 at 1305 Wisconsin Avenue NW in Georgetown. It was the creation of Paris-born Jacques Vivien (1925-2010), who began his Washington career as the maitre d' at The Jockey Club. Vivien was riding a fashion craze for creperies when he opened Washington’s first. He decorated the restaurant in French provincial style and had his waitresses decked out in Breton costumes. Eventually two other locations would open, and all would remain popular, especially with tourists, despite sometimes poor reviews from local dining critics. The original restaurant in Georgetown closed in the early 1980s.

This brought back nice memories. That weekend trip was wonderful.

You can read more about the restaurant here.

View from Virginia

Pont Alexandre III, Paris

The Pont Alexandre III is a deck arch bridge that spans the Seine in Paris. It connects the Champs-Élysées quarter with those of the Invalides and Eiffel Tower. The bridge is widely regarded as the most ornate, extravagant bridge in the city. It has been classified as a French monument historique since 1975.

The Beaux-Arts style bridge, with its exuberant Art Nouveau lamps, cherubs, nymphs and winged horses at either end, was built between 1896 and 1900. It is named after Tsar Alexander III, who had concluded the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1892. His son Nicholas II laid the foundation stone in October 1896. The style of the bridge reflects that of the Grand Palais, to which it leads on the right bank.

The next bridge upstream on the Seine is Pont de la Concorde and the next bridge downstream is Pont des Invalides, which is the lowest bridge crossing the Seine.

The Pont Alexandre III is one of 37 bridges in Paris that cross the river Seine.

In the 1985 James Bond movie A View to Kill, Bond jumps from the Pont Alexandre III into a boat to catch a mysterious killer.

Vogue:

Tatjana Patitz, the quietest and perhaps the most intense of the original supermodels, has died. She was 56. A representative for the family stated that the cause of death was metastatic breast cancer.

[…]

[T] here was a certain element of mystery to Patitz’s beauty, something in the gentle oval of her face and the shape of her eyes that spoke of self-possession and passion. “Tatjana was always the European symbol of chic, like Romy Schneider-meets-Monica Vitti,” remembered Anna Wintour, chief content officer of Condé Nast and global editorial director of Vogue. “She was far less visible than her peers—more mysterious, more grown-up, more unattainable—and that had its own appeal.”

May her memory be a blessing.

The Guardian

A cold morning the day after Christmas, 2022

The Washington Post - Capital Weather Gang 

Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop expert Julieanne Kost is interviewed on the Photocombobulate podcast. The topic is Lightroom Classic Tips.

 Episode 27: Lightroom Tips with Julieanne Kost.

Apple Podcasts

The Musée Picasso is an art gallery located in the Hôtel Salé in rue de Thorigny, in the Marais district of Paris, dedicated to the work of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). The museum collection includes more than 5,000 works of art (paintings, sculptures, drawings, ceramics, prints, engravings and notebooks) and tens of thousands of archived pieces from Picasso’s personal repository, including the artist’s photographic archive, personal papers, correspondence, and author manuscripts. A large portion of items were donated by Picasso’s family after his death, in accord with the wishes of the artist, who lived in France from 1905 to 1973.

Jacqueline Roque (1927–1986) was best known as the muse and second wife of Pablo Picasso. Their marriage lasted 11 years until his death, during which time he created over 400 portraits of her, more than any of Picasso’s other loves. Here she poses with her striking portrait created in California. The photograph was made by David Douglas Duncan (1916-2018), an American photojournalist, known for his combat photographs and for his extensive domestic photography of Pablo Picasso and his wife Jacqueline.

Paris is a beautiful city and attracts many talented photographers. These are among the photographers who capture the essence of this extraordinary city:

• Peter Turnley
• Paris Street Photography by Michael Erimo
• Nico Geerlings on Flickr
• Sophie on Instagram
• MagS on Instagram - Paris and travel photography She also has a nice color account on Instagram.
• Paris Insolite (en français)

I will add to this list over time and welcome suggestions of other photographers to add to this list.

Last updated: December 14, 2022

Ferdy Christant, in a superb piece about Flickr, suggests that people who photograph for the joy of it should focus less on external validation such as likes or faves and more on what brings them joy:

For amateurs and enthusiasts, . . . first and foremost . . . enjoy your hobby. Enjoy photography itself as well as your topics, be they a landscape, a model or a freaky insect. Or even a Snowy Owl. This is your hobby and you should learn to enjoy it even if not a single other human being notices. Start with this. Your joy and self worth should not depend on others.

I’m serious. Look at people having other hobbies. Reading, hiking, tennis, wood crafts, brewing beer, collecting stamps, watching movies or playing Tetris…none of these people spend hours per day seeking validation as to whether their hobby is worthwhile or has meaning. It has meaning because it is your time and you enjoy doing it. None of them determine meaning based on others as if they are monitoring a stock market of self worth.

My name is Tommaso Carrara and I am an italian native Information security professional based in London obsessed with candid photographs made in public places using analog and digital cameras. Since I started making photographs, a little over 2 years ago, I have always followed my instincts and shot whatever I liked to. Whether that was a nice landscape, a street scene, or a nice building, I did not worry too much about what my message was. And probably I still don’ t, as I honestly have no idea what my real intention is behind this side of the glass. The only thing I know is that I enjoy doing it, and I feel like I am creating something unique, which somehow has my own stamp on it.

Tommaso Carrara

Instagram

Patrik Seiler is a talented Swiss photographer who mainly makes photographs of landscapes and cities:

Every time I pick up my camera, I forget the time and everyday life. The camera and the pictures take me to another world. I concentrate on the moment and try to get the best out of that very moment, the conditions, the subject, the location, the light and so on.

You can follow Patrik on Instagram or Flickr. His photos are also featured here.

The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.

― Andy Warhol

Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, my hometown, in 1928. He was educated at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh.

Jim Hill is a Chicago photographer worth getting to know. He became fascinated by Chicago’s nighttime alleys and back streets during the pandemic:

I submerged myself in studies of how artificial lights penetrate the darkness of an urban environment. That darkness provided me comfort and cover from the events going on around me. The artificial lights transformed what is bland and ugly in the daylight into a beautiful hidden world, which is visible to those willing to risk the unknown, the shadows. 

During the pandemic, fear and death seemed to permeate everything. Roaming forgotten places in the darkness to capture the hope of the light allowed me to confront the panic around me and gave me the strength to carry on. Ultimately, my work is about confronting fear and finding the beauty, which can emerge from the unknown, the darkness.

You can follow Jim Hill’s thought provoking photographs on Flickr and Instagram.

Stella Tennant, iconic model and fashion designer, died in Scotland on December 22, 2020. She was 50 years old.

Culture and style critic Guy Trebay, writing for The New York Times, explains that Tennant had deep aristocratic roots but "wore her rarefied heritage lightly throughout her three-decade run in fashion."

She was photographed by top photographers including  Steven Meisel and Bruce Weber.

The end of an era, way too soon.