Babies at La Samaritaine
Tuesday, November 25, 2008 Posted by Eric Tenin
La Samaritaine - a former Paris department store - is the site of an unusual exhibit of photographs by Thierry Bouët: Newborns. This is a photo of one of the 50 on display - a baby boy just 55 minutes old. Why? Well, as Christmas is coming, it's the way LVMH (the owner of La Samaritaine) and the Paris 1st Town Hall have found to celebrate the nativity. The exhibit will run until January 20, 2009 (see a wider angle here).
Don't forget if you are in town: a little PDP gathering will take place tonight (Tuesday 25) at General Lafayette (a restaurant located 52 rue Lafayette). If you want to joint just email me (eric at parisdailyphoto.com) so that I know approximately how many people will show up. Thank you.
November 25, 2008 12:07:00 AM GMT+01:00
What a novel way to celebrate the nativity. Are all the babies newborns or are they of all ages?
November 25, 2008 12:08:00 AM GMT+01:00
A clever way to celebrate the nativity. Are all the photos of boys?
BTW when will the store be opening again?
November 25, 2008 12:09:00 AM GMT+01:00
Newborns! I should read the post before I comment! Is that baby wearing a rug? That's a lot of hair!
November 25, 2008 12:10:00 AM GMT+01:00
Darn, Cali!!!! I had a hard time thinking of something to write! You win, fair and square! You get the newborn.
November 25, 2008 12:14:00 AM GMT+01:00
Geez, just what I didn't want unless . . . does it come with a Father?
November 25, 2008 12:17:00 AM GMT+01:00
lol, Cali! Good shot!!!
For a couple of seconds there, Eric, I thought you photographed a screaming baby at Ikea ;)
November 25, 2008 12:25:00 AM GMT+01:00
One screaming baby from Ikea added to the crown! Rug optional.
November 25, 2008 12:43:00 AM GMT+01:00
Very, very moving.
I love them instantly.
'age : 55 minutes' ... how thrilling!
November 25, 2008 12:47:00 AM GMT+01:00
Cali, are you sure you want a baby on your head? Sounds messy!
Very interesting idea from Thierry Bouët. I wonder if he got the parents' consent.
I can't wait to hear about the PDP gathering tonight!
November 25, 2008 12:48:00 AM GMT+01:00
Well...cute or scaring?
That's a pretty good idea to celebrate the Nativity but these heads are so huge! LOL
PHX, I think it will never be a shop again, but as Eric said before, a big hotel. Am I right? I'm to lazy to check on the web...
BTW, we'll miss u tomorrow!
Suzy and Lynn, about yesterday: you cracked me up!! You're so funny.
Carrie, you felt what I felt about the Sentier? Phew, I thought I was kind of fearful and posh. At least now, we're two of that kind. ;)
November 25, 2008 12:49:00 AM GMT+01:00
That's a very sweet exhibition.
November 25, 2008 12:50:00 AM GMT+01:00
Suzy, he surely had it! In France you can't take pictures of people if they don't agree.
November 25, 2008 12:50:00 AM GMT+01:00
he he good, Guille!
November 25, 2008 12:53:00 AM GMT+01:00
Suzy: I usually don't wear the crown the whole day. It messes up my hair!
November 25, 2008 12:53:00 AM GMT+01:00
Yes, Guille, but people do it anyway! I know a groovy guy who posts a photo of Paris every day, and sometimes there are random people in them...
November 25, 2008 12:55:00 AM GMT+01:00
These two little guys don't look very happy. Maybe they just heard that they will miss the PDP gathering and it made them cry!
November 25, 2008 12:57:00 AM GMT+01:00
I wish La Samaritaine could be preserved. When it opened in 1870 it inspired Zola so much that he wrote a book about this Department store. He claimed it was the first. His sex-and-shopping novel really impressed me.
November 25, 2008 1:08:00 AM GMT+01:00
Suzy, really?! Who is it? He doesn't realize... ;)
Jeff, and what about you? I hope you won't cry tomorrow! We'll think about you when the Beaujolais will be served.
November 25, 2008 1:16:00 AM GMT+01:00
In the Uk you have to be careful about photographing people too, but in a public place, where it is reasonable that someone may be photographed, it is ok. You don't have to ask permission of everyone in the crowd, for example!
November 25, 2008 1:18:00 AM GMT+01:00
Sex and shopping, Lois?
Zola? Really? I'm confused. Which novel? All I remember from reading Zola is that really depressing feeling.
November 25, 2008 1:18:00 AM GMT+01:00
Okay, so most newborns look a bit "unfinished" (with the possible exception of my daughter Lila, who was 3 weeks late and definitely well done!). Still, I have to say aawww.
Way to go, Cali—wear your baby-festooned crown proudly!
November 25, 2008 1:21:00 AM GMT+01:00
I really like this very creative idea.
November 25, 2008 1:22:00 AM GMT+01:00
btw, I work for a parenting magazine, and we definitely have to get the permission of a parent of every child we show in the mag.
November 25, 2008 1:31:00 AM GMT+01:00
Oh yes children are different. I can't photograph a child without the permission of the parent or the school which, in turn, has already obtained permission from the parent, or is in loco parentis. This is merely taking the photo, let alone publishing. This is a good thing though.
General pics of adults, personally, I think should not be restricted too much, otherwise we shall have no freedom to make social comment and documentation by photographs.
November 25, 2008 1:31:00 AM GMT+01:00
My newborn (now 8) was born 2 months early. She was quite a wrinkly bag of purple and definitely looked under-cooked! (Yet still the most beautiful baby there ever was of course)
Alexa, I imagine publishing photos of children is a very tricky business! My 8-year-old's teacher wants to put all of the photos she takes of the class during the year on a CD for everyone, but had to get all of the parents' permission first. Her note stated that if even one parent withheld permission, no CDs were going to be given out at the end of the school year.
November 25, 2008 1:34:00 AM GMT+01:00
Suzy it's a shame it was done that way round. They should have asked all parents first, so that all children whose parents object would not be included in the taking of the photo. A bit sad for the child I suppose, but more fair for the others.
November 25, 2008 1:35:00 AM GMT+01:00
Psst! Suzy I'm off to bed now but be thinking how we can be naughty twins here tomorrow... ;) I don't think Eric has seen us yet!
November 25, 2008 1:38:00 AM GMT+01:00
Tomate, Yes, Zola wrote about sex. His book "Nana" is pretty hot. His book about sex and shopping is "The Ladies Paradise" (Au Bonheur des Dames). He tells about the rise of the modern department store in late nineteenth-century Paris. The store is a symbol of capitalism, of the modern city, and of the bourgeois family.
November 25, 2008 2:02:00 AM GMT+01:00
Yes, I think I read that a long time ago but I didn't get the same thing out of it at all ;)
To me, the ultimate author when it comes to writing about sex is an American: Henry Miller.
November 25, 2008 2:58:00 AM GMT+01:00
Oh, Cali, 27 comments later and I am still laughing.
November 25, 2008 3:57:00 AM GMT+01:00
What a great way to celebrate Christs birth! I love photos of babies.
November 25, 2008 4:55:00 AM GMT+01:00
It's a striking photo of a photo, Eric! Love your angle.
I can't stay. Gotta go to the bookstore and pick up a copy of Zola.
November 25, 2008 7:11:00 AM GMT+01:00
Au Bonheur des Dames...it's such a great book. Well for a Zola fan, at least! Read it at school if I remember.
November 25, 2008 7:39:00 AM GMT+01:00
i sometimes look like that in the morning too :-) if they can only post on PDP i wonder what they would tell us....hmmmm guess we will have to wait at least - what 20 years. that will only make me 25 (yeah right try 65...)
November 25, 2008 8:47:00 AM GMT+01:00
Lois -- that's cool - I didn't know about Zola and la Samaritaine - I'm curious, too, and I'm not much of a novel reader. It seems like it would put me into the Paris of his time.
Eric -- The photo is very attention-getting(in a good way!) The angle and slight glare make it sort of otherworldly - which I like - it's not the normal, cute-baby shot.
There was news in California before I left about images of some children being used without the parent's knowledge in the campaign to ban gay marriage there - I'm not sure if it got resolved.
November 25, 2008 9:16:00 AM GMT+01:00
An exhibition about Nativity organized by LVMH in a place this company killed… how ironic !
Pardon my french but, "C'est vraiment gerbant" !
November 25, 2008 9:55:00 AM GMT+01:00
Of course my previous comment has nothing to do with the quality of your picture Eric ! ;o)
November 25, 2008 4:16:00 PM GMT+01:00
LVMH and babies just don't seem to mix.
November 25, 2008 6:07:00 PM GMT+01:00
Guille, you're a Zola fan?
I didn't know ;)
November 25, 2008 7:49:00 PM GMT+01:00
Petrea, Guille, Carrie, and Tomate, Zola describes la Samaritaine as exotic. The huge sky light ceiling/roof all the beautiful iron work -- it was a palace of a department store. Can you imagine seeing that for the first time in 1870? I wish they would restore her to her former beauty (she needs a face lift that's all) ;-) Happily, we still have the Galeries Lafayette. I am also a Zola fan. This reminds me of Candide by Voltaire -- another exotic very feminine work of art.
November 25, 2008 8:01:00 PM GMT+01:00
thanks eric for the advice.. i am not a friend to see newbornfaces in the internet as public..
is it allowed to do this
i think doing this you need a permission by the parents
November 25, 2008 10:01:00 PM GMT+01:00
Lois, please don't take it the wrong way but one of the reasons I can't stand reading these things is because I don't see the romantic version of it at all. Instead, I see the birth of Corporate and how the working class at the time lived and worked in appalling conditions...
(If anyone lurking wants to suggest that I am just another "socialist" or worse ... you can save it, already, I'm just saying. ;)
Seriously, people tend to romanticize everything from joining the Navy to how much fun it would have been to live in past centuries (Renaissance Fair people are a good example) but living all these years ago would have meant a lot of hardship on the great majority of us and people don't realize that kind of stuff, instead they focus on other things like the kind of dresses women were wearing, etc.
Anyway, just saying ;)
November 25, 2008 10:04:00 PM GMT+01:00
But I also see your point, and when I walk past or into these great old buildings, it's a really good feeling.
You just can't help but try to imagine how things were ...
November 25, 2008 10:50:00 PM GMT+01:00
My Great Grandfather was Treasurer and Executor of the Estate of Gumps founded in 1861 in San Francisco. My mother use to go there when she was a little girl. She said it was as if you were in someone's mansion or palace but even better than that. She said the Gumps of today is not at all Gumps -- you cannot even put the two in the same category. She showed me some old B&W photos. And yes, she is correct. We have really lost something beautiful and special.
November 25, 2008 10:53:00 PM GMT+01:00
I have a few fancy things from Gumps, Lois. They will become my heirlooms!
November 25, 2008 11:10:00 PM GMT+01:00
I love the beautiful buildings in San Francisco too. The Palace Hotel for example, in the 1990s was being "modernized" :-s. They knocked out the beautiful domed ceiling of stained glass (that was designated a historic landmark by the city of San Francisco in 1969). It was like looking at a thousand jewels. I asked the building contractors to just repair it. They said, "No, that would be too expensive. We are just going to put in white glass and save money." Of course, the new owner was not San Franciscan; it was a Japanese company. Sigh, here is what it looks like now -- it pales in comparison http://www.ruggedelegantliving.com/sf/a/images/Palace.Hotel.Garden.Court.Ceiling.jpg
November 25, 2008 11:22:00 PM GMT+01:00
Eiffel Tower Suzy, Wow! I buy wedding gifts there. It makes them special.
BTW, The Palace Hotel's bathroom fixtures, door knobs, and etc., were all GOLD. The man who had the hotel built during the Gold Rush had it made that way. During the earthquake and fire, the gold melted; and was never replaced (well, replaced; but, not with gold).
November 25, 2008 11:28:00 PM GMT+01:00
Hello everybody, from the PDPers at le General Lafayette.
8 of us are having a great time: andouillette, escargots, sanglier, tournedos, Macon white wine, Saumur red wine, profitérolles, Irish coffee, etc...
We are missing you all.
Kisses from Guille, Michael, Stewart, Elizabeth, Carrie, Michelle, Eric (of course) and Thib.
November 25, 2008 11:36:00 PM GMT+01:00
THIB: What fun, sorry I didn't get to talk with you. Poor Michael's phone bill will be terrible. Pay his bill for him, won't you?
Bisous.
November 25, 2008 11:39:00 PM GMT+01:00
Oooh, I am so jalouse -- but also hoping you are all having the BEST time. Have a glass of the Macon for those of us who would like to be there (maybe just one for all of us, or you'd be under the table!).
November 26, 2008 12:16:00 AM GMT+01:00
awe thib...it all sounds so good. have a glass for me. merci.
November 26, 2008 12:20:00 AM GMT+01:00
Can I get under the table, too? Oh wait, that's not what Alexa meant.
I want to call you guys so badly . . . but I shall restrain myself.
I'm sending gros bisous though!
November 26, 2008 12:23:00 AM GMT+01:00
Guille, Michael, Stewart, Elizabeth, Carrie, Michelle, Eric and Thib: You are so thoughtful to think of us and include us in your little PDP gathering. Merci! bisous, Lois
November 26, 2008 1:01:00 AM GMT+01:00
May all the PDP gatherings in all the various cities continue on and on.........What fun!
December 5, 2008 11:57:00 PM GMT+01:00
What a fantastically unique and fun idea! I like it a lot! Thanks for taking the time to share this with us.
October 7, 2009 10:16:00 AM GMT+02:00
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店小姐兼職,
便服酒店經紀,
酒店打工經紀,
制服酒店工作,
專業酒店經紀,
合法酒店經紀,
酒店暑假打工,
酒店寒假打工,
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店小姐兼職,
便服酒店工作,
酒店打工經紀,
制服酒店經紀,
專業酒店經紀,
合法酒店經紀,
酒店暑假打工,
酒店寒假打工,
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店小姐兼職,
便服酒店工作,
酒店打工經紀,
制服酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
菲
梵,