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.
What a novel way to celebrate the nativity. Are all the babies newborns or are they of all ages?
ReplyDeleteA clever way to celebrate the nativity. Are all the photos of boys?
ReplyDeleteBTW when will the store be opening again?
Newborns! I should read the post before I comment! Is that baby wearing a rug? That's a lot of hair!
ReplyDeleteDarn, Cali!!!! I had a hard time thinking of something to write! You win, fair and square! You get the newborn.
ReplyDeleteGeez, just what I didn't want unless . . . does it come with a Father?
ReplyDeletelol, Cali! Good shot!!!
ReplyDeleteFor a couple of seconds there, Eric, I thought you photographed a screaming baby at Ikea ;)
One screaming baby from Ikea added to the crown! Rug optional.
ReplyDeleteVery, very moving.
ReplyDeleteI love them instantly.
'age : 55 minutes' ... how thrilling!
Cali, are you sure you want a baby on your head? Sounds messy!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting idea from Thierry Bouët. I wonder if he got the parents' consent.
I can't wait to hear about the PDP gathering tonight!
Well...cute or scaring?
ReplyDeleteThat'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. ;)
That's a very sweet exhibition.
ReplyDeleteSuzy, he surely had it! In France you can't take pictures of people if they don't agree.
ReplyDeletehe he good, Guille!
ReplyDeleteSuzy: I usually don't wear the crown the whole day. It messes up my hair!
ReplyDeleteYes, 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...
ReplyDeleteThese two little guys don't look very happy. Maybe they just heard that they will miss the PDP gathering and it made them cry!
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteSuzy, really?! Who is it? He doesn't realize... ;)
ReplyDeleteJeff, and what about you? I hope you won't cry tomorrow! We'll think about you when the Beaujolais will be served.
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!
ReplyDeleteSex and shopping, Lois?
ReplyDeleteZola? Really? I'm confused. Which novel? All I remember from reading Zola is that really depressing feeling.
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.
ReplyDeleteWay to go, Cali—wear your baby-festooned crown proudly!
I really like this very creative idea.
ReplyDeletebtw, 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.
ReplyDeleteMy 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)
ReplyDeleteAlexa, 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.
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.
ReplyDeleteGeneral 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.
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.
ReplyDeletePsst! 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!
ReplyDeleteTomate, 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.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think I read that a long time ago but I didn't get the same thing out of it at all ;)
ReplyDeleteTo me, the ultimate author when it comes to writing about sex is an American: Henry Miller.
Oh, Cali, 27 comments later and I am still laughing.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great way to celebrate Christs birth! I love photos of babies.
ReplyDeleteIt's a striking photo of a photo, Eric! Love your angle.
ReplyDeleteI can't stay. Gotta go to the bookstore and pick up a copy of Zola.
Au Bonheur des Dames...it's such a great book. Well for a Zola fan, at least! Read it at school if I remember.
ReplyDeletei 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...)
ReplyDeleteLois -- 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.
ReplyDeleteEric -- 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.
An exhibition about Nativity organized by LVMH in a place this company killed… how ironic !
ReplyDeletePardon my french but, "C'est vraiment gerbant" !
Of course my previous comment has nothing to do with the quality of your picture Eric ! ;o)
ReplyDeleteLVMH and babies just don't seem to mix.
ReplyDeleteGuille, you're a Zola fan?
ReplyDeleteI didn't know ;)
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.
ReplyDeletethanks eric for the advice.. i am not a friend to see newbornfaces in the internet as public..
ReplyDeleteis it allowed to do this
i think doing this you need a permission by the parents
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...
ReplyDelete(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 ;)
But I also see your point, and when I walk past or into these great old buildings, it's a really good feeling.
ReplyDeleteYou just can't help but try to imagine how things were ...
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.
ReplyDeleteI have a few fancy things from Gumps, Lois. They will become my heirlooms!
ReplyDeleteI 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
ReplyDeleteEiffel Tower Suzy, Wow! I buy wedding gifts there. It makes them special.
ReplyDeleteBTW, 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).
Hello everybody, from the PDPers at le General Lafayette.
ReplyDelete8 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.
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?
ReplyDeleteBisous.
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!).
ReplyDeleteawe thib...it all sounds so good. have a glass for me. merci.
ReplyDeleteCan I get under the table, too? Oh wait, that's not what Alexa meant.
ReplyDeleteI want to call you guys so badly . . . but I shall restrain myself.
I'm sending gros bisous though!
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
ReplyDeleteMay all the PDP gatherings in all the various cities continue on and on.........What fun!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fantastically unique and fun idea! I like it a lot! Thanks for taking the time to share this with us.
ReplyDeleteHey, Really great work, I would like to join your blog anyway so please continue sharing with us,
ReplyDelete