JPG

In 1977 I sold my 1966 Mustang for just enough money to buy a plane ticket to Paris. My high-school sweetheart "K" was working there as an au pair, and the trip from Calgary to Paris was my attempt to lure her back.

It didn’t work by the way.

However, it was April in Paris. I was 21. I was in love. Did I mention it was Paris in April ? Perfect. Well, with the small exception that "K" was more interested in, well, pretty much everyone else.

Still, it’s what Paris is about, isn’t it ? Unrequited love in a city of beautiful people who seem to be in no hurry to do anything but talk, smoke, drink coffee and embrace.

Like I said, perfect.

I had (and still have) a Canon F1 film camera, and I shot slides and some negative stock while I was there. The light was incredible
almost every time we went out, and the city made up (well, almost) for any heart ache I was suffering.

It’s true that almost every 2nd frame is a shot of K (standing in front of a fountain, waiting for a train, outside the Louvre, ironing…) but all these years later I’ve started scanning the other half of the photos and am enjoying the discoveries.

It was an important time in my life. I was young, I had my first really big job (running a newsroom in Calgary) and I was still naïve enough to believe that if I flew to Paris the woman I pined for would change her mind. All in all, perfect.

I'd completely forgotten about this frame. The woman takes in strays, then does her best to sell them. The intense conversation going on between the dog lady and the women, the flowing red cape, and the woman on the left, oblivious to it all but in some deep thoughts of her own.

Over the years, the slides fared better than the negatives.

This is a full frame scan of Kodacolor II negative. There's some scratches but I haven't retouched them - somehow they add to the character of the images.