A Rainy Day in Paris

9:00 AM

There is a light but steady rain falling, however, since the final doesn’t start until 3PM today, I’m not going to let a little rain ruin my free morning.

Breakfast is a delicious quiche that I bought from the patisserie around the corner and a café au lait, and then I don my raincoat, up my umbrella and set off for the galleries in St. Germain des Prix.

On a nice day these small streets would be crowded with shoppers and tourists, but today, I have the sidewalk to myself. Only a few diners brave the rain at sidewalk cafés.

I love this photo of the child running in the rain, and the Grandma or trying to catch up!

Photography and Paris are synonymous, great names in the genre, Cartier-Bresson, Doisneau, Atget, Man Ray, to name a few, all made Paris their home and subject.

My first stop is Hypnos on rue de l’Universite. This small gallery is dedicated to 19^th century photographers, and is always interesting.

Next I move on to Lumas. There are so many beautiful photos here! I find my self pausing often, saying to myself, “I love that”. I’m particularly drawn to these contemporary impressionistic images.

2:00 PM

I’ve finally made it to the site, and the rain has stopped. It’s cold, dark and damp, but we are all praying that the sky’s hold long enough to get the women’s final finished.

3:00 PM

The women are coming on court; the scene is set, and the match about to begin. Photographers in my vicinity were all betting on Safina. See How smart they are.. The match, frankly, leaves a lot to be desired. I get bored and start to play around with my camera. I’m inspired after seeing all those great photos this morning and decide to experiment with some slow shutter speed images. I used to do this a lot, and sort of stopped because I could never sell them, but there is more to photography then taking photos that you think will sell. So here goes.. What do you think .. I think they are pretty cool, I’m going to do this more often.

5:30 PM

Well, that was short but not so sweet. I’m wondering if Dinara suffers from the same disease as her brother .. Meltdown during big matches.

This French Open final is definitely not going down as a thriller. Even the match point was a yawn. but photo opportunities were rare.

All the photographers were juggling to be in the right place for the celebration photo at match point but the new champion, spread her arms, crossed herself and went to the net for the handshake. Of course she did win on a double fault from Safina, so it would be a little classless to jump up and down and cheer.

7:00 PM

The sun has finally shown its self .. Weak, but better than dark sky’s. The mens doubles final is on, but since the American’s or Brazilians aren’t in I’m not going to do any photos.

Paes and Dlouhy just won, so that’s the end of the tennis and this blog for today.