I have been fortunate enough to have access to several different types of equipment over the years, which I've used to take pictures for my site.

Almost all the photos on my site have been shot on film, since I‘ve abandoned digital photography for the time being, after trying it and finding it somewhat wanting in several respects (digital is great for Web pictures, but not good enough for prints or for publication licensing). Most of the photos now on the site were taken using Nikon and Leica professional 35mm cameras and lenses; a very small number were taken using Hasselblad medium-format equipment. A few were taken with some other cameras—such as my tiny but wonderful Yashica T5 point-and-shoot (film) camera, which is blessed with its own tiny Zeiss lens—or even a disposable film camera.

All of these images were scanned directly from the original negatives or transparencies using Nikon film scanners.

Most of the remaining digital photos in my gallery were taken with a variety of consumer digital cameras. Digital SLRs still have poor image quality compared to film and they are ridiculously expensive compared to film bodies, so I'm not going to invest in pro digital for now (and I have no money to do so, anyway). Some of the digital cameras I've used include the old Nikon CoolPix 950, an even older Kodak DC120 digital camera, of the generation preceding that of the COOLPIX, and a relatively new Panasonic Lumix; it depends on what I can borrow, mainly. Nowadays, I only shoot digital for photos that I know will never be used anywhere except on my Web site, or for commissioned work when speed is more important than image quality. Even so, the percentage of digital shots is gradually increasing.

I have used a lot of miscellaneous equipment over the years, including a number of tripods (Gitzo, Manfrotto, Arca-Swiss, large and small) that I've used for night shots, a spot meter (Minolta) and an incident meter (Sekonic), and various odds and ends, like loupes, gray cards, a cable release, filters, etc. These days I'm so poor that I'm lucky if I can beg the use of a small digital camera.

[Return to Summary]

In the main Photo Gallery, yes. If the photograph has a text description link at the bottom, this description normally contains whatever technical data I can recall for the picture (camera, lens, film, exposure data, use of tripod, or whatever). I have not been very diligent about documenting every single photo, however, so many photos do not currently have technical information available. Hardly anyone reads the technical data, anyway.

[Return to Summary]

Probably. I periodically update pictures in my gallery with newer and (hopefully) better versions. One of my goals is to provide recent pictures, not photos that are twenty years old; the city and its sights do change over time. Sometimes new photos are up on the site only hours after I take them, since I can get film developed in an hour, and of course with digital there's no lab work. I haven't been very good about this lately because of poverty.

I've photographed some of the most popular landmarks in the city dozens and even (in the case of the Eiffel Tower and Notre-Dame Cathedral, the two most popular photo groups on the site) hundreds of times.

[Return to Summary]

Sometimes. If someone asks for a picture of something that is likely to interest other visitors to my site, and if taking the picture doesn’t require special authorizations or present other problems, I occasionally accept a request and add a new photo to the gallery.

If there is something you’d like to see added to the gallery and you think it might be of interest to all, let me know, and I'll consider it (no guarantees).

I also have easily a thousand or more photos that I just haven't had time to add to the gallery yet, and many thousands of others that I don't have space to add.

[Return to Summary]

I was getting just about everything developed at Photo Service, a chain of photo labs scattered around Paris. I preferred the lab on the Champs-Élysées, because it was open until midnight every single day, and it handled C-41, E-6, and even black-and-white development with express one-hour service, as well as enlargements in all sorts of sizes. Unfortunately, in a poor decision, Photo Service decided to practically abandon photo sales and switch to telephone sales instead, so I don't go there any more.

Another good place for development is the FNAC, a chain of stores with large photo departments, including (usually) labs. They have a store open until midnight on the Champs, too, but many of their stores have dropped the film labs.

If I absolutely must have a “pro” lab do the work (which is required for, say, medium-format shots, since the one-hour places cannot do 120 express), I usually go to Picto, a very reputable and very pricey lab with several locations in Paris (one of which is open seven days a week). They are slow with prints and more expensive, but they can do anything you want, any way you want, for a price. They do express work on C-41 and E-6 for both 135 and 120 film, which is nice. I use them for my paid assignments, also, unless the customer objects to the expense.

I develop my black-and-white films myself (only the negatives, since I scan directly from film), if it's not urgent, particularly for cases requiring “weird” development, such as Kodak Technical Pan film. I haven't done this much lately because of poverty.

[Return to Summary]

Original conventional film photographs are taken by yours truly with a variety of professional cameras and lenses (usually professional equipment, where possible). I have the slides or negatives developed by a good one-hour or pro lab (or I develop them myself, if they are black-and-white), then I scan them on a dedicated film scanner. I check color balance and gamma in Photoshop and reduce the very large scans to something that will fit comfortably on my site (some of the original scans for photos on the site would cover a wall if printed at their original size). Most of the remaining Photoshop processing is otherwise similar to what I do for the digital photos.

I copy digital photos directly from the memory cards on which the digital cameras record them. The CP950 images are 1600x1200 pixels in size, and require about 5.5 megabytes of disk space. (For comparison, some of the digital images from my film work are 500 megabytes in size!) I downsample both to something that will just about fill an 1024x768-pixel computer display, then save them on the site in JPEG format, with a moderate amount of compression. This gets them down to about 150-250 KB in size for the large versions, and about one-fifth that size for the small versions. I do this to minimize download time, to make it easier to fit the images on the screen, and to make the true resolution of the image more closely match the definition used for it. The larger versions are always of better quality than the smaller versions (with more gentle compression, in particular), but the smaller versions load a lot faster for visitors with slow links.

In many cases, I also crop images, run them through a quick unsharp mask to emphasize detail, and occasionally rotate them slightly, before uploading them to the site. In the olden days, all the larger versions of the pictures were 766x514 pixels (the original size provided by the DC50 that I once used), including an added five-pixel border, but I am now individualizing image sizes and using a one-pixel keyline border instead. The small versions are typically half the size of the large versions (in linear pixels), and about 80% smaller in file size. Currently my most "standard" size is 1002x752 for large images (including the keyline), and half that for the small pictures.

The original photos as they come from the camera are always of considerably better quality than what you see on my site, because of the above “lab” processing (particularly the compression and downsampling).

All of the film photos generally have the colors, brightness, and contrast tweaked to make them optimal for web display. Digital photos require less tweaking. This tweaking is not enhancement; my goal is to make the image appear in the browser exactly as it did in real life when I took the shot, for better or for worse. Ideally, you should be able to stand on the spot where I took a picture, and what you see will look to you exactly as it did on my Web site (and this ideal is actually attained in some cases).

[Return to Summary]

For detailed information on my image licensing policies, see the Image Licensing section of my site, or just contact me.

[Return to Summary]

Those numbers represent the approximate longitude and latitude coordinates of the location at which the photograph was taken, if I have them. The coordinates are in the WGS-84 datum and should be correct to within 20 metres or so.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about in the above paragraph, chances are that the numbers wouldn’t be of any use to you anyway, so don’t worry about it.

[Return to Summary]

• Fujichrome Provia 100F: a superb color reversal (slide) film, which is my current favorite for all around use. Very sharp, almost invisible grain, fairly saturated, good color rendition, and no reciprocity failure with good rendering of artificial light sources, which makes it handy for night shots. Virtually all the color images on my site were shot on Provia. It's great.
• Fujichrome Provia 400F: I use this in place of Provia 100F for very low-light shots. It's a bit grainier than Provia 100F and noticeably softer, with a bit more saturation, but it is still the best high-speed slide film around (not that there's a lot of competition at ISO 400).
• Kodak Portra 800: an amazingly fine-grained (for its speed) color negative (print) film, which I use for low-light situations that would be awkward to photograph using Provia, such as outdoor nighttime shots (when I work handheld), and things like indoor event photography (fashion shows and the like). Like all the Portra family of films, it scans well and renders artificial light sources quite nicely.
• Fujichrome Velvia: a legendary transparency film, known for its very vivid, almost surreal colors and strong contrast. It is a favorite of landscape and postcard photographers for these reasons. I use it only occasionally, mainly because it is slow (that is, not very sensitive to light—it's only ISO 50) and somewhat difficult to scan successfully because of its contrast. Still a beautiful film overall, though. The bluest skies you‘ve ever seen are on Velvia, not in Seattle.
• Fujichrome Astia: a very nice transparency film that works extremely well for portraits. I use it when I'm going to be taking pictures of people primarily (without elaborate make-up) … portraits, in other words. It's less saturated and contrasty than Provia and seems to be balanced specifically to guarantee the best possible skin tones.
• Kodak Tri-X Pan 400: an enduring standard in black-and-white negative films, used by photojournalists and just about everyone else for many decades, and still just as popular today (although deadline photojournalists themselves are shooting digital in most industrialized countries now). I use it for “artistic” black-and-white shots, or quick street scenes, and I usually develop it (and all other B&W films I use) myself (to reduce contrast and provide finer grain). A very nice film, for B&W work. I use the so-called professional emulsion (TXP) for medium-format work with Tri-X, and it is even nicer (although the difference is small). I'd love to see a version of Tri-X with all the same characteristics as the current one but with the grain and resolution of Portra 400BW or even Tech Pan, but I'm not holding my breath.
• Kodak Technical Pan: a bizarre but wonderful black-and-white film that holds the distinction of being the sharpest, finest-grained film in the world. I develop it myself because it requires bizarre development, too. I use it for black-and-white photographs where sharpness is important, such as in the black-and-white image of the facade of Notre-Dame that I make available to students and other researchers. The way it handles light is interesting as well; it has a look to it that nothing else can match. Under good conditions in MF work, this film can resolve more than half a billion pixels (500 megapixels) per image (yes, you read correctly!), which is more than just about any scanner or lens can match, and about one hundred times more than a good digital camera. Kodak, in its infinite stupidity, has stopped producing this film, but I still have a few rolls lurking around somewhere.
• Kodak T-Max 400 and 100: fine-grained black-and-white films that I use when the grain in Tri-X starts to irritate me. They are more sensitive to red than Tri-X and seem to give blander treatment of light as a result (if that's what it is), but still nice films.
• Kodak T-Max P3200: I use this for nighttime street shots in very low light, exposing it at EI 1250 to limit grain. It does a very nice job when used that way.
• Kodak Portra 400BW is a C-41 (chromogenic) black-and-white film with incredibly fine grain that reminds one of Technical Pan. However, it's still a very fast film (ISO 400) and it can be developed by any one-hour lab, since it is C-41 (just like ordinary color films). I use this film increasingly for black-and-white work when I don't want grain and I don't have enough time or light to shoot on Technical Pan. This film allows some types of black-and-white handheld night shots that would be just about impossible to get any other way. It also renders some types of scenes beautifully, including night scenes. Kodak has stopped producing this film, too (can't they do anything right?).

For digital photographs, I don't use film at all, of course, since digital cameras capture images electronically. But digital still leaves something to be desired compared to film, although it's much easier to use.

[Return to Summary]

My web pages are designed to preload the next photograph in the sequence in my gallery, so that it is ready to display by the time you click forward to the next photograph. This saves a lot of time for viewing the photos if you step through them sequentially. It's a simple technique (which I did not invent), but it works very well. Take a peek at the HTML code of the pages with your Web browser if you want to see how it is done.

[Return to Summary]

You may have your display set to a very limited number of colors, such as 16 colors, or 256—it's pretty rare to see computers set that low nowadays, but it still happens, especially in office environments where the same crusty old computers often remain in use for years. Also, some fresh installations of operating systems like Windows will default to the lowest possible color depth just to be on the safe side, even though it looks pretty lame. All of my photos are in full (24-bit) color and they are generally set to Adobe RGB 1998, and so they do not display very well on computers with a very restricted number of colors.

For a very complete treatment of this problem and the ways in which you can fix it, see my essay, Colors, Pixels, and Your Computer Monitor, in the Various Documents section of my site.

[Return to Summary]

Yes, I have several thousand photos, of varying quality. If you are looking for a photo of something (particularly in Paris) and you don’t see it in my gallery, contact me and I may be able to find something in my collection that will suit you, even if it isn't on my site.

[Return to Summary]

Yes. I was behind the viewfinder for every single one of them, so the scenes you see in the photos were scenes that I actually saw with my own eyes. It's better in real life, too—although looking at Paris through photographs does shield you from things like frigid winter winds, rain, summer heat, traffic noise, and other things that can be distracting in real life. But in general the original scenes were just as pleasant in real life as they appear to be in photos, if not more so.

[Return to Summary]

Yes, exceptionally. Contact me for complete details.

[Return to Summary]

Yes, definitely! None of the photos have been doctored to make them more appealing; they all show the city as it actually looks when you are standing where the camera was.

(There are a handful of exceptions, all in the Notre-Dame subgallery. The photos taken in the towers of the cathedral have been digitally retouched to remove the huge, ugly web of cables that completely encloses visitors to the towers, because it is so all-encompassing that it's practically impossible to see how anything actually looks in the towers without removing those cables. You can see the cables in the other shots of the cathedral from the ground—look at the walkways up around the towers.)

In fact, Paris is even prettier in real life; you can only capture so much with a camera. It’s one thing to look at a picture of the Eiffel Tower, but quite a different experience to put out your hand and lean against it!

[Return to Summary]

I've been relatively impoverished since then, and unable to afford film or development costs. Additionally, I now have very little free time since I must work a lot for a low wage in an attempt to pay bills, and so I cannot spend the time walking around and taking pictures that I once did. I hope the situation will improve someday. Sometimes I manage to borrow a camera and shoot a few pictures with that.

[Return to Summary]

(If you've never heard of him, Eugene Atget was a French photographer who lived during the turn of the last century and produced an enormous body of documentary photographs of Paris between the late 1890s and 1927.)

I didn't know who Atget was when I first started photographing Paris, but I do know about him now, and his work and my work do look very similar in a number of ways (at least with respect to photos of Paris). He called himself a documentary photographer, and so do I, when I'm photographing the city. Apparently we both love the city and love to take pictures of it, and neither of us has ever felt any need to put any heavy artistic spin on our photos, so they tend to truly document the city as it looks. Some of his photos are practically identical to mine, except that they were taken a hundred years earlier. Parts of the city look completely different now (such as the area around the Eiffel Tower—the only thing there now that was there a hundred years ago is the tower itself), and other parts of the city haven't changed at all. It's interesting to compare.

Atget seemed to consider his work documentation, not art, and I agree. I think of my own pictures of Paris in the same way. The art is in the city; all I do is capture it on film so that it can be shared with people who live elsewhere in the world.

[Return to Summary]