Paris – “City of Light” for photographers, by The Irish Photographer, John Minihan

The Irish Photographer, John Minihan, stayed with Paris Apartments by Numbers in our apartment MONTPAR07, from 25th to 30th May 2010.

He was in Paris to revisit the cafes and haunts of Samuel Beckett whom he photographed there through the 1980′s and he kindly wrote a piece for us on his return to the City of Light:

“I am a camera”, the phrase belongs to the writer Christopher Isherwood but becomes part of who I am when I am in Paris. Since the mid 60‟s I have been visiting the City of Light, always staying in hotels, when the taxi stopped outside my apartment on the Rue Daguerre, a name synonymous with photography. It was Louis Daguerre who exclaimed, “I have arrested the light”, that was in 1839, when the French Academy of Sciences announced it’s arrival to the world, photography was invented. Paris became the home to some of the most important practitioners of the art, Nadar, Jacques Henry Latigue, Eugene Atget, Man Ray, André Kertese, Brassaï, among the many.

As I looked out from my second floor apartment that would be my home for a week, the shuttered windows looking down into a quiet courtyard, not unlike what the Dublin born artist Francis Bacon lived in for the few years in the 70‟s when he stayed in Paris, I could not wait to explore the Montparnasse that I know and love and the welcoming atmosphere of the many cafés on Rue Daguerre and its side streets. After a short walk to the Boulevard du Montparnasse and its many famous literary cafés, la Coupole, The Dome, I stopped for a drink at the Falstaff a café bar around the corner from La Coupole. Samuel Beckett would often meet and entertain his friends at La Couple. He would escape to drink and play snooker at the Falstaff. Paris has always been a visual and literary city, where life’s sweetness still lingers.

As I walk in the Rue de-l‟Odeon I think of James Joyce who often went to see his friend Sylvia Beach, a young American who opened a bookshop called “Shakespeare and Co‟ in the early 1920‟s. Back in 1985 I took a self-portrait in the window of what was the original shop, not out of vanity, but to remind myself of that week-end spent with Samuel Beckett where I took what‟s now become the iconic image of the writer.

My apartment was close to cemetery Montparnasse and before I set out each day I would walk to pay my respects to Samuel Beckett who died in 1989 and is buried there with his wife Suzzanne. People always leave little notes on his grave, also the graves of the photographer‟s Man Ray and Brassaï. Samuel Beckett was a friend of Brassaï who photographed the writer. One of the most pleasant surprises was finding a small restaurant-bar called, “Au Vin des Rues“, on the Rue Boulard just off Rue Daguerre. It was the favoured café of the photographer Robert Doisneau, who we all know as the man who took the photograph of The Kiss near the Hotel de Ville.
Paris has popularised photography and the cinema, it’s a great provider of knowledge, a witness to the past. As I walked it’s streets with my Rolleiflex camera, I was stopped by people who were excited to see someone with a relic from a by-gone age. The importance of photography is recognised in Paris and contributes to its intellectual life. I am a camera, better still I am a Rolleiflex camera.
© John Minihan 2010
I would like to thank Parisbynumbers for supporting my work.

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