paris postcard: brief encounter

there was one day during my stay in paris when the sky seemed to promise a storm. it was so haunting and magnificent, of course i had to try to make a worthy photo.

i couldn't get the balance quite right--to get the true color of the clouds meant the foreground was almost completely obscured; to expose the street and cafe meant the sky would appear too light. i gave up after a few shots and trained my lens on a line that was forming in front of cafe de la place. there was a little "annex" -- a crepe take-out window!--that i hadn't stopped to notice earlier in the week. there was steady business there, especially considering how quiet the neighborhood was that morning.

i stood across the street for several minutes, trying to get a shot of "the scene." and then the yelling started. it was the crepe maker-- he waved me over. it wasn't angry yelling--though my first impulse was, still, to flee. but then i realized, he wasn't really gonna be able to do anything to me, trapped in that little glass box as he was. so i approached him.

he wanted to see the photos. i dreaded this, only because i knew they weren't so good. he gave me grudging nod. in between crepe-ing, he started a nice talk.

monsieur crepe-maker is joseph karadeniz, and when he is not making "the best crepes" (in montparnasse? in paris? i don't remember exactly how broadly he defined it, but he definitely said his are "the best"), he is a photographer. (he incidentally informed me that the canon lens i just bought, the 24mm-70mm 2.8, was "the wrong one." everybody's a critic.) his takeout space is decorated with really nice black and white photos that he took of his customers and friends.

i really didn't mind his judgment--i thought it was funny. i was mostly pleased that he wanted to chat. i don't speak french, so most interactions i had while i was on my own in paris were limited to nodding and sign language. this was a welcome exchange, the kind of encounter that wasn't anticipated --nor was it really necessary. but in retrospect it gives some dimension, a local touch, to the collection of memories from the trip. and i'm grateful for it.

it wasn't long before he'd convinced me to try one of his sugar crepes, even though i wasn't hungry at all at that moment.
i love crepes when they are lightly dressed with sugar or with lemon and sugar. this was my first crepe of the trip--i would only have one more--so, hard to vote "best." but it was good, and it will remain a sentimental favorite.

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cafe de la place is located at 23 rue odessa, in montparnasse (at the triangle between boulevard edgar quinet and rue du montparnasse, and near the entrance to the edgar quinet metro stop, on the 6 line)

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and you can check out joseph's photos here