Thoughts about the Paris trip

The over all experience was a well cultured one on so many levels, actually seeing in the physical form the  sights I had only seen on T.V or as photos. These don't in so many ways prepare you for the realism when being a solid part of the environment yourself. The scale and style of so many buildings, sculptures, the Eiffel Tower as a piece of engineeering, bridges and arches, makes it difficult for many people to try and even comprehend that even with today's technology, we might not produce the same results.  I find it mind blowing  the arduous hours of labour and time that it must have taken.

  In many ways nightlife in Paris reminded me of how the nightlife in our own cities such as Manchester may be .

                                             

 The segregations of small communities within the city who all seem to live in harmony in close proximity.This always beggars the question in my mind to why people start fighting and wars.

I have been fascinated by what is called The Flat Iron  building in America for quite some time and  the nearest I felt that I had come to seeing this was in Liverpool, where there stands a similar looking shaped one. In Paris the building were all tall and wherever I looked so many looked like the Flat Iron building. I marvelled at  the design of them and feel lucky to have seen what resembles the real one in America.

                                                                  

 In hindsight I think that I should have taken the opportunity of visiting the Salvador Dali exhibition, as I like a lot of his work. This is somewhere I would go back and visit -  it seems like this trip could of been a preparation for a return. Yes I would go back but with this I'd have to connect myself with conditions, these would have to be that I would have to have someone with me again. It would be nice to go down on a train or something faster but beggars can't be choosers, the journey felt so so long that's probably because it was.
My learner support Linda on this trip was excellent, everything was at my pace and luckily  could map read for navigation. Linda also got us  both to all of the places we saw, helped me with money conversions, ordering food, language difficulties and made sure I didn't get lost in the crowd. Thanks to this support  my time in Paris was made into a less of a worry as I had anticipated it was going to be. I even enjoyed the smaller things that I saw that most would normally ignore or take for granted, these strangely included what I had been wanting to see close up for so long  - a wind turbine! There was a part of the journey that had so many close up in the landscape that I wanted to freeze this picture in my mind. The other was being close enough to see an aeroplane coming in to land! My eyes nearly popped out of my head at this view, the size of the plane was enormous. To my surprise I found that the birds were just like what I saw in Wales pigeons, blackbirds even magpies.

Thursday - Paris





The River Seine with the Eiffel Tower in the background

This was our last day in Paris and we had decided to travel in style by means of tube  so we collected 12 travel tickets for one price that enabled us to go by train within the day anywhere in Paris. The Eiffel Tower was on the agenda!  The weather had turned against us - it had become a cold dismal day and  this made conditions for what I wanted to achieve in photography a bad day. I had envisioned the Eiffel Tower set on a blue sky background, where on the day it was a washed out grey one. The week we had been there we had ( not to sound derogatory or snobbish) been bombarded by many people for money, I only fell for this scam once! It basically was children came around with a form pretending that they were deaf and pointed at their clip board they carried with them. They wanted a donation of a minimum of five Euros I (not to sound a skin flint) only went to gave 1 Euro which in my mind was one pound in sterling, so we both went halves and made it up to five. A short while later I had observed the other group shouting to the two that had approached us and they had heard everything. Saying no thank you in french didn't really deter their persistance. There were old ladies in the street begging, one of our students had said that she had observed a young man pretending to be one. The other persistant people were the street sellers who sold anything from mini Eiffel Towers,post cards to head scarfs. Sometimes it felt like a game of American football to weave past them all. After a brief spell and an altercation with a presumeably deaf girl we left, headed back to the hotel for a warm. We had then decided to return to the cooler weather and go by tube to Montmartre Cemetery, This for me was a very strange experience ( without sounding disrespecting ) I felt like I was in a mixed situation of being in Dr Who surrounded by so many tardis, the other being in an enviroment filled with privies. In reflection the only thing I had seen anything like this was an amazingly beautiful one in Chirk church yard. There were also a few of the traditional head stones, I was taken back to also discover that the church yard also had plots and seemed to be at different heights. Many of these had a splendour about them an air of great importance, a French man there taking pictures himself told me that one of the graves belonged to a composer whose name was Hector Berlioz he had died in1869.

A view of Montmartre Cemetery

              Due to the time the cemetery was closing, so we slowly took a walk back up to the hotel looking for somewhere to have a evening meal, Today was also St. Patrick's day and I found it comforting and funny in a way seeing parts and people decorated  with clovers and hats being worn.

After quite some time we had found the friendly restaurant come bar we had liked a few days previous it was called ' LE CHEVAL NOIR' . The owner had recognised us - here I ordered the much missed coffee that I had been craving, It was so the hit that I needed it didn't touch the sides so to speak. As time went on and I couldn't eat any more couscous we paid and told the polite man that we were going home in the morning and thanked him for his hospitality.

Wednesday - Paris

By morning I was getting tired of eating bread and longed for a real coffee fix! We went out walking and exploring again and this time I was more on slow and stop. The heat and thirst was making me sluggish.

Out side the Pomadieu Centre was strange yet cool. This is most probably the desired effect that they wanted when it was built.

We didn't go up due to the fact that I didn't want to waste time queueing so I was quite happy just sitting outside.
The Place De La Republique was like a big roundabout with many sculptures on it. One in particular that I liked was of a bronze lion which appeared larger than life. Right at the top of the sculpture was an important looking geezer! Probably Napoleon! Underneath him were 2 figures made out of what looked like off white stone. Also the plaques on the side of this statue looked brilliant - in 3D - but I was annoyed to see that even here they had graffiti. Not far away were tents that were occupied by homeless people.

                                              

At Notre Dam,  I remembered seeing a picture of a gargoyle with his head in his hands and I didn't realise that it was here, until I saw a postcard with the same image on it on sale outside a nearby shop.  I tried to find the gargoyle on the outside of the cathedral but to no avail. I felt that to really appreciate the building I'd have to look at it closely through binoculars for over an hour. I couldn't help but marvel at the many sculptures on the outside of the building, the detailing and placing of them all seemed to be meticulous, especially around the fancy stonework at the entrances.

Not far from here I found the most amazing water fountain. It had a sculpture of a winged angel wearing armour. Also there were 2 serpents (made up of more than 1 animal)spouting water. I stood in awe taking in every detail. I like angels and it seemed strange to see one out of character as this one seemed to be really glorifying the fact that he was successful in battle. What a shame there is graffiti as well.

               

                                                                     

                                           

The last place we looked at was The Louvre. It was such a grand building that it reminded me of The Houses Of Parliament in London, but on a much larger scale. Close up it didn't resemble what I had envisioned!

At this stage I came to the conclusion that I relied a lot on TV for my visual input! I thought I had seen it in the film "The Da Vinci Code".  In what looked like a courtyard before us were 2 baby pyramids and 1 large one but I was so disillusioned that it didn't look as I thought it would do, that it I lost interest quite quickly of what marvels I was actually looking at!

There were many people sitting down by large stone water  pools and it was here that I took what I think was a great set of pictures about young children and couples. I was so thirsty, and my knees were hurting after so much walking about, that I spent quite a lot of time sitting down doing a bit of street photography. If there had been sand there I think I would have had a mirage - I was that thirsty!!

Tuesday - Paris!

I had asked Linda to wake me up between 8 and 9am. I didn't want to sleep through the trip! I was soon wide awake and starting my auto-pilot mode. I had slept like a log so I was refreshed. Breakfast looked extremely well presented and was a "help yourself" and remembering what I was told and not knowing when I would come across food I recognised again, I filled both tanks up until full, washed down with a sharp bitter tasting coffee. There were croissants, bread rolls, cheese, French toast, honey, jam, chocolate and cereal to choose from.

The view from my room was perfect in every way; so many roof tops and chimneys as far as the eye could see, with Sacre Coeur in the far distance and all with  white on the  horizon.

 Sandwiches packed and maps in hand we started to walk through the main streets and into the back streets. We came across another church but I don't know what its name was.

We went inside and it was beautiful with lots of windows and stone figures. The sound of the beeping, bikes cars and police sirens started to make my head fuzzy. Strangely, due to the environment's 24 hour life and nowhere to escape to you begin to feel weighed down with "a grittiness feeling".

When we arrived at Montmartre, before us was a square full of artists busy at their easels. This was a view that I had expected to see but on a much larger square. I had my portrait drawn by an artist which was something I wanted to achieve in Paris. I went around and eventually chose an artist whose style I liked the most.

This day we also took a walk to the Moulin Rouge. I had seen this on a film with the same name and in my mind I had envisioned what I would see in front of me.

What I actually saw, to my utter surprise, was nothing like my vision! It was still cool to see the windmill, but I hadn't realised that the street was connected to the sex industry. The openness of this environment made me feel uneasy. The thing that made up for this with me was the police activity. In  the street there was what seemed like an island between 2 roads. It was an area for walking. It was like a mini park area with trees and  benches and it brought a little calmness. There was also a large fan that came from the railway and I took a picture of Linda sitting on this. The air coming up reminded me of the famous scene  of Marilyn Monroe with the air blowing up her skirt. It could be from the film "Some like it Hot"? Also it made me think of the film with Kelly Brock - "Weird Science".

We sat and ate our lunch while observing the view of Parisian life below Sacre Coeur.

 I was finding  that veggie meals were a bit difficult to find -  couscous was getting a bit boring! The money was also becoming an issue for me. The prices seemed expensive when I tried to convert it. The first night we had found a restaurant and I had ordered spag-bol which had been very tasty. We did find some really nice chatty people in the other 2 restaurants we went to. One we went back to as the waiter was exceptionally hospitable. The  night of the "spag-bol" I found the waiter very nice and friendly and then he just turned into someone totally rude, which I picked him up on!! Sometimes as we were walking past places we were trying to be enticed to go in and eat; quite a few of the places we went to spoke a little English, which made it easier.

At Sacre Coeur I had been really shocked to see armed men in army gear!!

Paris - March 19- 21st. 2011

Monday 19th.
I seemed to still be in a dream world regarding where I was going and was just following what I was supposed to be doing - getting up early was a little strange but I was wide awake.
My food on the way down was what I call "typical of me". I had defrosted some veggie ham the night before and on the way to uni I bought some baps from the garage! Also I packed some crisps and snax. I started to tuck into these while waiting in Dover for the ferry because we all had to wait and by this time  it was 12 or 1 o'clock!
I was glad I had bought a travel neck cushion as I managed to sleep on and off, between watching DVDs on the way down, which I had to have the endings explained to me! I had known that I had fallen asleep due to my twitching and jumping waking me up!

The ferry. I guess I was a little naive due to the word "ferry"! I was expecting something that I had envisioned in Liverpool on The Mersey. That was a large boat to me!! I thought it was going to be like I had seen on the TV. It was a strange sensation to me as walking around was like going up hill, so after a looking round the inside of the boat we went on deck.

This was even stranger to think now that I seemed to be suspended between two places, below me many depths of water. We were all holding the same fate in this journey!
I stood on deck absorbing this strange experience  - the seagulls were following the boat which was cool, but it was too cold and windy to take my camera out!


As we came into dock, I felt a slight disorientation due to the fact that the sight before me was an extremely long pier, a lighthouse, men fishing and a golden sandy beach. It felt as if we had gone off course and were at a different part of Europe such as in Majorca, Spain or Malta!

 I didn't realise the smells of Paris until the second day really. I guess I was too busy taking in the new environment and trying to recognise things that I had seen on TV for a little  comfort and familiarity. The smell did tend to depend on the time of day and where we were. Parts of the day there was a strong smell of urine and this was a mixture from the dogs and the homeless, due to observing someone urinating against a tree by the hotel. Dog excrement also became apparent at times. Car and motorbike fumes seemed to fill the air. This made me think of, and realise why there is smog in New York! As time went on the extremely sweet sickly smell of perfume and cologne hit my nostrils and made me feel suffocated.

Stoke your fires ( March 2nd 2011 )

Displayed on the outside of the building

                                                                       



I hadn't anticipated the out come of the trip very well! 10.30am was screening of Award winners and I got as far as watching 3 or 4 of the films.
The first was
 Save  our  Bacon
 which was excellent, and funny  -  an insight into always read the small print message I thought!
Intercambio
I found very dark and made you think more about the human spirit of survival and the lengths that can be endured.
On the Water
MMM,  confusing!
I think not long after this one I couldn't contain my fidgeting and compulsion for movement any longer.

At this point I went around the museum and stimulated my brain while getting my motion fix. It was soo cool! There was a decades from the 50s to 90s area; a spitfire plane full size; an entire area of taxidermy animals and it was fascinating to see the mocked up living scenes and be close to something I have never seen before. A gold and archeology finds section, stones of Quartz etc, outside statues and cool interesting buildings.

                                                                      Long-eared Owl

                       

                                             

                                                                Quartz Mineral Rock Sample

                                                    Statue of a worker stoking the pottery kilns

 By time I had explored this, due to not having a watch I felt hungry, so I returned to the cafe area and had lunch. The clock I found displayed the time as much later than I had expected. I had relaxed enough to be able to sit down again, I found that I had returned at the latter stage of the  "Skills  set  panel".

which took us to the end of our day with:

 Double  Negative
Gruff Owen talked about their latest project "PAUL" which I found really cool it showed how Paul was created and incorporated into the film.

All in all I enjoyed the day and saw lots of great things.

                                                              

Outside the entrance of the museum



Futures week Barry Purves ( March 7th 2011 )

Quote
            " Animation is about expressing thoughts and emotions through artificial means and is a  
               distracting device in order to have interesting ways to commune your thoughts to others".
This was portrayed in John and Karen by Mathew Walker. This uses colour, compositions and silence. The character of John is a that of a large polar bear, hence the large paws and small tea cup. Whereas Karen is an assertive rabbit! Although it seems drawn out to get to the point and long periods can become boring, it's not until thinking about the concepts of the film do you really appreciate it.
Barry gave a short bio of how as a child he became aware of his way forward in life by watching his favourite scene in the Sound of music where Maria helps the children put on a puppet show,which seems to transform relationships and the dynamics of the family.
Aspects of this can also be seen in Mary Poppins with the use of her talking to the head umbrella!
Barry also worked with animation of models these can be seen in his short film "One time" and he talked briefly about his work on "Wind in the Willows" and "Rupert Bear," his controversial works on "Verdis Rigoletto" and much more. Clips to accompany his talk were on "War Horse", "Ballet of Still life at the Penguin Cafe Orchestra" and his "Complete Works on Shakespeare".

The only aspect I didn't cope with well was the length of time it ran for, luckly I was able to take my dictaphone and on occassions was able to stand to relieve my problem of fidgeting and not keeping still.

Content of the talk and how interesting I found it was 10 out of 10.


The only aspect I didnt cope with was the length of the talk which was 1and a half hours long.

Futures week Linda McCarthy ( 8th March 2011 )

Without even realising it at the time, I had seen photos of Linda's animation on the walls of Glyndwr up in room 37. I had looked at them in great detail and I had viewed the shots without discriptions to accompany them and had wondered what the plot was.
                                                     At the talk of Linda's it became apparent that she had achieved 1st class Honours Degree,her background from ceramics that was also displayed, had a large inpact on the way she creates the animation of The Family that inhabit "Small Birds Singing". The company she has set up is called Tiny elephants. Much of the hour was spent watching clips from "Small Bird Singing" and a small part of how a set was built and viewed in the studio.This also featured a small talk on how she had made different heads for the characters and how some scenes were shot, with a chance to view the characters.

length was aprox 1hr
I found that there was not a lot of variation to what we were watching.

Content 7 0ut of 10
intresting 8 out of 10

Futures week Daisy Dawes ( 9th March 2011 )

  First, Daisy introduced herself and then proceded to talk about her work at Ardman Animators, Harry Potter,and also Pingu; which I was a little confused by because at first my opinion always was that Pingu and his family were Welsh, Which I found intresting due to the accents, and yes I know Wales has no North Pole or ice. I then became disappointed finding out it was Swedish, "note to self! look up more into about Pingu."
                     Daisy continued to talk about her first book and how it became published. The talk about contracts, merchandising and publishers was great content to listen to. I found this talk extremely intresting. Also another aspect of her stories were that they were actually photographs of animation, something I'd never really thought about or maybe blatantly overlooked. To top the talk off, Daisy read us her book like she does when she visits schools,This I thought was really cool, also because the story rhymed.
The 1hr session soon ended and went really fast.
content was 10 out of 10
intresting was also 10 out of 10.

Futures week Denise Chilton ( 9th March 2011 )

The opening Title was..
                                                        What do you really want?
                        If you woke up tomorrow and your life was just the way you want,
                                                         what would it look like?



MMM....  Am I a compulsive analyst or does this title sound too good to be true?
Life coaching,what it boils down to is having determination, confidence and a large set of brass balls to get to where you want to be. Me I have non of the above and through life I tend to lie dozing ,drifting up river in my little boat of life seeing where it takes me too. I'm just so grateful to whatever I do and have achieved in life, as expectations of success in anything were stacked against me. "Common sense and drive"!! note to self must look up!!
Denise Chilton talks a lot of common sense, gets you to self analyse, people mix quickly in to groups  and exchange thoughts within a small group on the set task which was "What makes you motivated and what doesn't"? We all took part in how to make small steps to get to a 10 of different aspects of happiness and contentment in our lives.
This was a great energiser until I left the room and became too self critical again. Personally I think a lot of others who attended did get something out of the session and had an epiphany about self evaluation.

session was 1hr
content 10 out of 10
interesting 10 out of 10    

Futures week Phil Barratt ( 10th March 2011 )

Phil was down to earth and shared his knowledge of how he started in photography. We saw many of his photos and mostly were about weddings. He calls these his bread and butter,where he tries to do at least 20 weddings a year so he then has time to do other aspects of his photography.

Phils tips
                Be realistic about charging and charge what you think you're worth.
                Brand yourself and build up a portfolio.
                Be a giver not a taker, This can also help bring work in.
                Use many different angles to take your pictures.
There was an opportunity for questions and answers.This was another way to take more of his knowledge on board.There were a few of his photos that were taken by just being around,The example of this was a little girl who didn't want her picture taken, but he managed by watching her to take a beautiful picture of her walking in her mother's shoes. Phil also gave advice on how to get pictures taken without others looking over your shoulders -  at weddings in particlular.Take the bride and groom away from their party to get their special shots. Towards the end of the talk Phil mentioned that he has also sold to firms that sell greatings cards and calenders. The calenders can be used as a selling tool for more work and an instant reminder, constantly in view of the companies.

1hr talk
content 10 out of  10
intresting 10 out of 10

Futures week Terry Morris ( 10th March 2011 )

Terry Morris, what can I say?
                                             I wished I'd have taken my camcorder to this lecture. I find him down to earth, no bull shit, funny and so interesting, As Simon Cowell would say "he's a marmite kind of guy". Terry will quite happily openly talk about his struggle to get to where he is now and share his knowlege.I could quite happily listen to the stories of his dealings with celebs and life stories every week.  We looked at a series of pics and then were able to choose one and hear all about the it. I choose the coal miner and this was another interesting insight into the tale behind the photograph. There were  additional question and answers, which some of the replies were interesting to listen to. No! You don't need an expensive camera or laptop a nikon and dell work just as good. A little advice for when taking photos was to use your intuition - go with what feels good.Most of the talk was taken up with the stories behind the photos so the 1hr slot soon ran out and a little over time.

I always find it a pleasure to hear Terry although it is only my 3rd time.
content 10 out of 10
intresting 10 out of 10.