I’ve discovered a new niche market: shooting the favorite bar of somebody who’s leaving Paris. In this case the somebody was the press officer at the Dutch embassy and her favorite hangout this tiny bar called Le Fanfaron, in the lively Bastille area. It features run-down furniture, red lights (not for the obvious reasons), walls plastered with whatever owner Xavier found in the gutter and the air is filled with all the greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll tunes, played on good old vinyl of course. Highly recommended!

I’m simply rehashing relatively old stuff here (relatively as in: compared to my age) but still thought the image was worth it. I’ve started development of v3.0 of this website which should be ready by the end of this year. Nothing too fancy but I promise you can comment on my blog entries. That is: unless you’ll only comment on me rehashing old stuff.

I love shooting in clubs: merry people, steady beat, kinky lighting and oh so tough to capture. Yesterday the Collège néerlandais was for one night transformed into a hip club with eight Dutch deejays – quite a big export product nowadays – playing from dusk till dawn. I can’t help but wonder what Dudok, its architect, would say about that…

I feel both old and strangely revived after visiting the Dance Parade in Paris. Extremely loud hiphop has torn away the last shreds of eardrums I possessed, whereas I usually prefer jazz or tacky 70’s dance classics. But the energy seems to radiate from the tens of thousands who visit this huge open-air dance festival, so I promise myself to go again next year, without a camera, and become part of “it” instead of being an observer staking out the next photographic opportunity…