le vieux paris (illumination of detail)

matthew swiezynski  rue de vaugirard, 1909  1998

video which came out of a failed 16 mm film project. originally photographed in san francisco, only in locations where the cables transporting the cable cars could be heard. the ambiance of the cables would be the soundtrack.
once failed; the film was transferred to video, and then rephotographed with a video camera, with the video playing in various slow motions, and a contact mic on the screen to bring attention to the rhythms and allow the films colours to create timbre.

also inspired by eugène atget and charles marville's photographic work, capturing a subtle otherworldly quality from the decay of a soon to be destroyed old paris (pre haussmann plan).

books :

- eugène atget - the work of atget: the art of old paris - moma - 1982 (plus the other three other moma books published for the exhibitions on atget's life and work)
- eugène atget - atget's seven albums - yale university press - 1992
- eugène atget - atget paris - gingko - 1992
- eugène atget - atget the pioneer - prestel - 2000
- eugène atget - atget - moma - 2000
- eugène atget - atget: paris in detail - flammarion - 2002
- eugène atget - paris as gameboard: man ray's atgets - columbia university - 2002
- eugène atget/berenice abbott - berenice abbott/eugène atget - arena editions - 2002

- charles marville - marville paris - éditions hazan - 1994
- charles marville - charles marville - centre national de la photographie, paris - 1996

- françois  loyer - paris xix siecle: l'immeuble et la rue - éditions hazan - 1987

news from home

exterior shots/urban landscapes from
chantal akerman's news from home - 1976

(in connection with)

- the early morning urban photographs of eugène atget (no people)
- movement and abstraction (later images [10-17] abstracted by car and train travel)
- storefront architecture : see the book store front: the disappearing face of new york
- joe zawinul's arrival in new york from the album zawinul - 1971 (the reverse of the closing shot of this film)
- scott macdonald's writings on the urban landscape in the garden in the machine: a field guide to independent films about place
- early martin scorsese films (mean streets, taxi driver, american boy: a profile of: steven prince, san francisco photography in the last waltz)
- the cinematography of babette mangolte
- other street posts * and films listed there (ernie gehr etc.)
- interiors in akerman's films *
- suggestions?, more urban posts to come (because i can no longer stand being in the city?)

invisible birds (forthcoming)

eugène atget

josef sudek

henry fox talbot

richard long

as if you were the voice that moves up and down the rungs of the world, between earth and sky, never beyond, always in the infinite globe, free but inside it, over there, close at hand, where the silver branches fork, awaiting nothing, fleeing nothing, traveller whom a second's joy, for no reason at all, steals from the journey's movement and leaves perched, at a halt...

from landscapes with absent figures translated by mark treharne