Here I am, ten days after the lockdown has been lifted, trying to organize a photoshoot on the Parisian Pont des Arts (otherwise known as the Love Lock Bridge). I feel like a house pet left out in the wild. I am not quite sure about this space with masked people, who are sometimes aggressive, often worried, and probably as insecure as I am.
To be honest, there was realistically no rush to have a photoshoot, as I have a stockpile of texts and photos to keep me going for another few months (queen of organization and forethought? Yes, that is the advantage of being a little obsessive and rigid).
Nevertheless, calling my photographer whom I had not seen in five months was a way to move forward, to no longer endure the strange situation in which a virus had thrown us, and to get back on track.
Regaining control, be it of legal or digital matters, is a way to ensure that I’m not going to let myself be eaten alive, motionless. It is a way to ensure that I am going to act, and that I am going to laugh, because this is life and, as usual, anxiety can indeed coexist with the most beautiful sparks of life.
This is simply one way of saying that each of us should stand up, alive, full of vitality and ready to devour the smallest piece of the little world that is given to each one of us. But furthermore, let’s not lie to ourselves: the life that awaits us is going to be complicated and unfortunately, I do not believe that there will be a major change of mentality, at least enough to allow the establishment of a new world. This new world will be the same, only perhaps worse, because governments, businesses and people will be caught up in an economic and social situation that is even more tense than it was before. But, who knows!
Will we struggle? Probably. But as far as I am concerned, that won’t remove the deep rooted joy for life, my integrity, my values, even if I must live modestly.
At any rate.
A photoshoot on the Pont des Arts it is.
Some would wonder how one ends up with photos with not a soul in the background, though the bridge is typically crowded.
Easy! We privatize the bridge.
I’m kidding. We don’t book shoot time on the bridge, we just meet there at 6am (my photographer cursing me, of course).
Which means that I have to be up at 4:30am. I’ll leave my early morning state to your imagination.
Post-lockdown, I noticed that I no longer fit into my skirts. I put on weight during this time (anyone else on team “Quarantine 15”?). So much so that the clasps on one of the skirts photographed here simply popped off before I even arrived on the scene. I somehow salvaged the shoot with safety pins.
Other post-lockdown discoveries, while going through the photos from this first photo shoot, are my deeper dark circles. Life with two little ones with eight daily Zoom classes and piles of homework had ruined any glimmer of hope that I would get any rest. I also noticed a thin silver streak in my hair. I am forever impressed by the toll that life and the feeling to be alive can have on our bodies.
None of this is important.
What is important is our inherent health. Laughter, the joy that saves pretty much every dark moment. Simply put, the most important thing is the energy that we put into our day-to-day.
And now, I allow you to feast your eyes on the pure hilarity of these moments in which my photographer asks me to smoke a cigarette because – I quote – “it is very French and retro”, or moments when – just like that – I twist my ankle on these Parisian cobblestones (so typical and so stupid at the same time), or when I walk and dance in stiletto heels on a footbridge made of openwork wooden slats.
Meanwhile, I can’t stop dancing and fooling around.
Do you know why? Because that’s life 😉
June 12, 2020
For the animated pictures, it’s right here:
