Pic(k) of the week 47: P E A C E for P A R I S
Last night, I got back from a very eventful 24 hour layover in Paris... Yes, that is right, I was in Paris during the deadly and barbaric attacks of Friday 13 November 2015.
After a night flight from Dubai on Friday morning, I had a few hours sleep and then make my way to the beautiful "Grand Palais" in downtown Paris where I was attending "Paris Photo 2015"; a renown international Photography fair, housing more than 150 galleries from all over the globe.
The cloudy start of the day made place for a beautiful sunny afternoon... It looked like Friday the 13th would be a great day! I spent several hours at Paris Photo and left after dark, full of creative energy. As it just started raining when I left, I changed my plans to have dinner in the center of town and instead made my way back to the hotel.
Walking across "Place de la Concorde" just a few hours before the tragic events, I framed a few images of the ferris wheel with the famous Egyptian obelisk in front. Little did I know that these images would make a connection with an illustration made by French artist Jean Jullien, early next morning! The rest is history...
Using the Eiffel Tower, French graphic designer/illustrator Jean Jullien, drew the "Peace for Paris" symbol with a brush pen and uploaded it to his Twitter and Instagram account. It quickly became "the" symbol for the tragic events last Friday night!
Although purely a coincidence, the image I personally shot at Place de la Concorde that night, somehow connects with Jean's symbol. I will never look at the obelisk and the ferris wheel in the same way again!!!
For the ones interested, Jean Jullien, has given a few short interviews; some can be found here: wired.com, time.com, slate.com.
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Obviously my thoughts go out to all the people that have been directly affected by the Paris attacks, but also to the ones that suffer from similar radical violence all over the world; be it in Kenya, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen or any other place!
Hopefully powerful symbols as the one above are more than just a popular Instagram or Twitter post; let it be a way to express our solidarity with the people directly affected, irrespective to religion or beliefs!
Image details (right image):
Fujifilm X-T10 with the XF27mm prime lens
ISO 1600, f3.2, 1/70s
Lightroom CC 6.2 for RAW development
Photoshop CC to frame both images together
BJORN
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