Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

We will not go back.

Bark louder, little dog.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road After Dark – Steve from Mendocino – Paris 6/10

On The Road After Dark – Steve from Mendocino – Paris 6/10

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

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Steve from Mendocino – Paris

When Notre Dame burned, it rocked my world.  It represented yet another milestone in the apocalypse that we are living.  Given my age and my disregard for personal health, all of what we are experiencing gets included under the umbrella of my mortality.  The world may or may not go on, but my life is in its final chapter (which I hope will not be a short one).

On that happy note, let’s look at Notre Dame and Sainte Chappelle.

On The Road After Dark - Steve from Mendocino - Paris 6/10 7

Barge, river, cathedral – Paris at its quintessential.

On The Road After Dark - Steve from Mendocino - Paris 6/10 6

Architectural detail of towers and buttresses.

On The Road After Dark - Steve from Mendocino - Paris 6/10 5

Wide angle shot looking up the river at the front of the cathedral.  I had a light leak (caused by opening the back before having rewound the film), that contaminated this picture and the ones of the Ste. Chappelle.  I compensated by distorting colors to reduce the prominence of the orange streaks.

On The Road After Dark - Steve from Mendocino - Paris 6/10 4

Detail of the clock tower.

On The Road After Dark - Steve from Mendocino - Paris 6/10 3

La Ste. Chappelle.  A little jewel with its spectacular stain glass.

On The Road After Dark - Steve from Mendocino - Paris 6/10 2

Gates of Ste. Chappelle.

On The Road After Dark - Steve from Mendocino - Paris 6/10 1

Another angle of Ste. Chappelle.

On The Road After Dark - Steve from Mendocino - Paris 6/10

One of my pictures of the stain glass.  Frankly, I’ve seen a couple pictures of the interior during the Paris After Dark program that I like better than my own, so I include this as much as reference for my own approach.

Reader Interactions

15Comments

  3. 3.

    JanieM

    Beautiful to see it both from a distance and in detail. The second picture is unbelievable.

    I was driving out to Ohio with my son on April 15, 2019. We had stopped for snacks and gas when the news of the fire came on the radio. I just started to cry. I’ve never even been to Paris, but the notion that something so beautiful and irreplaceable could be destroyed just about put me over the edge. Of course at first I thought the fire had been set deliberately, which would have been even worse somehow.

    Thanks for these, Steve.

  5. 5.

    randy khan

    When we were in Paris in February, we walked all the way around Notre Dame, seeing all of the damage and all the supports that had been put into place to keep it from falling down.  It was heartbreaking, and a reminder of how something that seemed so solid can be incredibly fragile.

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I climbed up the towers at Notre Dame in 2017. It was incredibly cramped and crowded, but the views were loverly. And now, if they ever let people up there again, I’ll probably be too damn old. I don’t think they let people go all the way up to the top anymore. I think I may have gone all the way up on an earlier trip.

  7. 7.

    JanieM

    @randy khan:

    It was heartbreaking, and a reminder of how something that seemed so solid can be incredibly fragile.

    I visited York Minster in 2008 and did the below-ground tour that shows and tells (via headphones) about the extensive work that’s been done to keep the building from falling down. It’s unnerving to be down there while being made hyper-aware of all that stone overhead.

  8. 8.

    Lapassionara

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I have never been to the tower, and I do not regret not going. There are many views of Paris from on high, but Notre Dame’s enchantment is from the view of her glories from the pavement. And, inside, of course.

    I was in Paris last January, and I walked around the ruins, where various cranes were in place to manage the rubble. There were a series of photos along the worksite, showing the challenges they had overcome or had yet to deal with. They are committed to bringing it back from the ashes, and I am confident they will do so.

  9. 9.

    J R in WV

    I’m really hoping we get another shot at visiting Paris for at least a couple of weeks, as part of a long tour of France and Europe. No telling right now, but maybe, right?

    Great work, thanks so much. I don’t see any orange streaks in the photo you worried about. Great work!!! Thanks so much for sharing!

  10. 10.

    CaseyL

    Love the clock tower detail, and the lamp detail.

    When I first saw Notre Dame,and went inside, it was the first instance I can remember of being so overcome by human-built beauty that I cried.

    IIRC, it took the better part of multiple centuries to finish building Our Lady.   However long the repairs take, it will be worth the wait and expense.  World heritage sites don’t come along every day.

  11. 11.

    Wag

    Great photos of a couple of worthy architectural masterpieces. The contrast between the cathedral and the chapel, in such close physical proximity, but separated by a few centuries of construction progress, is stunning.

  12. 12.

    Ann Marie

    I went on a school sponsored week-long trip to Paris in my senior year of high school — 1972 or 1973.  The whole experience was amazing, but Notre Dame and, especially, Sainte-Chappelle were the highlights for me.  Friends and I climbed up the incredibly narrow stairs (I was wearing green stockings (!) and open-toed sandals — I had matching runs from both big toes) of Notre Dame to see the gargoyles up close.  Amazing view of Paris!

    Sainte-Chappelle is like being inside a multi-colored gem.  The room was filled with golden light.  Just breathtaking.

    Thanks for these photos.  They bring it all back.

  15. 15.

    Msb

    Great photos. I happened to be in Paris (for a friend’s memorial service) the week before the fire and took almost the same picture from a nearby bridge as you. I really recommend Ste Chappelle to anyone who hasn’t seen it.

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