Travel & Street Photography Blog of Leo Druker, a Washington, DC Wedding Photographer.

July 31, 2011

Paris | Tour Montparnasse – A View From Above

Tour Montparnasse is a dark monolith of a skyscraper near the center of Paris. Built in 1972, it was the first and last skyscraper built within the center of Paris, while all others are located further away near the outer limits of the city. While it doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the beautiful architecture in Paris, it does have one major redeeming quality – gorgeous of views of a skyscraper-less Paris with the one other gigantic structure, The Eiffel Tower, plainly visible. It was this particular attraction that led me to spend nearly 4 hours on the 56th floor, eating some ridiculously expensive crêpes and awaiting sunset.

Paris - Montparnasse Tower Views

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July 31, 2011

Paris | Sounds

I’ve still got lots of photos from my trip to Paris to post, so I want to start off with one of the very first things I heard in Paris – music.

I first heard it on my very first day. After Kyle, Ash and I split up after taking the train Paris from the airport, and after wandering around Les Halles metro station for half an hour looking for a place to buy a ticket before realizing that my train ticket would do the trick. As I was going down what seemed like the hundredth stairwell to find the line 4 train to Porte d’Orléans, I heard the unmistakable sounds of the accordion. Getting closer, I found an entire ensemble playing truly beautiful music, both classical and contemporary, and a large crowd surrounding them with cameras, iphones, video recorders, smiles and even a bit of dancing.

Over the next week, I encountered many musicians, from soulful trumpet on a street corner in Saint Germain, where I was staying, to an amazing performance by a man with an electric guitar in the Gare du Nord metro station on my very last day.

Paris metro musicians Paris street musicians

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July 23, 2011

Paris | Le Royal Monceau

I recently returned from spending a week in Paris. The primary reason I was there was to shoot a beautiful wedding with Kyle Hepp, an awesome wedding photographer based in Santiago, Chile., but since the wedding was just a single day, I still had the rest of the week to wander around the city (the results of said wandering are going on the blog soon as well).

The day before the wedding, Kyle invited me to have breakfast and take some photos of Le Royal Monceau hotel, which she was photographing. I figured I’d take some photos as well, to show how two different photographers can see the same location in very different ways. If you’d like to see Kyle’s take, check it out on her website.

FRANCE - PARIS - HOTEL LE ROYAL MONCEAU