Paris Photo Scavenger Hunt Ideas
 

Hi All:
We are going to Paris in early December for one week (hoping for clear weather, cold is okay). Not the best timing, but the only time we had free due to work schedules.

We’ve taken a few very short trips to Paris, so have seen the main “must see sites” like Notre Dame, but will revisit our favorites.

I love photography and am looking for suggestions for a photo ”scavenger hunt” of Paris-places and things that make you think of Paris, like the Eiffel Tower, macaroons, the Chanel store, Metro signs. Does anyone have any suggestions? We are staying in an apartment near the Arc de Triomphe and will walk/use the Metro and buses to see the city. We usually cover a lot of ground when we visit a city for a week or more.

Thanks!

Frankly, a scavenger hunt should be much more challenging than just seeing the most common things that everybody sees in Paris.

I would suggest two possibilities:

1. Metro stations with something extra.
2. Traces of the abandones old "Petite Ceinture" rail line.

I can give you links about those if you are interested.

Oh, and there are also the "Space Invaders" mosaics throughout the city in unexpected places.

how about those nattily fashionably clad female traffic cops - one told me once I was not supposed to snap photos of cops but that was a whiles ago - or those ubiquitous street cleaners with those old-fashioned looking bristle mops - or those lovely old Paris pissoirs (exactly what the name implies!):

https://www.google.com/search?q=piss...=1600&bih=1099

Thank you both!

Kerouac: please post the links-thank you!

Here's the link to my photos of Paris. If you see things there you'd like to go photograph let me know and I can probably tell you where I took the pic.
http://www.pbase.com/annforcier/paris

How about shots of the fruits and vegetables in the street markets, the gargoyles atop Notre Dame, the stained glass throughout St Chappelle, the details of the numerous bridges, the skeleton bones in the catacombs, the shop windows, the metro entry signs, the passages.

Thanks Michele_d!

Isabel: Your photos are lovely!

Pq
Pissoir is a word that we hardly ever use in French. I saw it being used in Germany though.
Don't let this word be used - it really sounds ugly to our ears.

We use 'toilettes publiques' or 'urinoirs' or 'vespasiennes' or 'pissotière' (also common but not that bad as pissoir).

Vespasienne comes from emperor Vespasien, in antic Rome, who needed money and raised a tax on toilets (actually on the residues being sold to industry).
When challenged, he said 'pecunia non olet' - money has no odour, still used in latin nowadays by the few people who suffered at school learning latin.

This was my cultural post of the day/week/month ...

Wouldn't it make more sense for you to photograph things that you enjoy and that mean Paris to you, instead of doing what someone else tells you to do? I thought people who liked to photograph did it because they thought it was creative and enjoyed photographing what they wanted, and had some ideas of their own. I would hope when you get there, you will get some ideas by looking around.

pariswat you forgot Turkish Toilets or en francaise je pense WC a la Turque! I've seen these squat toilets in some restaurants and cafes and though dwindling would make a neat picture of these holes in the floor with two raised pads on which you put your feet and squat.

https://www.google.com/search?q=pari...=1600&bih=1099

PalenQ, I'm quite sure that Pariswat did not forget Turkish toilets, because they were not the subject when we are just talking about peeing. After all, a lot more men just pee in the street than use a toilet of any kind, which causes quite a bit of distress among tourists and also to quite a few Parisians who wish that such times would end once and for all.

Still peeing in the streets - seems I see less of that - one time long ago I was coming down an escalator at Bon Marche Department store and there was at the bottom of the escalator a window outside and two Clochards were openly peeing against the window in full site of all.

I thought by making those new fangdangled WCs free would alleviate the need to pee on the street - unfortuantely those are also used by drug addicts shooting up as I've seen needles in them.

Street peeing has diminished, but it is far from finished. Frankly, there are still times when I do it (not often), but it is always either in bushes or in the gutter between parked cars rather than against walls or on sidewalks. I am well aware of the lingering aroma of such activities when you pee in the wrong place, and I hate it as much as anybody else.

Walker through Walls was an unexpected delightful,discovery for me while wandering around The 18th.

Choose a theme that you like. Cheryl took a series of Paris windows
http://www.marlandc.com/Paris-2014/Paris-Windows/
and a series of doors in Brussels
http://www.marlandc.com/Brussels-2003/Brussels-doors/
as examples.

Here is the example that I mentioned about "metro stations with something extra:" http://anyportinastorm.proboards.com...s-little-extra

Kerouac, an honest man.

Many of the men I knew used to do this openly; I thought of it like dogs marking territory. But now it is less common, less acceptable, and I seldom see it. Apparently the custom (and the accompanying aroma) are lingering a bit longer in Paris.

Are you thinking of a hunt in which one must find the places that are in a series of pictures or a hunt in which one must take pictures of a series of places?