Paris Graffiti (first part)

I'm fascinated by graffiti, and particularly by photographing graffiti, because it's by definition such a temporary, irreproducible form. The entire point is that it's an authentic original, that's why most graffiti is simply the name of the artist responsible. So I'm not really sure what it means to photograph a tag - you can't "take" such a shot, it really stays there on the wall. This blog would be a very incomplete documentary of my time here, however, if I did not include shots of graffiti from time to time. So I will do so, regardless of my higher thought on the subject.

These are just some simple shots I took early in the week, trying to figure out how to get the colors to come out right in low-light conditions. It's particularly tough when the tag's on a semi-reflective surface. More interesting shots to come, after I make a field trip with a local graffiti artist I met who knows "good spots . . ."

I like how the pink contrasts with the really drippy black in this one:


Good little peace tag here, and I think I composed this well:


This one was on tile, which made it hard to get:



Here's a tag my friend Rodolphe is working on. It's on paper now, he's hoping to do it up for real this coming weekend: