My project began in August 2017, a time when most Parisian locals take their vacation. An ideal time to familiarize myself with a new city, while locals were out of town, I began biking around the city with my camera. My mission was to photograph moments and scenes around Paris, and to work with different vantage points and angles in order to give the viewer a visual of what it is really like in Paris. By removing all the ‘glamour’ the guides and movies normally highlight, I felt I was able to showcase not just the vibe of the city and people, but also portray an intimate look into how I view new places and deal with new surroundings. At a time when I first began exploring and placing myself within this new and foreign place, I connected immediately with the history, the culture and the city in whole and not only learned my way around without using GPS, but also learned a great deal of myself along the way.
“I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
What originally started as a video project quickly turned into a photo series to guide viewers around different areas. Being new to a city, and especially a foreign city, the feeling of being an outsider is common and through this exploration, I enabled myself to peer into the ‘real’ Paris and transition myself into somewhat of a local.
- Aleyah Solomon, 2018
Each image is printed 20x30 and a limited number of copies are for sale.
Contact aleyahs@me.com for more information.
