les jours d'une photographe a paris

So there i am at gare du nord, carrying my black heavy loaded suitcase - filled with all the necessities to create a nice shoot - rolling along the smooth pavement of this busy paris station. I inhale a quick smoke and watch my bags carefully before i get into the taxi to rue de legendre, where my shabby little hotel awaits me. I amuse the driver with my obama conversation and without a good tip because I'm too broke for the ride anyway, I get out of the taxi and look up and down at what is supposed to be my hotel. The road I am standing in looks empty, dark and a forgotten street of Paris. An arabic looking fellow, who's slow in his movements and obviously forgot I was coming gives me a key to my room. I carry my heavy loaded suitcase up the stairs and ask him for some help, as I'm sure it's common for a fellow to help a lady. The pity fool contemplates this seemingly, ordinary question for a moment, asks if my lamp standard is too heavy to carry, and then decides to carry it -while moaning- to the fourth floor anyway. Whaddayknow, the elevator is out of order, 'pour l'instant'. I spent the next two days exercising just to get into my room.

I drop my stuff at the room, and was expecting exactly this, a small room, with a bed that barely fits the room, no electricity plugs in sight, and the tiniest little bathroom you could expect for exactly the same kind of budget. I smoke a cigarette and inspect the street where I will have to live in for the next couple of days. I'm overcome with sadness and poorness. A taxi pulls up and this wonderful young lad and black haired girl step out. Ah voila, c'est Annabel, ma amie d'amsterdam et la Jeremy kaponz, a boy with a james dean look, hair all over the place, almost too beautiful for his own good. I spent a good deal of time with them, and as I am shooting them in my small bed, in my hotel room, following a series of walk arounds drinking beer and shooting pictures, near the most uncommon of all places in paris in the 17th district, I almost forgot that I've just arrived and still need to eat.

At 11 o'clock sharp I push the huge brown door to get in this patio where I would have to guess which door would lead to the agency I am supposed to be at. A mobile phone leads me to my appointment on time, and I am seated in this white room, behind a desk, where I am supposed to meet the boys for the casting today. I call them in one at a time and smile and act like this is the normal way of life, judging and approving/dissaproving someone in 5 minutes, already knowing first hand when I meet them if they are what I am looking for. Some of them are shy and others i turn away instantly, while they are full of themselves, who needs a boy that doesn't want to be liked by anyone , anyway. Ten guys from the age of 18 until 20 follow in a quick tempo and I am impressed by two of them. I book one of them for a shoot on thursday and then i run out again for my next appointment, while getting lost in the crowd of the subway station I hardly have time to think about the fast and mad world I got into, so i go to two other agencies where i also cast some models, and go back to my last night in this poor hotel near place de clichy.