Martin Karplus

Alors, today was un autre day of class (duh), but this afternoon pour classe we went to the Bibliothèque nationale François Mitterrand to see work by Martin Karplus - one of the few people taking pictures in color during the '50s and early '60s around the world. Born in Austria in 1930, he moved to the United States when he was 8 years old. Though chemical biology was his career, color photography was his greatest passion, and after visiting the exhibit I can conclude he was pretty good at it.

However, on our way there we totally took a wrong turn that lead us 10 or 20 minutes astray, then got out of the wrong side of the metro which took us way further from the library than necessary, crossed a construction site, and finally found our professor who must have been waiting for us for at least 30 minutes.

Though I don't believe I'll be returning to the National Library of France anytime soon after the traumatic experience, lengthy subway trip, and pretty gross location (in the 13 arrondissment, a more modern area of France with the business district and actual tall buildings, unlike those with a max of 6 stories in le marais), it was interesting to see. It is home to The Globes of Louis XIV by Coronelli, which are actually amazing for having been crafted in the 17th century, and super interesting because they hadn't quite accurately mapped America yet, so California is it's own island (and other oddities). Click through here to see pictures because I totally forgot to take some.

So anyway, enjoy these snapshots of les snapshots de Karplus.

bonsoir,
xx taylor

et la seine

la seine