A different part of Paris ...

Not sure where to put these ... but it's something I wanted to make even slightly more visible from my trip to Paris, which counts as travel. I was staying with a friend who's a student there and lives out at Porte de Clignancourt which is still well within the city, and about half an hour's walk from Sacre Coeur/Montmartre ... and on an old railway line near his residence there's this whole different street ...

I still sort of feel like if I wanted to make it visible I should have gone down there and tried to talk with them - almost certainly a bad idea alone, and with my poor command of French - showed more of their life, rather than timidly photographing from up on the bridge in my safe little world ... at the same time there isn't much I can do - selling my camera and anything else I have of value would at most get one of these unfortunate families out of there, perhaps only temporarily. Maybe these are the lies I tell to help myself sleep at night; that there isn't much I can do ...

Just some pictures I wanted to share.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/AgVx​Gf

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/AjdD​Y6

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/znjS​nF

It is a slice of life in all big cities / metropolitan and you have captured the contrast perfectly in the last picture. My only comment of the set is that for me the corners are too dark (I know that you put that on purpose...)

Thanks. Yeah, I add the vignette because I like it ... although it's not at all popular here on these boards. I've tried reducing or removing it but I don't tend to like the photographs as much, and since they're for me first and foremost, I leave it.

You see homelessness around Madrid, where I live, and other cities too, but it was this organised settlement within the city that I hadn't seen before. In other parts of the world though, as well as a bit outside most cities, I'm sure it's all too common, sadly.

A solemn side of Paris indeed. I suspect with the huge influx of refugees Europe is currently experiencing, this situation will get worse before it gets better.

I suspect you're right, sadly. I would also imagine that at least some of those living in this area are or were refugees/asylum seekers - and whilst the conditions are hardly good, it must be better than living somewhere broadly similar but with the threat of gunfire or bombing. This being one of the things often repeated, that nobody would make these perilous journeys in awful conditions if they weren't leaving behind something even worse. 'No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land'.

Owain Shaw wrote in post #17766642
Thanks. Yeah, I add the vignette because I like it ... although it's not at all popular here on these boards. I've tried reducing or removing it but I don't tend to like the photographs as much, and since they're for me first and foremost, I leave it.

You see homelessness around Madrid, where I live, and other cities too, but it was this organised settlement within the city that I hadn't seen before. In other parts of the world though, as well as a bit outside most cities, I'm sure it's all too common, sadly.

about the vignette, there are ways to do it without making it obvious, like selectively darkening areas manually. a bright sky makes the vignette look fake, for instance. anyway... play around with the gradients in LR to get a more "sophisticated" effect, if you would like it to look different. otherwise, cool if you like it as is.

......so, i was just in paris a few months ago and didn't see anything like this. wish i knew this was there.... it's so interesting to me. around LA and SF they got homeless "encampments" but i've never seen one like this where formal structures were built. usually it's just tents or simply piles of junk. but these are full on structures. very interesting. i'm VERY surprised Paris doesn't tear all these down. wonder why they're tolerated--just out of pity? or perhaps a more complicated reason?

I'm happy with it. I always have been, it's only comments here that made me ever question it ... I do like it, and people I worked for have always been happy as well - whether they noticed or not, they liked my photographs with the vignette and if they liked them and requested me to work again, that's all that matters.

These days I don't work for people, myself first and foremost and if others like it then even better but if other people like it and I don't (this has often been the case) then that doesn't really make me happy ... and there's absolutely no point in doing something as a hobby when you don't even make yourself happy. It's like lathing a chair when you hate woodwork or fishing just to annoy yourself with how much you hate lakes and outboard motors.

However, thanks for the constructive advice and tips on how to go about changing and/or improving it.

It was up near Porte de Clignancourt. It's not that far from one of the main tourist attactions (as per the opening post) but chances are not many people walk that way unless they live there. I certainly wouldn't have found it had I not been staying around there.

In Madrid, in terms of settlements, I've only seen a gypsy settlement up to the North of the city, but they are new-age gypsies rather than homeless; they have cars. The homelessness I've seen has been rough sleepers rather than organised settlements such as this. They are, as you say, full on structures - although mostly patched together they do all have chimneys and some even have electricity, likely siphoned off of other infrastructure.

I can only assume that it's tolerated because it isn't in a prominently visible area, but that forcibly tearing it down would generate negative publicity for the authorities so they're better off leaving it because it ultimately it isn't causing them too many problems.