The love padlocks "tradition" in Paris

When I was photographing a bridge on day 1 of trip to Paris, I noticed this lock with the words "I love you" attached to the bridge. How romantic, I thought. But also, What an eyesore! Still, you could imagine the scene: two lovers visit Paris, put the lock on the bridge as a symbol of their undying love, and throw the key in the river Seine to show that the bond will never be broken.

Then, I walked to the pont des arts—the artsy, bohemian bridge where artsy bohemian Parisians and groups of young tourists gather nightly for picnics until 1 or 2 a.m.

The pont des arts has a chainlink fence—all the better to hold padlocks. Hundreds and hundreds of them (which you'll have to imagine, because my photos must have been blurry and hence, deleted). Here, the locks fit the mood of the bridge and felt like the sort of art installation that asks for audience participation. But as expressions of love, I have to say that the aesthetics left something to be desired:

Let's take Olivier, who heart heart hearts Laura. Assuming he didn't just happen to carry a padlock around with him in case of a sudden bout of eternal love, he must have taken the trouble to go somewhere and buy a padlock and a sharpie. Is this the best he could do? Why choose a lock with a huge XINLEI brand marking right where the hearts go? Or is this a love triangle between a man, a woman, and a padlock company? Get on that, XINLEI marketers.

Olivier could at least take a cue from the Sid and Nancy aesthetic of Vick and Julien:

Or is it a serial killer aesthetic? A ransom note? Maybe not the best choice after all.

Then there's more ephemeral choice that I've only seen once so far:

A photo that, in all likelihood, will outlast their summer romance.

I overheard a couple of Italian women walking by (this one was near Notre Dame) and wondering if this was some sort of Paris tradition. It's not! I wanted to call out in Italian. But unfortunately, my spoken Italian doesn't extend beyond ordering gelato these days. I was in Paris for three months this past fall and there were no locks to be found. So where did it come from?

Google to the rescue. According to an article in The Telegraph, the lock phenomenon is a worldwide one. Locks can be found "on fences and bridges in Moscow, Verona, Brussels, and Mount Huang, China."

The origin?:

It is unclear who started the fashion. Italians claim it was sparked by a romantic novel called I Want You, by Federico Moccia, in which the hero and heroine attach a padlock with their name onto a lamppost on Ponte Milvio, near Rome, kiss and throw the key in the river Tiber.

Who are these Italians claiming it was sparked by a novel I've never heard of? Certainly not the women on the bridge. No, a phenomenon of this scale can only mean one thing: the crop circle aliens got bored. (Don't let M. Night Shayamalan anywhere near that idea. The man really needs to stop making movies)

For me, what started as an isolated case of quaint bemusement has become an irritation. When I went to photograph the pont Alexandre III, easily the most beautiful bridge in Paris, I saw this:

That's a whole lot of Photoshop work for me and a whole bunch of ugly for Paris.

If I could talk to these lock loving readers of Italian fiction (or sheep or aliens), I would tell them to use my own personal rule of graffiti: If it is well done and adds interest to an otherwise drab and dull space, then go for it.

But if it defaces something that is already beautiful or has historical significance, then you're just an irresponsible vandal.

Want to do something romantic on the bridges in Paris? Throw some rose petals in the Seine (it could use a little freshening up). Or kiss. But only if you're attractive and don't mind me taking your picture. I still need photos of romantic scenes before I leave. That, and more dogs. Lots and lots of dogs.

10 things scrawled on wood in Paris parks

I was walking through the Jardin du Luxembourg less than two months ago (*sigh*) when I noticed some graffiti written on a bench. It read (and I'm editing here): F--- Lavoisier! F--- Montaigne! I burst out laughing as I imagined some French high school kid studying for the bac exams. Then I thought about graffiti and how much it has (and hasn't) changed over time. Today, I usually think of spray cans, subways, and city walls when I hear the word. With the ubiquity of tags, stencils, space invader tiles, collage, stickers, and all forms of elaborate graffiti, things written on park benches or carved into trees had fallen off my radar.

I know that the etymology of "graffiti" links the term to scribbling, and yet I don't think park bench scribbles are really in the same class as what we now call graffiti. So I decided to rename things carved into wood "scrawlings." And thus begins a personal project to collect examples of things scrawled on wood.

Since my focus is on lists this month, here is a very specific list:
Things scrawled on wood in Paris parks

When you use a list to create a photo essay, the more specific the better. In fact, I could be more precise and use five photos specifically of trees as the beginning of a project...






or five photos of benches...





My point is that a prompt that might sound like something from Family Feud ("Name something you might find carved into a tree trunk.") can become the start of a fun photo project. Try it. Be specific. Post your results and link back to share for the "monthly special."

A story with no text.

If you do scrapbooks, it might be tempting to "journal" everything just out of habit. But sometimes words are just redundant.

September Monthly Special: Text + Photo

Thanks to all those who braved the "photo within a photo" special last month. This month we're back to Photoshop with a vengeance. I have already posted a "starter" about the basics of adding text to a photo, and feel free to use the starter as the basis for your September project, but in this post I'm trying a more complex two-part tutorial. Please note that any use of Text + Photo will fit this month's theme. The following is just one of many possibilities.

The backstory
Have you ever seen a photo inside text? At a whale watching place in Oregon, for example, I saw a poster that said "Whale Watching" but with photos of—you guessed it—whale watching inside each letter. For some reason, I thought the whole photo-in-text thing would make a good August Monthly Special, but there were two major deterrents:

1. I realized that every time I see a text made of photos it is HIDEOUSLY TACKY (Sorry, but I have strong opinions, so no offense if you are itching to spell out PUPPY LOVE using photos of your new pet terrier. I will teach you how to do it, but please, for the love of taste, don't go there.)

My eyes! They're melting from too much cuteness!!! Make it go away!

2. I try to make things Elements-friendly, and as it turns out, Elements does not treat the process in the same way as Photoshop.

But who am I to back down from a challenge? I just delayed it a month. My lofty goal to kick September: to create a photo-in-text project that I like. Wish me luck.

The tutorial for Photoshop and Elements
I will go through the basic steps to add photos inside text and then I will attempt to apply those principles to a project. In a future post, I might get even more ambitious. Be very afraid. I am.

The following is oh-so-easy. The hard part will be coming up with a finished product that isn't tacky (see above).

Step 1.
Create a new document with a white background. The document can be any size you want—see the grid tutorial for some basic principles. Also, you can change the background color at any time by using the paint bucket tool, selecting a color, and dumping the paint into the background layer.

Step 2.
Create a Type layer and type in whatever you want. See the Starter if you're not sure how to do this.

Step 3.
Open a photo that you want to use and put it on a layer above your text layer (the grid tutorial will help you if you don't know how to bring a photo into a new layer).

Step 4 (Photoshop).
Now you are going to create a "clipping mask," which means that the photo above will only be visible through the shape below (in this case, text). To create the mask, make sure your top layer (the one with the photo) is selected and then hold down Command-Option-G (Mac) or Ctrl-Alt-G (PC). And voilà, photo inside text. You can still change the text on its layer or move/transform the photo on its layer as long as you don't merge/flatten the image.

Step 4 (Elements).
Why this is different in Elements, I don't know, but you are going to create a clipping "group." Make sure your top layer (the one with the photo) is selected and then hold down Command-G (Mac) or Ctrl-G (PC). And voilà, photo inside text. You can still change the text on its layer or move/transform the photo on its layer as long as you don't merge/flatten the image.


Superfluous note for Photoshop: If you're not a fan of keystrokes, then you can choose "Clipping Mask" from the pull-down menu in the right of the layers palette. Or, if you like compromise, you can hold down the two keys without the "G" and move your cursor in between the photo layer and the text layer until you see the arrow change into a clipping mask icon. Any way you do it, you end up with a clipping mask.

Superfluous note for Elements: If you love using your mouse, go to Layer--Group with previous for the same result.

Part II: My attempt at photo in text
With my critique of all the tacky photo-in-text layouts, I have really set myself up for critical scrutiny. This is not exactly a step-by-step account, but here's an explanation of what I did.

Remember the graffiti "B" and the quote about beauty from the starter postscript tip? Well, since I already intended the image and the quote to be read together, I thought it might be fun to merge the two. So I opened the graffiti photo and used the type tool to start adding in text.

You can see that I messed with the font formatting in ways beyond what the starter taught. I should also note that I did this in CS3. Once you started playing with the text formatting, you get a feel for how you can play with text:
I quickly learned that life would be easier (i.e. more control) if I didn't put all my text on one text layer. In the screen grab below, I was highlighting a altering a separate text layer until I got it to match the proper width.

But I needed to duplicate the clipping mask over each layer of text:
It's easy to do, but it starts to look like a mess with each added layer:
Eventually, I finished and had all the photo/text on a white background. It looked too stark and wherever the graffiti was white the text seemed to disappear. So I did a few things:
First, I copied a layer of the photo and dragged it to the bottom just over the white background, and instead of "Normal" blend mode I selected "Luminosity." This made a black and white version of the entire photo that could show through between the text. I dialed the opacity down so it wouldn't overwhelm the already complicated image. Still wanting more definition, I highlighted all the layers except the two background ones and selected "Merge Visible" from the pull-down menu at the right of the layers palette. Now I could easily make one final edit on my merged layer.

I double-clicked on the merged layer to bring up a "Layer Styles" box. I won't give a tutorial on all the options here, but I will show you that I selected "stroke" to create a line around the text, and I adjusted that line's opacity so it wouldn't be too intense:

The end result may make your eyes hurt more than the cutesy puppy and kitten image that I mocked, but I think it has a nice urban album cover sort of feel. The words take time to decipher. The image demands concentration. The message about the subjectivity of beauty certainly hits home. What do you think? Love it? Hate? Whatever?

Your challenge
The Text+Photo theme this month invites you to explore the marriage of text and photography in any way—even without Photoshop. I may have another go at the image-in-text thing, but I will also explore other possibilities and give new tutorials. I can't wait to see your own work. Come back here to link and share your own work and to see what others have done.